Okay, so it’s summer time, and I am working a design job, but sometimes I need more personal design inspiration and creation to keep my creative mind budding! One of my favorite things to do with my time off is build material palettes and keep up-to-date on product catalogs and design magazines.
I’m going to share a little bit about my palette building process! There are a couple ways I like to start a palette, this time let’s focus on: The Casual Pallete Build - Picking up a swatch you like and building from there. Usually I just flip through a bunch of materials until something catches my eye! Then I choose supporting and contrasting materials based off the colors and textures in my original swatch. I always throw in some neutrals. And usually the palette will organically grow this way. But sometimes I find a material that I think might look good with the palette I’ve started and it turns out it doesn’t work, so I put it to the side to start a new palette. When I build palettes this way I end up simultaneously creating a bunch of different palettes, as I pick up materials I like and start grouping them into themes I’ve started, sometimes this results in half a dozen palettes! It’s a great casual way to get inspiration from pieces and just start creating without any boundaries!
If you’re yearning to get your hands on some materials to do an exercise like this, head over to the College of Design’s MRC, or the Design Resource Center in Springfield OR.