Help Centre
Spectrum & yarn shade palettes
We offer a variety of ways to select colour shades for your design. Which is best for you will depend on your intended use. If you expect only to design tartans for fun or to digitally printed products or fabrics, the default spectrum may suit you perfectly. But if you expect to have your tartan traditionally woven by us later, you may be best to select shades from one of the special palettes for that purpose.
Pick from full spectrum
When you click on any colour slot, a small colour picker will appear below it. This will initially show one colour shade from the rainbow at a range of brightness and saturation (colour strength) levels. Clicking anywhere in the colour field will assign that shade (in that brightness at that saturation) to the selected slot.
If you want to pick a different colour shade from the rainbow (as you will) simply click on the spectrum right below the colour picker area, and it will offer you all the brightness/saturation choices from that position in the rainbow.
Once you've a colour you like in Slot A, move on to Slot B, and as many further colours as you wish.
Special palettes
If you intend to have your tartan design woven by one of CLAN's recommended weaving mills, it is ideal to work from as early as possible in the design process with the actual yarn shades stocked by those weavers. Fortunately we make this easy!
We currently offer commission woven fabrics from two of our local weaving specialists: DC Dalgliesh for traditionally woven artisanal tartans, and another partner producer for our CLAN Essentials range. (Be assured, even our standard range is a top quality authentic Scottish fabric.)
To select either of these palettes, look a little further down the colour panel to select the Palettes menu. This defaults to greyscale palette, for our users who like to produce on-trend monochrome tartans, so you will notice its palette of greyscale shades. The selector button is to the right:
This menu will let you select from menu choices for these special palettes available from our choice of weavers:
Picking one of these will then display the full range of stock colours available from that weaver:
How to add colours
To select a colour, simply click/touch it and it will be added to your working palette of slots above. We recommend using 3-5 shades ideally, and usually no more than six. But advanced designers can expand the working palette to 12 spaces, via the Settings (cog icon).
Categories | Choose colours |
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Tags | tartan designer design colours palettes |