Monday, July 04, 2011

limited colour palette woes

I've been working with this limited colour palette for an upcoming spoonflower comp for a butterfly motif fabric:
 The brief is to use all or just some of the colours in the palette and white. No black, no tints or transparancies. I usually quite relish a challenge, especially if I think it will help me improve my design skills, but I have to admit that I've really struggled with this palette, and have felt like giving up on it several times.
I wanted to use all the colours if possible - to find a way for them to work well together.  I've tried so many variations and have still not yet arrived at a solution I'm happy with, although this is the closest I've got:

I feel a bit defeated by this - which is hard for a stubborn person like me. I just think the design looks better with less colours:



Any thoughts, blog readers?

7 comments:

Emily said...

I love the 1st and 4th designs - Simply beautiful (as always!) The orange background was a little too orangey and OTT for my taste and the green a little on the plain side... But the 1st and 4th as already mentioned - Fantabulous!

Jo said...

It is a really lovely design - light and feminine and fun without being too pretty. I agree with Emily about the orange background, it's too OTT, and the first design does have too many colours in it for me. All those colours are there only because you were given them. I prefer the simplicity of nos. 2 and 4. And that's from someone who usually doesn't like green that much!

Unknown said...

Miss Monda...

That palette isn't far off those of your Etsy, Folksy, Twitter and Flickr link colours which look great together without the black...
The white background in 1,2 and 3 definitely stops these colours clashing badly...
For me no 1 is working best and I would be interested to see it reversed... black dots in the background with more colourful butterflies on top and maybe make the white in the butterfly wings the coloured parts...
Because these colours can clash easily I would be tempted to seperate them all with the white so they don't 'touch' so to speak...
You've probably already tried all this, but those are just the thoughts off the top of my head... :)

Good luck my dear,
Emma, x

Gina said...

I like the first one best of all.

Mrs Moog said...

I love the first and fourth ones! It's a lovely light and airy design.

rachelmp said...

I just love the last two. I would happily dress my daughter in those fabrics

Cally said...

Hi Vanessa, I just found your blog through Blueberry Park and think all four of your spoonflower designs are great! I entered this contest too and ended up relying on white to split the tricky palette. If you like, you can have a look at what I came up with here!