Dear Web and Graphics Designer,

If I may be so presumptuous, the core of your mission is to realize inner vision: to recognize and articulate your own vision; to practice and refine that skill on your clients and collaborators; to evolve and express vision on the web. I think I can help with a tiny part, the color part.

When you have a color in mind, and there's good reason to make it web-safe, I want you to find it in seconds.  When you need to come up with a new sharp looking combination, I want you to be familiar with all the options.  Trial and error is fine.  I suggest informed trial and error is so much better.

I hope the online color lab and the swatches and the table help in their own way.  Though I've tried very hard to reproduce the on-screen colors on paper, and I think I've gone further than anyone else doing that, the only thing better than checking the screen itself is checking a good variety of screens.  But none of the free online resources allow me to show you in one glance all the colors, all the patterns of hue and vividness, and all the codes.  That's where I hope you'll find this poster uniquely useful.

And I hope you'll find it easy on the eye.

It's my joy to make useful things.  It's my joy to reveal patterns that have always been there but never seen.  If you decide to purchase this poster you've helped me do more of that kind of thing.  I promise I will.  My personal mission is to make the most useful printed resources for web designers in the world.

If you think that's ambitious, especially if you think it's pretentious, I want to hear from you.  Because I believe you can imagine what such things could be.  More day-to-day useful than any fat fifty-dollar book, more tangibly useful than any web site, yes more practically useful than your priceless scribbled Post-it Notes^®.  And far more useful than any printed quick reference cards yet made.  Go ahead, imagination is your job isn't it?  If you're convinced it's not possible, pretend what the most handy references would be like to hold in your hand when you need them most.  Give me some clues and a little time and I commit to you I'll deliver you tools of uncommon utility and cloud-parting clarity.

What's the ratio between what you want to do on the web and what you can do in your lifetime?  Ten?  A thousand?  I can't make it one but I can make it a little smaller.  Our brains weren't designed for what we're doing with them.  My tools help with that gap.  They are designed for both our brains and what we're trying to do.  Give your brain a little credit and a little assistance and a little time and you will render us all speechless.  I'm going to give your brain better assistance than any it's had so far.

The technologies available to help you realize inner vision on the web are messy: numerous, disorganized, incomplete and changing.  They will all be very quaint twenty years from now.  Maybe two.  Today we will make do.  I volunteer to scrutinize, sleuth and search for truth inside the noisy machinery of today's cybersmithing toolshed, and come back to you with a map of all the levers and dials.  It won't solve all your mysteries, but you'll recall old knowledge faster and you'll find new ways faster.  You'll know much better what you don't know.  I think I can help you this year to reduce the chaos, to crystallize the options, to lubricate that path from the back of your mind to the tips of your fingers.  I'll do it visually and verbally and every way in between.  And with less budget from your wallet and bookshelf than anybody else.

I may be a bit of a hog with your wall space...

P.S.  If you'll pardon the shameless vanity, here are some stickers you're welcome to use however you see fit: