The funny thing about inspiration is that you never know when it’s going to hit you. I happened to be trying to come up with a color scheme for a site I was designing, and after about an hour of disasters, I saw the London Calling album sitting on my desk, and knew those were the colors I wanted.
I decided to see if any other album covers had nice color schemes, and was surprised that most of them do. I took the time to create downloadable color palettes for Rolling Stone’s Top 20 albums of all time. I’m very happy with the results, and hope a few other designers can use these for inspiration. Enjoy the list!
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band, The Beatles
Pet Sounds, The Beach Boys
Revolver, the Beatles
Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
Rubber Soul, The beatles
What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye
Exile on Main Street, The Rolling Stones
London Calling, The Clash
Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
The White Album, The Beatles
This album intentionally left out. Black and White are the only colors used.
The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley
Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico
Abbey Road, The Beatles
Are You Experienced, The Jimi hendrix Experience
Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
Nevermind, Nirvana
Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
Astral Weeks, Van Morrison
Thriller, Michael Jackson
So what other common objects have you found inspiration in? Tell us about it in the comments. If you decide to design a site with one of these palettes, we’d love you to add the link in the comments.
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Houses Of The Holy, Led-Zeppelin.
Yellow, Green, Cream
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I think you've chosen nice colour combinations, but they're not representative of the artwork. You've missed important colours like the purple in 'astral weeks', or the brown/yellow in 'thriller'
Okay, fine, you've given yourself a limit of five colours, but wouldn't it be better to suggest that if a picture is appealing, then probably it has a nice colour palette? One that you can take advantage of with photoshop's colour picker (or equivalent)?
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"The funny thing about inspiration is that you never know when it’s going to hit you. I happened to be trying to come up with a color scheme for a site I was designing, and after about an hour of disasters, I saw the London Calling album sitting on my desk, and knew those were the colors I wanted."
I like how you explained that. Very helpful. Thanks.
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