You all know that I’m a color addict. I feel it is my personal mission to convince the state of Minnesota that gray is gloomy, white can be wearisome, and black gets boring. Well, two of my favorite blogs are going to great lengths to support my case … albeit in non-MN locales.
I’m fairly new to Academic Chic, but I just ADORE these ladies. They’re three gorgeous Ph.D. candidates attending an undisclosed Midwestern university, posting great outfits, and explaining exactly why they’re great. The trio has been working on a learn-by-doing color wheel project, and through reading their posts and observing their choices, I’ve learned loads about color theory. I pair by instinct, and understanding why certain combos work has been positively engrossing.
Learn from the girls about the color wheel, complementary color pairings, neutrals with a pop, color triads and combining analogous colors, monochrome looks and split complementaries.
Imogen Lamport of Inside Out Style has also been exploring the color wheel, but mainly as it relates to skin color, hair color, and eye color. She discusses contrast in color pairings, and then delves into the contrast values that work best for certain skin, hair, and eye color combinations. She touches on value contrast, and wraps up her series by explaining how personality figures into our color contrast choices. Imogen uses celebs as examples so her readers will have an easy time of deciphering their own coloring, and makes the whole exercise fun and fascinating.
Be sure to check out these amazing resources. It may be wintry now, but spring will be here before you know it. Once it gets warm, you’ll want to trade in your blacks for some brights and these two series on color will show you how to do it right.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
The convincing posts of yourself and Imogen have got to me!. I think I am going to be busting out the colour this year.
Sal – you are the sweetest! Thanks for the great plug!
Sal, this is so sweet of you! I was so pleasantly surprised to come to your blog today and see this post about our color modules and all the really sweet things you wrote! Thanks for the nice words and it’s so great that we’re inspiring you!
I learned loads about color theory myself doing these modules. A. and E. are the art historians and they came into this with much color theory knowledge, I just learned as we went along. I used to also combine by instinct, but this has helped me be more courageous in my combos and more confident about what goes together.
Have a great weekend and please send something in for our Call for Papers if you’ve documented any of your color experiments according to our modules! We’d love to show off what you did on our site!
S.
Hi there-Looking forward to some colour for spring and summer, I’m soo bored of black and grey!!
YEAY for COLOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m with you on this jorney to promote colour
So I’m going to check all this because despite I know a few things I like to play without thinking.
Never heard about Academic Chic… off to check.
xoxo
What great links! More posts to add to my (ever growing) Sunday reading list.
color theory sounds so interesting!
AWESOME resources. Thank you x 3!
Wow – thanks Sal for the plug!
I love colour – not just in spring and summer but the whole year round.
The greyer it gets outside, the more I want to wrap myself in colour to counteract the gloom!
I’m going to check out those Academic chics – they sound fabulous.
Suppose to be lots of bold, bright colors out this Spring/Summer. Don’t know who much of it will make it into the stores, since all the retailers are scaling back on their inventory. The catalog sites might really push this trend alot better.
Thanks for these links! The color wheel ones are SO helpful…I’ll have to try some of that out
I have been trying to wear less black and neutrals and add more color to my wardrobe. I think my biggest hurdle has been trying to figure out which colors are the most flattering for me. I know that red, green and all shade of blue work great, but I find it more tricky to figure out what else I can rock.