COLOURlovers interview

I asked some questions to Darius A Monsef IV, colourlovers founder.

1. How the colourlovers idea was born?
COLOURlovers was born from my interest in the design / fashion world, the frustrations from having just completed n uninspiring color theory class and my professional background as a web developer. The initial COLOURlovers.com went up in a weekend and ...continueI quickly began adding more and more to the site as people began to respond well to it.

2. Is colourlovers today what did you expect at the time of your first planning steps? If not: do you think it's better or you still have work to do?
I really didn't create COLOURlovers with any expectations. It was more of a creative exercise and experiment than it was a planned business venture... But I think I couldn't have planned it better. The people who signed on early have helped nurture the community into something really amazing and every day we are always working to add a little more to the site and continually keep it evolving and growing.

3. What kind of user is registered to your site?
We have members from all over the world and with all kinds of backgrounds. We do get lots of web and graphic designers as you can probably imagine, but some people are not in any creative profession at all... but they love the supportive and creative environment that we provide.

4. Colourlovers is the last example of technology applied to graphic design. What do you think about the classic debate "scissors and glue" vs "command+c command+v"?
I think all technologies and forms of creative expressions change and develop over time. Sure the new technologies (command+Z) make it easier to fix mistakes or create "professional" work, but with every evolution there are always new roads we walk down and I think it will be very interesting to see what emerges in the next few years. Web technologies are still in their infancy and I think we've yet to really see what the world will be able to create once they all get wired in together.

5. Some advice to students that, like me, use your tools?

Always be exploring, learning and taking chances. One of the greatest things that I think the web has brought us is the ability for unknown people to reach millions of people. COLOURlovers was created to provide color inspiration... no set rules on how to do things or how our tools should be used, because part of the magic in design and the creative arts is the discovery of new ideas and implementations of old tools.