…#5 Okay, Now What?…

After hours, days and weeks of researching the key colors of next season… now what?

It has come time to pick your Color Palette. One needs to be picked that will not only work for your Theme, but also your customer. Like I said in the previous post, color is the very first thing the customer will see, and that is why it's so important.

Colors… there's so MANY, how do you pick. Okay, at least we have those key colors, but you don't have to use all of them, remember your customer. Here's where forecasting sites come in handy again. The Doneger Group puts together lovely color ways each season.

For Fall 2011 they have forecasted the following:

Together these ways hit a lot of the Key colors for Fall 2011, pinks, orange, mustard yellow, blue-greens, nudes… Now what?

Don't just pick from one palette and say "Done!" It's a good idea to pick colors you see fit and don't be afraid to pull from more than one palette. For an example I'll use J. Crew Men's for next Fall. J. Crew is traditionally preppy, but with a twist. The J. Crew Man is conservative but isn't afraid of a little color and pattern in his wardrobe. So with a selection of somewhat bright and deep-saturation colors with the traditional navy, brown, white and black may do the trick.

Arrange them in a nice, straight line…

And ta-da!

( But easier shown than done)

Now comes the fun part.

*What you mean we weren't having fun already?* -No we were't-

Name the colors something fun and memorable. The cornier the better.

So it's not blue, yellow, green, blue-green, red…

They're Varsity Blue, Vintage Yellow, Ivy Green, Spruce, Harvard Red, Seal, Créme, Old Blue, Heather Gray, Heather Slate, Ace and Fail.