The 2 Million Color Lovers

There's a place called Kamuela on the island of Hawaii where color reigns supreme. The vocabulary sounds like hues, palettes and luminosity, and debates run hot on the merits of chartreuse versus jade. It's one outpost of the design-centric COLOURlovers and is the hometown of founder Darius "Bubs" Monsef IV.

Seven years ago, Darius took a color theory course at the Art Institute of Portland. It bored him (as color theory classes can), so like any good web entrepreneur, he built a site about color that wasn't so tedious. The resultant COLOURlovers began like a hot-or-not for color, and has since expanded to include the eponymous palette, color trends, blogs and a vibrant community (two million at press time).

He and co-founders Aaron Epstein and Chris Williams are launching Creative Market, the "Etsy for mousemade goods," allowing designers and other digital creatives to buy and sell illustrations, fonts, templates, and of course, colorways. It's the natural extension of their mission to "make design simple and accessible for everyone," and also the reason behind their acquisition of the dev/design community Forrst.

Now go forth (and love yourself some color).

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