Hit 40 palettes in my little swatch notebook and number 37 finally taught me why warm grays keep failing me | Color Theory in Practice

Evan Price · 2026-10-12T07:55:04.48177+00:00

I started keeping a cheap spiral notebook of color palettes back in March, just to stop remaking the same muddy decisions on every project. Last night I counted and I'm at 40 palettes logged, which sounds small until you see how many of them are basically the same five colors rearranged. Palettes 1 through 25 are full of cool grays because I kept reaching for them out of habit, and every single one looked dead next to the terracotta and mustard tones my clients in Phoenix keep asking for. Then palette 37 happened on a logo job for a bike shop, and I swapped the cool gray for a warm one with a touch more red, and the whole thing just clicked. I went back through the notebook and realized my three favorite palettes all lean warm on the neutrals, no exceptions. The cool gray thing wasn't a style choice, it was a rut, and it took 40 pages to see it. If you keep a swatch log, how many pages in did your own pattern finally slap you in the face?

The Design Community Hub

Loading…

Hit 40 palettes in my little swatch notebook and number 37 finally taught me why warm grays keep failing me | Color Theory in Practice - The Design Community Hub