Always quick with a smile from beneath one of her signature hats she lights up any room.

Pat is always perfectly put together but today her bright pink suit, print hat and matching wrap along with burgundy suede boots looked so

It come from a post Julie wrote today on creating a December fete where the mood is festive- yet nothing is quite as it seems.  Her inspiration began with designer Caroline Gardner’s not so typical holiday palette and a deer motif that feels more ‘optical illusion’ then ‘yuletide cheer’.

This is an unusual combination of color especially for the holidays but shows how unexpected combinations

I like the combination of colors she chose and decided to take a closer look at the palette that has a youthful energy with grown up appeal.

Here are a few more designs by Carolyn Gavin.  I think she has an incredible sense of color. 

I took a section of his blog and created the color palette shown below.  I think the colors work great for his blog header but couldn’t you just image this color scheme in an interior of an apartment or knitted into a favorite sweater?

These aren’t the exact colors perhaps but when I paint a landscape I work to capture the feeling of the scene in colors that please me rather than worrying about whether or not they are the exact hues.

My thought process is much the same when I develop a color scheme from something that inspires me and I hope it is your approach as well. No need to worry about getting the colors exactly but rather focus on putting together colors that please you.

And just in case you were wondering here is what the full banner looks like.

Yes the coffee is great but even more important is the fact that I like their colors. The light blue green of their logo and on the signage in the interior of their stores is a color that appeals to me. In fact it is vaguely similar to my signature color H2-Ahh!, which is the color of my office shown below.

Since I usually take along my laptop and work for an hour while enjoying my morning coffee the color connection seems to make it especially comfortable to me.  Add to that store manager Kenny’s friendly personality and I’m there most mornings when I’m in town.

Recently I have been traveling and while I was away they set up their holiday displays.  I walked in the other morning to find gift packages and items in a color combination I think is a perfect holiday scheme to say Caribou Coffee for the holidays.

The combination is used on the gift cards, holiday packaging, signage and of course the cups and looks great.  

Only one small problem.  I now have to buy a medium coffee instead of my usual small and can you guess why?

The new old logo: Starbucks is temporarily using a sanitized version of its original branding on new packaging.

Brown is certainly a color that communicates coffee. So, when you order a cup of the new Pike Place coffee at Starbucks this week, it doesn’t seem out of place to see a special brown logo on the cup and paper sleeve. Except that, as everyone knows, Starbucks’ iconic logo is green. So why change such a successful corporate symbol?

Controversial label on one leather sofa sparks international debate and outrage

It’s not often that a packing label prompts an international embarrassment, but there was Toronto, on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, a city where, viewers were told, a dark brown leather couch was being marketed as “nigger-brown.”

See my latest lenses on Squidoo:

All About the Color Blue All About the Color Green All About the Color Yellow All About the Color Orange All About the Color Red All About the Color Purple All About the Color Pink All About the Color Brown All About the Color Gray All About the Color Black All About the Color White