Depending on who you are rainbows can carry tremendous meaning. They make me think of Lucky Charms of all things, but for most there are other connotations. For some it is a symbol of pride, and for others a religious symbol of a promise made by God to Noah. Ironically, none of the samples tap into any of these meanings found in the rainbow. More than anything all of the sites feel friendly and cheerful. The usage of a variety of colors seems to be more for varieties sake then anything else, and it certainly works to keep things interesting.

Connotations of a rainbow: Diversity, multiculturalism, fantastic, light, happy, friendly, cheerful, fantasy, God, promise, gold, magical, peaceful, pride, energy, power, comfort, fun, joy, enthusiasm, creativity, and perky.

Sample Usage

Links

Genopal (Color pallet creation software)

COLOURlovers (Excellent color pallet collections)

Kuler - pallet builder from Adobe /

ColorBlender.com (The best tool I have found for easily creating beautiful color pallets)
Great color browsing resource (Named colors, by hue, etc)
Color Scheme Generator
Color Blender (On MeyerWeb)
Color In Motion
Color Schemer Online v2
Color Schemer Gallery
Color Symbolism

Comments

Bob

2/8/2006 6:45:07 AM

yada

bootchec

2/10/2006 7:25:18 AM

do not forget that rainbow is a symbol of homosexuals as well

Justin Everett-Church

2/19/2006 11:29:22 PM

Thanks for linking to my blog (http://justin.everett-church.com). I thought I would provide some of the reasoning and rationale for using the rainbow in my design.

1. Normally I tend to design with a LOT of gray shades with one bold color. I was determined in this design to make a more friendly, bold, colorful design this time.

2. I created the bending pattern along the top of my site in Flash, and the effect was enhanced by internal patterns like rainbow stripes. The rainbow pattern makes it go from a strange shape to a ribbon of color bending back on itself.

3. I had just finished playing a marathon session of Katamari Damacy before sitting down to design my blog. Unfortuantely, this is probably the biggest influence on my design.

I am gay, so the rainbow does have more meaning for me, but it was not a concious design element. I think my partner's first comment though when I launched it was "how... um... Fabulous" ;)

Rom

2/28/2006 5:32:46 AM

thanks for linking up our website www.youthcafeonline.com

The rainbow colors for our site was primarily used as a mood color signifying energenetic, creativity and the vigor of youth.

Being a christian-oriented website for young people, we decided to make things lively for teens (13 to 19) or pre-teens (10 to 12). And to be sure we added aesthetics that we saw can please both demographics.

Carlos Cortes

8/13/2006 11:52:29 AM

Thanks for the link to our web blog, we put your link at ourl links area in CortesMedia.com

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Table of Contents

Helpful Books

A Rainbow of Colors

Editions:

The Design Element

Sample Usage

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