I know, it’s super annoying to have Christmas motifs show up so early in the year but every year, it sneaks up on me and every year I tell myself “Next year will be different.” I’m happy to say that this year I am tracking with my holiday goals (though I am feeling a little anxious about missing my Halloween deadline). I told myself to keep it simple, rework things I’ve already made, and focus on just a few patterns rather than trying to make an entire collection.
But first, I had to come up with a color combo. I started with this retro color palette and thought I’d leave it at that. Color always trips me up. There are just too many possibilities. I’ve been working on limiting my palettes, trying to confine myself to no more than 8 colors, then I expand that to 13, then the next thing I know I’ve got a design with 32 colors in it!
I decided to play around with the recolor artwork tool in Illustrator with just the 9 original colors (8 if you don’t count white) to see what other combos might be possible. I also thought this could be an efficient way to discover some Halloween combos too. I gave myself 10 minutes to play with the recolor tool. I usually avoid that tool because I end up spending way too much time in there and before I know it, I’ve lost hours and gained more colors.
I feel fairly confident with what I have to work with now. Of course, I need to make some adjustments, but this is a good starting point.
Marie Friddle 