For those of you who are in love with crayons, the color palettes of comic book heroes, or trends in magazine colors, ColourLovers.com is for you. Created as a way for designers to get inspiration and shares colors and palettes, ColourLovers was recently featured in Time's 50 Best Websites 2008 list and also recently surpassed their 1,000,000th Named Color.

The simple idea behind CL is that users give names to colors (similar to the way crayons have names), and use these colors in palettes and patterns. But CL goes much deeper than this. You can upload an image and it will automatically pick out the major colors in it for you to use as a palette. The palettes can be downloaded in a variety of formats, including PhotoShop, Illustrator, or just plain ol' HTML (there's also an api so you can extract colors or palettes in a friendly xml file for use as a website theme generator or to share with others).

In addition to the color resources provided for designers, there's also a blog which regularly looks into colors from various themes, ranging from NES Video Games to Skateboards or Mantis Shrimp. If it's an inspiration for new design, it can be found in the CL blog. They also take a look at designs in both magazines and websites, keeping you abreast of the latest trends in print and the web.

With so much to offer both the designer and the color-loving non-designer, ColourLovers.com is a definite hit and a valuable resource that can absorb you for days.

You can visit me right here to see my profile on ColourLovers.com.