Coloradore is the side project of graphic designer Anna Kövecses in which her aim is to create a collection of interesting color palettes that take the form of simple, quirky poster designs.

Alongside each poster that Anna creates is a key that lists the hex code for each of the colors used in the design. The idea is that if you see some colours that you like, you simply can take note of the hex codes and then use those colors in your own projects.

Here’s a collection of some of our favourite posters:

Which of these posters is your favourite? Do you have a similar side project? Let us know in the comments.

Massive Bundle from CrazyPixels – only $19!

This is a guest post by M.K. Carroll, Crochet Editor at Cooperative Press and Knit Edge magazine. Have something you'd like to share on our blog? Drop us a line.

It's a popular hobby, practiced by people all over the world. At its most basic, it's a loop of string and two pointy sticks. The loops can be combined in various ways to create a wide variety of things, from the practical and useful to the whimsical and just plain weird. In other words, knitting is a lot like coding.

Say what?

*k2, p2, 2/2 LC; rep from *, end k2.

What you see above could be described as a line of knitting code: a set of instructions that you can use to execute a row of knitting. Combined with additional lines of code, these instructions (commonly referred to as a knitting pattern) can be used to create a recognizable item, such as a sweater or a pair of socks.

Knitting — like coding — gives you the freedom to create

You can buy a sweater ready-made with a lot less effort than it would take to knit one, but there are a lot of reasons why you might want to knit that sweater yourself, like having one that fits you perfectly. You could also spend a lot of time trying to find one to buy, or a lot of money getting someone else to design and knit it for you. Sometimes - like learning how to code - learning how to create is how you get exactly what you want.

One line at a time...

Knitters and other "yarncrafters" (like crocheters and weavers) understand what it means to build something one stitch (bit) at a time, and yarncrafting pattern designers (coders) know what it means to code, use an API, design, test, debug, and maintain the source code - even if they don't realize it yet. Daniella Nii says that:

"Just as in coding, attention to detail and syntax are crucial to a successful execution of a pattern (program). An overlooked parenthesis, comma or repeat can result in a piece of code that doesn't compile and will interrupt the flow of the program, possibly discovered when the next line of instructions will not work with what the knitter has on the needles."

Knitters know how to learn and "speak" a different language already, and learning how to code could mean being able to design and build the knitting app they want, without having to hope that someone else will. Not bad for something that starts with two sticks and some string!

Know how to knit? Learn how to code!

If you are a yarncrafter, you are already predisposed to learn how to code. Do you think it would be awesome to play a video game based on knitting? You can learn how to make one. Would you like to sell your crocheted mustaches on your own website? You can learn how to build a website and storefront too. Do you think PlaceKitten is an awesome API, but would be improved with yarn? You can learn how to use APIs to make the app that you want, instead of settling for an app designed for someone else.

Know how to code? Well...

If you are learning how to code and enjoying it, you may also enjoy learning how to knit, crochet, or spin. After all, if you want to build a website to look and function in just the right way for you, you may also be the kind of person who would want to knit a pair of Dalek patterned mittens that fit you perfectly.

Thanks to the yarncrafting coders LeTonBeau (on Ravelry.com), Daniela Nii (nikkisstudio on Ravelry.com), and Megan of stockinettezombies.com for volunteering to check my analogies and make sure they were accurate!

The ultimate primer on web type for web developers by Jessica Hische.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

Need a new look for your portfolio? Check out the Snap WordPress theme from The Theme Foundry. Sass files and Compass config are included!

Upping Your Type Game is a post from CSS-Tricks

So you want to make the background of your website red eh? You'll probably put this in your CSS:

body {
      background: red;
    }

Done!

Check out this Pen!

You're going about your business and then all the sudden one day this happens:

Check out this Pen!

What in the heck? Why is the red cut off like that? I put red as the background color on the body?

You did, but the fact that that red color floods the background is just a strange anomaly of CSS. The body element isn't actually as tall as the browser window. It's only as tall as the content inside it, just like a div or anything else.

