Fall Pantone 2013 Collage...

We have a big glass display case that we use for the checkout counter at the shop.  I try to swap out the display every season and feature new trends and current color palette ideas.

I decided to deviate from the traditional fall color palettes for the display and feature the more contemporary Pantone Fall 2013 Fashion Report.  Personally, I love the Pantone reports!  When trying to make sense of the fashion world, I feel like they're my secret decoder ring.  Some say that they don't pay attention to fashion when creating jewelry... but the color reports do more than just forecast trends on the runway, but give a glimpse into the color palettes for everything from nail polish to kitchen appliances.  Even car paint is affected by the Pantone reports!  So even though someone might be designing something for the everyday customer and not the glittering realms of the haute couture, using the color palettes couldn't hurt.  In fact, it'll help make the pieces more wearable and coordinate with recently purchased items.

Whenever I start a new project, I build a new color wheel.  It sets the mood and tone of my pieces for that body of work.  I cannot stress the importance of reevaluating one's sense of color from time to time.  Color is a living, breathing thing and it changes and grows.

For this color wheel, I picked up the fall issues of magazines like W, Vogue, and Lucky.  Unsurprisingly, each issue fit perfectly into the color report.  Even seemingly candid shots included pops of Koi and Mykonos blue.  Entire spreads were tinted in the jewel tones of Emerald, Vivacious and Acai.  I started snipping and creating piles on the floor.  The picture shows a rainbow of clippings spread across the kitchen linoleum.  

This is my Fall Pantone 2013 Collage.  It'll be the background for the display in the counter.  It's BIG!  It measures 30" high and 55" across! I arranged the colors by usage.  The neutral grays and browns were incorporated a lot.  So was the color of the year... emerald.  The size of the circle indicates the frequency of usage.  The circles for Linden Green and Koi are not terribly big, as they were mostly used as accents to the more commonly incorporated Acai, Vivacious, and Mykonos blue.  I mixed the Turbulence gray and the Deep Lichen Green since they were so similar chromatically.  

I used this collage tiling technique to showcase the subtle variations in the colors.  When we walk around, we aren't static paint chips.  We move around and everything has texture and the same color can take on many looks.  

It'll be exciting to see what I make after working on this color palette!