A Book of Colors

You already have a large library about color. We're painters and quite frankly, we're interested in our tools. Color is only one of our many tools we use to construct a painting. I've already recommended in an earlier ArtsyFartsy Newsletter "Powercolor" by Caroline Jasper - get this book. And now... add this one. This book is kind of a hoot! "A Book of Colors" by Shigenobu Kobayashi. It's a tiny book featuring an endless offering of certain colors combined with other specific colors to evoke an emotional response. The author has conveniently arranged color combinations into "mood categories" such as Dynamic * Tender * Cool * Mature, etc. Originally I felt it was more for designers and the psychology of colorful products and interiors. I wanted to try out these colors to the text in a painting. Could I combine certain colors to get a specific reaction from the viewer? If I follow all the color combinations from this book, I'll be painting forever! This book is more of a novelty and a fun one to have around for ideas.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who designs rugs and is an architect as well. I bought it for my own use as an interior designer and to help me with paint colors and overall color scheming. It is a great device for getting a feel from your client of what colors he/she prefers. It's a wonderful gift for people in the trade.

This book and its companion, "Color Image Scale," are excellent sources of palette ideas for web work. (If you buy one, buy both.) As an amateur designer, I found their treatment of the emotional impact of color groupings to be enlightening and thought inspiring. On the down side, they don't provide CMYK or RGB values--a minor inconvenience.

This is a fantastic resource for anyone designing in colour. I do mostly online design and use this book every day. It is a specialised colour combination scale based on research done by the author. Pick a base colour and see its combinations, what they mean to most people and where they are typically used. Awesome stuff!