I found a new way to get color ideas from old magazines
Last month, I was stuck on a branding job and couldn't find a good color palette. I remembered a stack of old fashion magazines from the 90s my mom gave me three years ago. I flipped through one and took a photo of a random page with my phone. I used a free color picker app to pull five colors from the photo. The palette I got was way better than anything I found online. Has anyone else tried pulling colors from things that aren't design related?
Found that method unreliable for my own work because magazine print colors often fade or shift over time. I get more consistent results pulling colors from digital photos of nature or architecture. The lighting in those situations feels more true to life than decades-old ink on paper.
Look at the faded colors as a feature, not a bug. That shift creates unique, muted tones you can't get from a fresh digital photo. It gives you a palette with built-in history and subtlety that feels more authentic than something perfectly clean.