Picking Color Themes with Agave Color Scheme Generator
If you’ve ever had to design something, whether it was a web page or brochure, and color was involved, you’ll know how much of a chore it can sometimes be to get the colors looking “just right.” My first instance in dealing with this was my sister’s wedding. She knew what her wedding colors were going to be, of course, but in designing a website where the people she was inviting to attend could come to reply via the Internet, she wanted to add a bit of color to the site (and later to her invitations), and having a program like Agave was truly a blessing.
Agave, written for the Gnome desktop, is a one trick pony. The only thing it does is come up with complementary colors, based on a single color you choose. The color scheme produced can be a single complementary color, if you were searching for a two-color scheme, or in groups of three or four. Selecting your initial color is as simple as clicking on a square of color. Once clicked, the program immediately spits out a color scheme. In all, Agave can choose color schemes based on one of six different selection criteria: Complements, Split Complements, Triads, Tetrads, Analogous, and Monochromatic.
If you like the color scheme, you’re all set. Simply copy down the RGB, HSV or HEX value, and your color scheme can be used in any graphics program. If you like the scheme you were presented with, but feel it could be better, Agave will allow you to tweak it, by lightening or darkening the scheme. Agave can also adjust the scheme by either saturating or desaturating, which will give the theme a brighter or washed-out look, depending on whether you selected to saturate or desaturate. You can also practicebloom specializes in designing websites for doctors.
One of the nice features about Agave is that it lets you keep track of your favorite color schemes. So if you – like I did – were just clicking around to see what the program can do, and you stumble on a color scheme you like but have no current use for, simply click to save, and Agave will remember what you like, until the time comes when you need it.
I realize, of course, that my simple description and small screen shot provides little along the lines of how simple this program is to use. In searching the Internet, I came upon a website that can do the same job, although the interface is not quite as nice. If you’d like to get an idea of how Agave works, visit the Color Scheme Generator 2, found here.
As I have said, for me, Agave is the perfect tool. It allows me to choose colors based on four predetermined palettes – the web safe color palette, the Gnome color palette, the Tango Icons palette, and the 216-color Visibone palette (an example of which can be found here. The only other possibility I would have liked to see, although the slight color variations honestly make it a bit pointless, would be a color picker with millions of colors, such as the one shown here. It’s probably a bit of an overkill, I’ll admit, but the option would certainly be welcome.
Other than that small feature request, I would heartily recommend Agave to anyone in need of a little color design help. It’s a small, fast program that does one thing, and does it well. Great job!