See:

In the absence of a background on the html element, the body background will cover the page. If there is a background on the html element, the body background behaves just like any other element.

Somewhere along the line, a background-color got set on the html element.

Perhaps you're using normalize.css 2.1.1, which included setting the background to white on the html element to "Prevent system color scheme's background color being used in Firefox, IE, and Opera." This has since been reverted, presumably because it caused this issue too widely.

To "fix" it, just remove the background on the html element, or move whatever you want to "flood" always to the html element as its behavior is consistant.

Need a new look for your portfolio? Check out the Snap WordPress theme from The Theme Foundry. Sass files and Compass config are included!

Just One of Those Weird Things About CSS: Background on <body> is a post from CSS-Tricks

I always wanted to write something on all the technologies that a website relies on in order to have been created and work. My attempts have so far failed because it spirals out of control so quickly. Kevin Kelly sums it up:

A web page relies on perhaps a hundred thousand other inventions, all needed for its birth and continued existence. There is no web page anywhere without the inventions of HTML code, without computer programming, without LEDs or cathode ray tubes, without solid state computer chips, without telephone lines, without long-distance signal repeaters, without electrical generators, without high-speed turbines, without stainless steel, iron smelters, and control of fire. None of these concrete inventions would exist without the elemental inventions of writing, of an alphabet, of hypertext links, of indexes, catalogs, archives, libraries and the scientific method itself. To recapitulate a web page you have to re-create all these other functions. You might as well remake modern society.

The article isn't about the web hardly at all, it's about the interconnectivity of tools and how far we'll be set back if that is disrupted. I enjoyed the term "upcreation tool." So many of the tools we use as web workers are tools in which to make more complex tools.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

Need a new look for your portfolio? Check out the Snap WordPress theme from The Theme Foundry. Sass files and Compass config are included!

This Website Brought To You By… is a post from CSS-Tricks

Another chance to catch the most interesting, and important, articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.

PITCH PRACTICE

Live Pitch, Instant Feedback

Are you getting ready to pitch to investors or apply for TEDCO funding? Preparing your pitch is the key to getting investors interested in funding your company. Practice makes perfect.  Come and give your pitch to an audience of serial entrepreneurs and the TEDCO Team.  The format is just like pitching to investors.  You will have 10 minutes to pitch with 20 minutes of Q&A/feedback.  You will have two weeks to hone your pitch and come back and present again. This is a two-step process.  You must be available for both days to participate.

JUNE 6 & JUNE 20

@ TEDCO

Click here to register. Limited space available

Registration is open to attendees of the Pitch Perfect Webinar.

Presentation times will be determined after registration is closed.  If you have a time preference morning or afternoon, please let us know and we will try to accommodate.

For information contact Robbie Melton:  Rmelton@tedco.md

TEDCO, 5565 Sterrett Place, Columbia, MD

Adobe has been rolling out some major changes and updates to Creative Cloud. While the new subscription-only model and individual product updates have gotten most of the attention, the new social and networking aspects built directly into CC have the potential to be hugely important to the creative community.

When Adobe purchased Behance a few months ago, there was a lot of speculation that it would somehow be added to Creative Cloud. But no one really seemed to know how that might happen.

Now we do. Behance is being added directly to the desktop software. This is a bold move, and adds a lot of value to the “cloud” portion of Creative Cloud.

Connect with other creatives

Behance is a great place for networking with other creative pros across a variety of disciplines. Whether you want to just check out the work of others or you want to find collaborators (or subcontractors), you’re likely to find them on Behance.

There are currently over 3.2 million public projects on Behance, and in the past 30 days, there were over 45 million project views and more than 18 million monthly visitors. In other words, the Behance network is huge.

Regardless of what creative field you’re in, it’s probably represented on Behance (there are 128 fields currently represented on the network).

