Corner, contrast, color, palette, and a little controlled chaos.
Cocopal is an experimental color palette playground for designers, artists, photographers, and anyone looking for unexpected color inspiration.
Rather than simply generating colors that are supposed to work together, Cocopal wanders through words, images, surroundings, contrast, and chance to discover palettes you probably wouldn't have gone looking for yourself.
It's an intentionally playful way of letting go of control, breaking familiar associations, and finding a little magic in the unexpected.
Created by Alf Lenni Erlandsen, the Brooklyn-based creative behind Ugly Numbers and Axis of Good, Cocopal is a small experiment in curiosity, creative detours, and the beauty of controlled chaos.
Closest named reference,
not an official Pantone match.
CocoPal is a playground for people who love color. Give it a subject, anything from a lemon to a lighthouse, and it looks at the world around that subject instead of the subject itself, then pulls out a handful of colors you might never have picked on your own. It pairs them with a photo that clashes with the first, so you end up with a palette that feels unexpected but still holds together. Poke at it, shuffle the photos, split an image in two, and see where it takes you. It's there for the fun of it, and for those moments when you need a spark for a design, a painting, a room, or anything else that could use a fresh set of colors.
CocoPal reads a photo in a dissociative way. It sets the subject aside, since that usually sits in the middle, and trusts the colors the photographer framed around it. From each of the four corners it averages small blocks of color, favors the most vivid, and keeps the set of four that differ most from one another.
Then it hunts for the opposite. It sifts a fresh pool of photos and scores each by how strongly its colors contrast with yours, measured the way the eye sees difference. Gradients, plain backdrops, and near-identical colors are thrown out. The winner supplies the second four, and together they make your eight.
It's not always perfect, but then again, nobody has ever been graded on play.
Made by Alf Lenni Erlandsen
Uglynumbers.com / axisofgood.com