Wednesday 24 April 2013

Book Thoughts - Color Index 2 by Jim Krause

So this book was part of a three book set all to do with design. It came in an orange box and I think the others were about typography and design basics. I've had the set for years as one of my mums cast offs but never really sat down to read them. I read this one since I was on the colour chapter and I'm so glad I did. Jim Krause explains the basics really well and has some beautiful crystal clear diagrams to show what he's talking about. He doesn't just talk about the fundamentals but explains how to use them in design. I especially liked his section on Value vs colour and I pretty much copied his examples into my sketchbook/workbook.

Here are a few pictures but at a low resolution as I don't want to discredit him!




After the short but learning filled intro you have hundreds of pages with tons of colour combinations. They are sorted first by main colour and then by the type of colour scheme i.e. monochromatic, triadic, analogous & complementary. A beautiful book which I have found SO helpful now that I appreciate it.


Each colour scheme is presented in a page wide vectorised image or pattern - great for comparisons, but also varied enough that you don't get bored of the same image repeated so many times over.


p.s. did I mention he gives CMYK and RGB codes for each colour? Its also worth properly reading the intro and 'how to use this book' section because it explains about expansion palettes, observing colour as an artist and how the colours are laid out to show which colours 'belong' to that section.


p.p.s. I believe Color Index 1 is similar but with schemes made up of 2 & 3 colours where as this is 3,4 & 5 colours.

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