see the first installment of the Seafoam Story here.
In many ways, I think the color story is the most important part of the kit (or of anything). The colors are what will draw people in first. If they like the colors, they will look closer to see if they like the patterns. Because of this, choosing and nailing down the colors was definitely the most stressful part of this whole adventure for me. They had to be perfect and it's hard to get perfect when you can't really see them in real life.
But in the beginning, I wasn't so worried about the exact shades. I was more focused on picking colors that made sense on their own and as a set. I wanted colors that would work with a variety of photos and not compete too much for attention.
To get ideas, I looked back through my first eight weeks of Project Life. Since I had been mostly working without a kit and pulling different papers and patterns together myself, this gave me a good idea of what I liked to see in a Project Life album.
The biggest colors that stuck out from those first few weeks were black, white, gray and teal. They were clearly my go-tos.
And with those in the back of my mind, I looked through all the embellishments, fabrics and patterned papers I had in my house and pulled ones that worked. I also went to the hardward store and pulled colors from their paint chip wall that jumped out at me. Seeing a bunch of different simple patterns and the color scheme together really helped and also revealed what I already know (and have already shared many times on the blog) I love two color patterns.
Yep - I cannot get away from two color patterns (meaning one color with white). They are the papers, fabrics and clothing pieces that I reach for over and over again.
I sent Becky and Meredith (my Illustrator & design guru) photos of my inspiration board and they were both excited about where things were headed.
Meredith pulled together a color palette and in the early days - that was the plan. Later, we ended up dropping the pink, navy and light gray. Then we made that red-orange a bit more orange. Towards the very end, we dropped in a kraft and mustard yellow, both of which I cannot imagine the kit without now.
Fun fact / in the early days, we thought gray would be the focus color of the kit and started to play around with "gray" titles. (Think "Slate" & "Gravel.") But as things progressed, the light teal started to stick out as the main color. Becky thought of "Seafoam" as a title and given that Paul and I are currently living on a beach, I was totally sold. I LOVE the name so much and am happy it ended up fitting so well.
The very final color step was working with Pantone books to pick exact shades that we could communicate to the printers.
It was important to me that the shades were a bit different than "classics" and that nothing came through to muddy. Or too gray. Or too bright. Or too bold. Or (obviously) too ugly. I felt a bit like Goldilocks at the end looking for something that was "just right" and more than once I cried to Paul that it was all going to be ruined because my "Seafoam" was too "Light Blue."
But we got it. And now that I have held the 12x12 papers in my hand (and used them in my album!) I am even more convinced that the colors, on their own and as a group work very well. WHEW.
...in the next installment patterns and text and bears, oh my!
