The art supply store swatch wall made me flip my whole palette approach

I was at Blick in Chicago last Saturday picking up paint for a client project and got stuck staring at their giant swatch wall. I always leaned on my digital picker tool, but seeing 400 little paper squares next to each other in real light hit different. The one I thought was a warm gray turned out to have this blue undertone I never caught on screen. I ended up buying 12 of those paper swatches for $9 and now I test every palette on paper before I even open my design software. Has anyone else had their screen colors lie to them like that, or do you trust your monitor over physical samples?

1 comments

1 Comment

verac492d ago

Ever tried painting at dusk with just a lamp on? Screens glow, paper doesn't. That's the real kicker. Digital shows you what the color wants to be, paper shows you what it actually is. I had a whole logo palette shift on me once because I picked it in bed, dark room, phone brightness cranked. Client saw it in daylight and almost cried. Physical swatches are the only neutral truth.