Share with your entire network

While obviously posting your work to Behance helps you connect with the Behance network, that’s not the limit of your reach. You can share your work across your social networks, on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Behance will also track who follows you and appreciates your work. They give you a single place to keep track of what the creatives you follow are up to, too.

Share directly from Creative Cloud

One of the biggest improvements in the new Behance integration is the ability to share your work directly from Photoshop, Illustrator, or other Creative Cloud desktop software. This makes what used to be an annoying process of saving your work in a format you could upload, uploading from your browser, and then handling version history manually, has been completely streamlined.

Upload your projects as you work on them from within the software itself, and even upload new versions to show your progress. This gives other creatives and potential employers a glimpse at your process, rather than just the final product.

It also gives you an easy way to get feedback from your peers as you work on things. This is an invaluable part of the overall community that is Behance.

A culture of meritocracy

One of the biggest draws of the Behance community is the ability for members to “Appreciate” the work of their peers. Just click the “Appreciate This” button on any portfolio piece to positively influence its visibility on the site.

This gives each and every creative on the site the opportunity to have their work found by the creative community, the media, and potential employers. There is no single gatekeeper that they must impress in order to get noticed. Instead, their work is more likely to stand on merit within the community as a whole. And whether someone has been designing or creating for years, or is still a student, if they create great work, they have the chance to be appreciated for it.

Behance is aiming to create a “credible mass” of creatives based on meritocracy. This will help to eliminate the idea of crowdsourcing among companies in search of creative work, and benefit the community as a whole. If companies looking to hire a creative pro or team for a project can easily peruse dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of portfolios, this gives them more opportunity to find a great freelancer or agency to work with without resorting to crowdsourcing.

Share the credit

One of the biggest improvements in the Behance network is the ability to share credit with multiple other users for a project. After all, you might have done the illustration for a project, but maybe someone else acted as art director, another person did the typography, someone else did the layout, and yet another person did the copywriting. Now you can all be attributed on a single project rather than having to maintain separate ones.

And any project you’re attributed on will show up in your portfolio if you so choose.

Of course this can lead to more work for you, as many employers want to hire entire teams who have already worked together rather than individuals who may or may not work well together.

Inspiration is…

Another new feature integrated into Behance is the new “Inspiration Is…” gallery from Adobe. This gallery will be featuring projects from Behance that include the story behind the work. It’s a curated collection, meaning that only great work is going to be featured, and only work that includes some back story will be considered.

Create your portfolio

Behance has offered ProSite portfolios for creatives for a while now. ProSite portfolio sites would run you $100/year, though. While not terribly expensive, they weren’t exactly cheap either.

Creative Cloud subscribers now get a ProSite portfolio included in their subscription. ProSite takes your public Behance portfolio and publishes it to your fully customized portfolio site, complete with your own URL.

Building your ProSite is simple, with a drag-and-drop design editor that gives you infinite design possibilities without the need to code. ProSites also work with full resolution images, offer Tumblr and WordPress synchronization, Typekit fonts, unlimited bandwidth, and much more.

The benefits of social

This integration with Behance and Creative Cloud is a huge step in the creative world. Most creative professions are fairly isolated. We have teams we might work with, but even then there’s often distance between team members. And plenty of creatives work solo.

The Behance community changes all of that. And while it’s been around for awhile, this new integration directly with CC makes it much easier to use on a regular basis.

The Behance community is only going to keep growing and becoming more vibrant. Since Adobe Creative Cloud products are only going to be available by subscription going forward, and every CC subscriber will get a free Behance pro account, the community is bound to keep getting larger.

This will open up some great new opportunities for creatives from all disciplines, in terms of networking, gathering feedback, improving their skills, and finding more work.

In all, the combined forces of Adobe and Behance is a game-changer in the creative world, making it a much smaller place to do business while also giving the professionals who work within that world a much more powerful toolset for connecting with each other and promoting their work.

Do you already use Behance? Are you excited for the new integration with Creative Cloud? Let us know in the comments.

Massive Bundle from CrazyPixels – only $19!