Design Elements: Color Fundamentals

by Aaris Sherin

Color is an integral part of any design solution. Design Elements, Color Fundamentals is an essential resource for designers who want to create memorable design and successfully communicate with their audience. It is the second book in Rockport's Design Elements series, which focuses on the core elements of design. With this book, designers will: —Learn how to effectively communicate with color and integrate color with type and image to affect meaning and create order —See how known pairings and selection methods can be used in real-world projects —Explore hundreds of visual examples, illustrating how effective color combinations can be applied to any project, across media, and in diverse, cultural, and geographic situations —Realize the basic tenets of color theory as it is broken down into clear and actionable directives —Uncover tips and techniques for using color in client-based design work Discover the basic rules for working with color as well as when it's OK to break the rules with Design Elements, Color Fundamentals !

Genres: Design, Art, Nonfiction, Art Design, Creative

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Aaris Sherin is an educator, writer, and designer. She is an associate professor of graphic design at St. John’s University in Queens, New York where she teaches classes on typography, sustainable design, packaging and advanced projects. Sherin is the author of Sustainable Thinking: Ethical Approaches to Design and Design Management (Fairchild Books 2013), Design Elements: Using Images to Create Graphic Impact (Rockport, 2008), Design Elements: Color Fundamentals (Rockport, 2011) and SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients (Rockport, 2008). Sherin is currently working on the upcoming book Modernism Reimagined: The art and design of Elaine Lustig Cohen (RIT Press 2014). As guest editor of GroveArt (Oxford University Press), Sherin supervised the addition of more than thirty entries on female designers as part of the 2006 Women in the Arts update. Her writing has been featured in publications such as PRINT magazine, STEP Inside Design, Form, Leonardo (MIT Press), and Design and Culture. In research and client-based work, Sherin addresses complex issues including the environment, creative thinking, and innovative problem solving that can occur across media and disciplines.

Reviews

[Genia Albre · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not sure who the audience for this book is. It is recommended for designers, but it is a very introductory book. I didn't have many classes on graphic designer, but we covered way more than in this book with professor providing various examples.

This book has basics mentioned, shortly, but doesn't give many examples. For example, it would state that colors have different emotional meaning - and then doesn't give the examples.

The illustrations always have short explanations, however sometimes I didn't understand them. For example, something like: "the colors clearly illustrate the message" - and looking at the poster I don't understand what it is about it all.

I wouldn't recommend this book to designers as it's very basic. And for people who don't know about design this may be confusing.

+++
This book, however, has many examples/posters - so can be used for inspiration.

And it also recommends some good tools online to play with the color.

[Michael Economy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected to find clear researched findings and theory. Instead there are poor examples and a lot of opinions. Not a very good book.

[Jimena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nada que no sepas ya si eres diseñador, pero me parece útil para estudiantes de ilustración y animación. También para quienes trabajan con diseñadores, ya que es muy básico, al menos te da una visión general para tener mayor empatía y entendimiento del producto. Lo que me gustó es que usará ejemplos de diferentes países.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book for graphic design, with lots of examples of different uses of color. It was not as helpful for my purposes, color theory in painting.

[Gaurav Sharma · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started on a good foot but soon lost in the typical know-hows of graphic design. After the first chapter there is nothing much to learn about color.

[Yazed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for beginners

[Cale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is very much set up as a quick reference manual, covering a large variety of topics in a very shallow manner. It's informative, albeit a little unimpressive in its organization, but as someone who doesn't rely on this kind of color and style information on a daily basis, I may not be the best to judge. But from a layman's eyes, the entries seem out of order and don't really seem to build off each other.
A book like this really leans on its examples to drive its points home, and for the most part the artwork included seems to support the topics well (I would have liked to see some examples of what 'not' to do as a reference point; and the choice of some pieces where they're described as 'nearly too much' is not particularly helpful in many cases). I especially appreciate that when they're showing color groupings they actually include the CMYK values.
All told, this book seems to be designed to be a reference book for people already well invested in the Design field; something they can turn to quickly and get a quick refresh. It's not really novice friendly, being neither deep enough nor orderly enough to really provide any deeper insights.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

The caveat for my review is that I am not a graphic designer, which is the audience this book was intended for. I found the book full of lovely full-color examples of good design, but not necessarily giving much depth the theory of color or really any at all about how to use color in design and only a very cursory nod to the technical aspects of color reproduction in print and digital media. Also, could expand the audience to include other types of artists and seemed unnecessarily limited.

[Vi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book goes through chapter by chapter the theories and the techniques employed in using color in graphic design. It really emphasizes using color picking services and using color palettes. There are few exercises in this book to help explain the concepts.

[Benedetto Piscitello · Rating 3 out of 5]

It provides general knowledges about colours and how to use them in specific designs but it's very superficial. It doesn't explain the why and why not. Good for beginners.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book as part of a "Color and Design" class. It didn't add much of value to the class info, and I recommended that the instructor not bother requiring it in the future.