I agreed to give a presentation at the October Beadaholics meetup on applying color theory to jewelry designs. As I’m doing research for it, I thought I’d post the sites I use as references.  Why wait, right?

Fashion Trendsetter has a fabulous color trends section. I love the Lenzing Textile & Color Trends Autumn/Winter 2010/11 booklet you can download (look for the pdf download on the right). It’s color trend heaven. I’m also using the Interfilière Fashion & Color Trends Summer 2010. I took the forecasts with me to several bead shows to help keep me on track. It can be overwhelming to try to pull together colors on the spur of the moment. A little color prep goes a long way.

Several sites make the Pantone color forecasts available. Fire Mountain Gems has lovely pages for the Fall/Winter 2009-2010 and the Spring/Summer 2010 colors posted. They also offer the Color Association of the United States color forecasts. You can download pdf files for each of these.

If you print a color forecast, be aware of the differences that can occur if you don’t have decent ink in your printer. I sometimes have to run a test sheet to get the ink flowing properly because I don’t print that often. Luckily, I have a little Canon printer that does a pretty good job with color.

You should really check out all of these sites (and look for more) to determine what color palettes work for you. You may not want to be a slave to color trends but you should know what they are. It’s also educational to read the descriptions of and inspirations behind the trends.