As a web designer, we will always deal with colors. There are a lot of useful online color tools such as color wheel, color scheme, color palette, color picker, and etc.

When i try to search for a complete list of online color tools, i can’t found any. So, i decided to collect them and share the list as a useful resource for other web designers.

Let’s start looking at the list:

Color Wheel

1. 4096 Color Wheel

2. Color Wheel from Colors On The Web

3. Color Wheel Color Calculator

Color Scheme

4. Infobound Color Schemer

5. Color Scheme Designer

6. ColorToy 2.0

7. The Color Wizard 3.0

8. Hex Color Scheme Generator

9. Color Schemer Online v2

10. Color Combos

11. Instant Color Schemes

12. Color Schemer from dhtmlgoodies.com

13. Daily Color Scheme

Color Palette

14. Slayeroffice Color Palette Creator

15. Toucan Color Palettes

16. Pictaculous

17. Pro Color Palette Software from Colourlovers

18. Color Palette Generator from DeGraeve.com

19. Color Palette Generator from jrm.cc

20. CSSDrive’s Image To Colors Palette Generator

21. The Color Tool

22. Palette Man

23. Big Huge Labs Palette Generator

Miscellaneous Color Tools

24. Kuler

25. Kolur

26. Color Codes Matching Chart HTML

27. Color Combinations Tester

28. Color Explorer

29. Color Hunter

30. Website Color Match

31. Color Theory @ ColorJack

32. ColorBlender

33. ColorDb

34. ColorJack: Color Generator

35. ColorJack: Sphere (Color Theory Visualizer)

36. ColorMixers

37. ColoRotate

38. ColourGrab

39. Hex Color Code Chart & Generator

40. Unsafe Colormatch

41. Web Color Visualizer

by Cherish Flieder

I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

You may have been sent an e-mail with this exact request on more than one occasion by a friend or colleague. If you have dismissed this invitation as just another one of those time wasting, friend collecting sites, then you may be at a considerable disadvantage.

So, if it’s that important, what exactly is LinkedIn you ask . . . and that’s a great question!

LinkedIn, found online at http://www.linkedin.com, is by far the largest and most professional, business-oriented, social media, networking site on the World Wide Web. Although it has only been around since 2002, it has over 25 million participants worldwide and grows at the rate of over 130,000 members each week!

LinkedIn is easy to use and opens the doors of opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with key players of the human race, in a new and effective way. The basic concept of how it works beckons back to the theory of “six degrees of separation.” On LinkedIn it will only show you up to three degrees of separation, but that alone will connect you to millions of professionals once you start linking up with other users. Your network will consist of your connections (1st), your connections’ connections (2nd), and then the connections to which they are connected (3rd). This dynamic function will start to make more sense as you begin see it in action.

It’s a good idea to create and maintain a professional LinkedIn profile page if you want:

• a beneficial way to promote your art brand, products and/or services online
• to meet key players in your areas of expertise
• to discover new business or job opportunities
• to learn about a new industry in which you hope to expand
• to reconnect with colleagues, classmates and clients

5 Things I Love About LinkedIn

• LinkedIn helps me to “stay in touch” and “touch base” with people that are important to me. Often, we get so busy that we never follow up on important connections and we loose out in the long run. LinkedIn is a superior tool for keeping you cognizant of your important connections and gives you an easy way to contact with them when the time is right.

• LinkedIn gives you a visual reference of your network, helping you readily discover commonalities. You can find someone with a skill you desire. You can post jobs or even apply for them online. When you are looking to join or serve with a new company, you can use LinkedIn to conduct preparatory research. LinkedIn makes it easy to discover which connections you have working with that company or who is associated with it, even before you have your first interview.
• LinkedIn is a great way to learn about any industry. You can see what other people are up to, see how they are promoting themselves and view their notable accomplishments.
• LinkedIn manages my database of connections for me. I don’t have to go and look up an e-mail for anyone that is connected to me or even open up my e-mail composer to send out a message. It gives me an instant connection to their e-mail in-box from their profile page.
• LinkedIn makes it simple for each member to keep their own information current for the benefit of the community. This feature helps users quickly access updated job summaries, aspirations, interests, status, website links, and more.

One last thing about social media sites . . . there are so many of them out there. If you are using them for your business you will need to carefully select the ones that help you best maintain professional connections and ultimately keep your brand in front of your clients. Professionally, I use Plaxo, Facebook and Twitter, in addition to LinkedIn. MySpace can be good too, if you approach it with a professional touch. But, if you only choose one, I urge you to go with LinkedIn, as it will give you the most professional online presence and effective online networking available.

10 Tips to Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile

> > > > > Wait, there’s more! < < < < <

Get the rest of this article “Leveraging LinkedIn’s Networking Power” including the “10 Tips to Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile” when you sign up for my e-zine.

These complementary LinkedIn profile tips and information on how to use them will dynamically shift the way you use LinkedIn. Get ready to turbo-charge your online networking activities and reach out to your industry!

You will also get links to LinkedIn groups for the areas of:

• Art Licensing (Licensees & Licensors)
• Publishing (for Authors & Children’s Book Illustrators)

Also, when you sign up for my “Something to Cherish Souvenirs E-zine” for occasional art and info updates, you can also gain exclusive access to the Cherish COLOR” Trends Toolbar. If you are inspired by colors, you will appreciate having this little tool in your back pocket as you use the internet, giving you access to color trend and color mixing information from all of the leading sites on color.

As a designer, you know that there are probably millions of ways to arrange color palettes. Our environment is continually informing us of colors that best represent a slice of our humanity at any particular time. Technology, current events and philosophical beliefs are just some things that move and shape our color trends. Since following color trends is an ever changing, organic and creative process, there will never be one definitive resource on the matter. However, designers and manufacturers must stay on top of these patterns, to incorporate them, to respond to them or at least, just to be aware of them. In my efforts to stay on top of this ever changing and inspiring world of color, I have created a handy color trends toolbar to include quick and easy links to some of my favorite sites on COLOR.

(click to zoom)

As a special gift, I would love to share this very helpful color trend toolbar – “Cherish COLOR”.

• Designed for anyone who researches color and trends along with those who just love color and art
• Especially helpful for manufacturers, licensees and artists
• No risk, completely anonymous, no strings attached
• It works on Windows, Mac and Linux and on all the major browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and finally Safari.

This easy to install tool bar has links to the most popular and useful sites in the areas of:

• Color Trends + Palettes (Sites, Blogs, Google Search, Books)
• Color Mixing (Color Tools, Color Management and Color Software)
• Color Me Fun (+ Games)
• Built in Google search engine
• Internet Radio (Add your favorite stations)
• Note Pad
• Weather
• E-mail Notifier
• Plus customize it by adding many “gadgets” of your choice

Please feel free to contact me with any feedback. You are also free to share this free tool with any design professionals you know would benefit. Enjoy!

You may download the browser toolbar here!