Designing your blog should be fun, but it’s definitely not a process to take lightly. After all, the color palette you pick for your blog will be one of the fundamental building blocks of your brand’s visual identity. Your color palette will (or at least should!) be carried through your website design, your social pages, any custom graphics you do, and more, so it’s important to choose colors that look good and have an impact.

Not sure where to start? That’s okay. You don’t have to be a trained design expert to find a palette that looks great. In fact, thanks to designer Ryan McGuire’s tool colorlisa.com, you can actually draw some color palette inspiration from some of the greatest artistic masters in history with the click of the button.

Here are a few of the artists who inspire us -- we hope that their color palettes inspire you, too!

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Brooklyn-born artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is considered by many to be one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He made his mark on the art world in the 1980s with his vibrant neo-expressionist work, which brought elements of graffiti art, a combination of text and image, and social criticism to highlight the issues and experiences of the black community of his time.

🎨 Try this eye-catching color palette for bold, exciting brands. It could work for blogs related to:

• Activism, community action, and social justice
• Music creation or commentary, band blogs
• Street fashion and beauty, haute-couture

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí is one of the most famous surrealist painters of all time. Born in Spain in 1904, he was well-known for his technical skill and the bizarre, dreamlike images in his work, which explored the ideas of religion, the subconscious, and his personal relationships.

🎨 Try this subdued color palette for classic or thoughtful brands. It could work for blogs related to:

• Psychology and personal perspective
• Business blogs specializing in thought-leader content
• Home design and decor
• Books and literature

Paul Gauguin

Although his work was not appreciated in his lifetime, French Post-Impressionist Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin is now recognized for his use of color and expression of the inherent meaning of his subjects. His work often captured everyday scenes in warm, bright colors, perhaps making them the perfect choice to refresh and reinvigorate a blog whose topic might be seen as mundane.

🎨 Try this energetic color palette for quirky, accessible brands. It could work for bringing personality to blogs like:

• Fun recipes, things to do with kids, and home life
• Playful fashion inspiration blog or a blog for a boutique
• Entrepreneurship, finance, startups, maker culture
  

Roy Lichtenstein

Like other artists who led the Pop Art movement, Roy Lichtenstein was inspired by parodying the cultural artifacts around him. Lichtenstein used the art style and color of what he considered industrial, production-oriented forms of art -- advertising and comic books -- to convey emotionally intense subject matter.

🎨 Try this bright color palette for bold, strong brands. It could work for blogs on subjects like:

• Popular fashion, culture, or music
• Comic books, video games, and other “nerd culture” staples
• Graphic design, web design, digital marketing

Claude Monet

Claude Monet is well-known as one of the most prolific painters of the French Impressionist movement. He was devoted to the movement’s philosophy of capturing and expressing the artist’s perception of the environment, paying particular attention to light and air.

🎨 Try this serene color palette to evoke calmness and peace. It could work for blogs on subjects like:

• Health and wellness
• Nature, sustainability, the environment
• Hobbies and crafts

Edvard Munch

Norweigan artist Edvard Munch is best-known for creating one of the most iconic pieces in the history of art: The Scream. In this work and others, he relied on an intense color palette to express equally intense emotion.

🎨 Try this intense color palette to infuse your brand with energy. It could work for blogs on subjects like:

• Restaurant reviews, recipes
• Entrepreneurship, software, tech
• News, opinion, current events

Mark Rothko

In his five decade career, American Latvian-Jewish painter Mark Rothko produced 798 paintings. Although he originally dabbled in realistic and surrealistic art, Rothko’s best known work is his abstract paintings, which feature rectangular forms of pure color. Lacking the figures he included in his early works, Rothko’s later paintings relied on the interaction between the forms and colors to create tension and evoke feeling in his work.

🎨 Try this analogous color palette to give your brand focus. It could work for blogs on subjects like:

• Restaurant or food reviews, recipes
• Networking, professional topics
• Writing, creativity

Vincent Van Gogh

Born in 1853, Dutch Post-Impressionist Vincent Van Gogh has become one of the most famous and influential painters in this history of art. In a career spanning just one decade, Van Gogh produced over 2,100 works of art, including landscapes, portraits, and still lifes and characterized by his bold use of color and expressive brushwork.

🎨 Try this expressive color palette to connect with your audience’s emotion. It could work for blogs on subjects like:

• Health and wellness, medical
• Tech, startup, entrepreneurship
• Nature, sustainability

Andy Warhol

Pittsburgh-born Pop Artist Andy Warhol spent much of his career exploring the intersection between artistic expression, commercialism, and popular culture. His work often abstracted familiar objects and brands by playing with ideas of repetition, size, color, and other techniques.

🎨 Try this bright color palette to grab your audience’s attention. It could work for blogs on subjects like:

• Children’s fashion, parenting, toy reviews
• DIY project ideas or homemade “dupes” for popular products
• Fashion, personal style
  

There are endless possibilities when it comes to choosing a color palette for your blog, and we hope these masterpieces have given you some inspiration. Looking for more ideas? Drop us a line with your favorite artist or your blog’s niche, and we’ll try to include it in part 2!