Scrapbooking Your Team Colors

When someone asks you what your school's team colors are, you don't usually hear, "Red and Black," or "Yellow and Blue". True fans know that red, just isn't red, but scarlet, burgundy or crimson.

Because of this, Home Depot^® has teamed up with Glidden^® to offer Team Colors - customized paints for over 40 colleges and universities (and professional sports teams).

So, I decided to take this one step further and determine what Bazzill cardstock colors match (or at least come very close to matching) the team colors of some of the bigger universities. Here's a sampling...

U. of Arizona – Starlight (Blue)/Maraschino (Red)

U. of Virginia and Auburn University – Admiral (Navy)/Bazzill Orange

U. of Florida – Mediterranean (Blue)/Bazzill Orange/Bazzill Green

U. of Miami – Bazzill Orange/Aspen (Green)

Ohio State University – Steel (Gray)/Ruby Slipper (Scarlet)

Florida State University – Gumbo (Garnet)/Antique Gold (Gold)

U. of Kansas – Mediterranean (Blue)/Candy Apple (Red)/Bumblebee (Yellow)

Obviously, it would be near impossible for me to list every school, so if you have colors that you traditionally use for your school, please feel free to share and I'll include it in this list.

Now, if you prefer to create digital scrapbook pages, you have it even easier when it comes to matching team colors thanks to programs like Photoshop Elements, where you pick colors right off of graphics developed by the people who know exactly what the colors should be.

For example…

Indiana University of Pennsylvania

- Their hexadecimal codes are 990033 (red) and 999999 (gray), along with standard black and white.

Stanford University

- Stanford Red has a hexadecimal value of 990000.

Louisiana State University

- Their hexadecimal codes are 44287c (purple) and f9b725 (gold).

Don't know how to pull your team colors from an existing image? No problem, just follow these steps (instructions are for Photoshop Elements [PE]):

1. Go to your school's website.

2. Save an image [school graphic] that captures most of the school's colors. To save the school graphic, right-click, select "Save Picture As" and save it to your hard drive.

3. Open the school graphic in PE, and then open a new, blank file. Your settings for the new file should correspond to the size of the graduation scrapbook layout that you would like to make, color mode should be RGB and the background should be transparent.

4. Next, you will want to create a new fill layer that will change your background from transparent to your school color. To do this...

Go to the Layers Menu, select New Fill Layer and then select Solid Color. If you want to name the layer, do so when prompted, if not just click OK. This will then bring up your Color Picker window. Now, put your cursor over your school image - it should look like a medicine dropper.

Then, click on the team color you would like to use. You will notice that your Color Picker window and your new file have automatically updated to that exact color. Once that's done, click on OK.

If your background is another color, and you just want a specific element to have your school's team colors, the steps are exactly the same, except your applying it to a shape instead of an entire layer.

If you use another graphics application, and would like to share the steps that you use, please send me the instructions and I'll be happy to post it!

Now, just because I like to be thorough, there is another way to identify your school's true colors - through Pantone^® numbers. You're probably wondering...

What in the world is Pantone^®?

Well, to put it simply, they are the world-renowned authority on color and their color system is the standard "language" for mass graphic communications. Ask a graphic designer to create a logo for you and they're going to ask you what Pantone^® colors you want to use.

Now, in all likelihood, you're not going to have a set of Pantone^® chips on your scrapbook table, but that doesn't mean the information won't come in handy.

If you go to Google, type in your school name and Pantone^® colors (e.g., Penn State University Pantone Colors), you will most likely find the school's graphics standards and along with it the corresponding Pantone^® color numbers.

For example...

George Mason University

- They use Pantone^® 349 (green) and 116 (gold).

Penn State University

- They use Pantone^® 282 (Navy), 877 (Metallic Gray) and 429 (Flat Gray).

University of Pennsylvania

- Their official colors are Pantone^® 288 (blue) and 201 (red).

These colors have a RGB and hexadecimal equivalent that you can use to create journaling, or other scrapbook elements, in the team colors, without the need of a graphics application to determine the correct color.

Happy Scrapping!!

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