chatgpt gave me all these colors
if you asked me in 2019 what a clean website looks like, I would likely give you 3 colors: red, white, and black. red’s been my favorite color since I could remember as a child. black & white were just no-brainers: all colors and no color, respectively. I think at times my lean towards minimalism was heavily influenced by the design language of software in the mid-2010s (thanks apple).
So that’s what this site used to look like: a blinding white background, all-black text, and red colors only used for accents. it was very ‘opening credits to American psycho’ inspired.
screenshot of website prior to the redesign - wayback machine
I’ve matured since then, i’d like to think. Over the last 6 years, I've spent countless hours thumbing (literally, on google) through color swatches, earth tone palettes, greens, easter pastels, you name it. I was drawn to the vibrant neons and faded pastels of ‘50s-’70s futurism. there was something that felt nostalgic to me about yellowed plastic, almost as if the color was injected through time.
i’m no artist. Every color I saved was thanks to apple’s digital color meter app. I barely know what colors complement each other. but I do know that computers are damn good at generating colors. so I went to my favorite graphic designer: chatgpt.
colors I’ve saved since 2019
I uploaded a screenshot and prompted:
This site is mine, it's my own professional resume / portfolio / blog / etc. I have the existing colors that I've been using that I do like and want to incorporate into this somehow. I'm okay with the site having "quirky" color combinations. If they work, they work even as contrasted as they may be.
For reference, I am designing my site through squarespace, so please factor that in when suggesting colors for specific elements
and guess what? I got a list of colors that matched up to what I was envisioning in my mind. in literal seconds. my helper gave me the following color codes that are now painted all over this site:
🎨 Professional–Quirky 5-Color Palette
Light Background #efddb8 – buttery cream
Light Alt / Section BG #8aa9be – dusty blue
Accent / Buttons / Links #c87665 – terra cotta
Dark / Heading Text #869d8c – sage gray
Black / Body Text - #1a1a1a
chatgpt pop out window with all theme colors
If you’ve ever designed in squarespace, you know how boring it is to customize your themes. From Lightest to darkest, 2 versions of each, then ~150 color choosers and associated elements: it’s not my cup of coffee. so I just made chatgpt do it instead. and except for a few off-color choices, it made all of my themes feel thoughtfully designed and crafted. All I had to do was just copy/paste everything in.
I remember When ChatGPT launched in 2022. One of my earliest chats is titled “faded color shade request”. back then, I was playing around with an idea for an app that would spit out faded pastel colors for any color the user input. 3 years later, I tuned that exACT SAME CHAT to help design this website that’s truly a representation of me.
if you’ve made it this far, thanks reading. to see every theme that chatgpt helped me design and what each element looks like, click here to check it out.