I was working on a project recently where the client ask me to use a “darker” brown than the one currently being used on a Web site project. I asked for an example since I wanted to get it exactly right. Unfortunately the client didn’t appreciate my desire to get it right the first time. Instead, I should have provided swatches, such as those shown below, and asked them to pick one.

How did I create these swatches? The color on the left is the original brown I had used. On the far right is black. Then I used the Blend effect in CorelDRAW to create ten shades between the two. I could easily change the number of swatches by simply changing the number of steps in the Blend. This way the client can choose the exact shade they desire. In fact, I could easily put numbers under each swatch so they just tell me the number of their choice. If faced with such an issue in the future, this is exactly what I’ll do.