Pantone: The Twentieth Century in Color

by Leatrice Eiseman, Keith Recker

Pantone, the worldwide color authority, invites you on a rich visual tour of 100 transformative years. From the Pale Gold (15-0927 TPX) and Almost Mauve (12-2103 TPX) of the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris to the Rust (18-1248 TPX) and Midnight Navy (19-4110 TPX) of the countdown to the Millennium, the 20th century brimmed with color. Longtime Pantone collaborators and color gurus Leatrice Eiseman and Keith Recker identify more than 200 touchstone works of art, products, d cor, and fashion, and carefully match them with 80 different official PANTONE color palettes to reveal the trends, radical shifts, and resurgences of various hues. This vibrant volume takes the social temperature of our recent history with the panache that is uniquely Pantone.

Genres: Art, Design, Nonfiction, Reference, History, Art Design, Fashion

204 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Leatrice Eiseman is an American color specialist, who assists companies in their color choice in a range of areas, including packaging, logos, and interior design.

Eiseman holds a degree in psychology from Antioch University, and a counseling certificate from UCLA. She has studied and taught in the fields of fashion and interior design. She is an allied member of the Industrial Designers Society of America and the Fashion Group International, and has received a prestigious service award from the Color Marketing Group.[2] She also selects the 10 top fashion colors twice yearly for Pantone and Women’s Wear Daily.

Reviews

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to give it four stars, but I had to ding it just because completely ignoring the impact of comic book art when talking about color palettes in the 20th Century is just egregious. The closest they come is talking about Andy Warhol's repurposing/riffing on pop art, but no mention of the Marvel comics effects on pop art of the 1960s? Jack Kirby? Steve Buscema? Mœbius? Just plain weird.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're obsessed with colorful things, paint chips, or color theory, or just want a cool coffee table book, this is IT.

[Gretchen Rubin]

A wonderful book about color and color trends in the twentieth century. Beautifully illustrated, scholarly with a very light touch.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

cölörs

[Santiago · Rating 5 out of 5]

<3

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A feast for the eyes. It would have been more complete to include more non white references but overall interesting.

[saraanshauthor · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Colour as a part of history and culture"

In the end, I left with one question - how much I understand my own country's visual art and history?

Whenever I try to understand colour, books give me a new definition.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK?

This book enlightens - the humanity, psychology, culture and history of the U.S. - in terms of colour.

A book about color
ends up being a book about human experience itself.

This book is fine to get the references of many designers for inspiration. Colour palettes as per decade are shared with original names of the respective colour versions to understand the meaning of them.

This book will help to develop understanding of how to see history for the development of your artistic thought and taste.

DID I GOT ANY TROUBLE?

Yes, however this problem is quite subjective. I am an Indian reader and aspiring graphic designer. This book is packed with several international names of renowned artists, designers and ad campaigns (which some of them I never heard or noticed before). The content of the book completely relies on those names, so reading wasn't easy without Google.

WHO CAN READ THIS BOOK?

Any artist, designer (graphic, fashion or interior mainly), marketer and even a historian can read this book. However, this book is part textbook, part fairy tale, part
biography and part novel, so you will just get a glimpse of entire perspectives.

[Tetiana Garanenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

20 століття було надзвичайно значущим періодом для кольору. Це був час революційних змін у кожній візуальній сфері, повсюдного порушення канонів та запровадження нових правил. Чому б не спробувати описати у термінах кольору ціле століття, в якому більшість із нас народилася й сформувала власний лексикон колірної символіки? Позаяк колір є підставовим складником людського досвіду, книга про його відтінки стає врешті-решт книгою про досвід як такий. Частково посібник і частково казка, частково біографія і частково роман. Кольори розповідають історію про емоції та прагнення їхніх творців, власників і назагал суспільства. Розгляд кольору у 20 столітті сконцентровано довкола США: обидвоє авторів — американці, тож культурна призма зумовила й оптику викладу матеріалу. Сто років культури та творчості зведено до восьми палітр на десятиліття, кожну з яких проілюстровано кількома зображеннями й приблизно вісьмома кольорами. Жоден колір або палітра ніколи не зникає з лиця землі назавжди, тож особливо зворушує спостерігати за поверненням кольору до життя та його видозмінами. Відстеження еволюції кольору від одного десятиріччя до іншого дарує унікальне усвідомлення того, що може чекати на нас у найближчому майбутньому. 

[Tam G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the idea of this very interesting. History and culture create and influence groups of colors, particularly design and art. The best of this book does this. It examines designers, artists, industries, art movements, people-movements and makes a palette of them. It's interesting.

Of course, a lot of this is inspired opinion. In its best moments it's very interesting. In its worst it over-narrates history and under-reports art.

[Megan Herbert · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was ok. I feel like they just gave a really brief overview of everything but didn't go into any detail on any of it, whoch was disappointing. I feel like some more in details about either the history of why these colors were chosen or the reason these movements were happening would have been nice. The book had good color palettes, but I found a lot of the details lacking.

[Natalie Waddell-Rutter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite an interesting book. It is a unique approach to history and I think I'll have Miss Adventure read it as an overview of the 20th century. It doesn't hit all the major events of the 20th century, but it does give you a feel for the different decades. The color palettes of 1910 represent WWI, for example, but then the 1920s reflect the end of the war with their color choices. I found it especially interesting to see the choices of the 80s and 90s since I can remember those decades. Interestingly, Pantone itself made a few appearances.

I enjoyed matching the Pantone color squares with the colors in the representative objects chosen for each trend. They didn't all have names, though, which irritated me. I also found the book to be overwhelmingly white. Not all the pages had images of people, but of the ones that did, only a single trend showed a person of color. It felt noticeably whitewashed. Even so, I found it an interesting book about color.

[abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

pantone loves pretending that their colors somehow exist as intellectual property (they’re colors, get a grip) so i had a field day ripping gorgeous color schemes from an ebook copy of this!! no shot copyrighting color palettes is enforceable

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will order this book back in to read about the history of color in the decades of the 20th Century.

[Leslie kuris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book to look at not really read. Interesting. The type is so small you can’t really read it.

[Kamryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A visual feast! Some inspirations for these color palates were familiar to me, while unfamiliar topics kept the book fresh and interesting.

[G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes

[Jagalih · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about modern history of colour. It is not very detailed, but gives an general overview of the topic.

[amelie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je n'ai que très peu de culture artistique. Je recommande ce livre à toutes les personnes qui souhaitent s'introduire au sujet.

[Valeriia Sobchuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Яскрава фотокнига в якій детально описується кожне десятиліття ХХст. і додатково ретельно добирається візуальний образ до нього. Книга розділена на глави по десятиліттях, і відповідно кожне десятиліття містить в собі основні події та рушії того часу, і опис того який вплив вони мали на суспільство, знову ж таки підсилюючи це все кольорами та відтінками, які пропонує тільки Pantone.

[Lorenzo Diaz campos · Rating 5 out of 5]

En tan solo unas décadas la palabra Pantone se ha convertido en sinónimo de acuerdo, de patrón, de estándar. Son pocas las personas en el mundo del diseño que no solo sepan de qué se trata, sino que lo usen cotidianamente para definir lo indefinible con palabras: el color.
Y aunque todos tengamos claro que el cielo es azul es muy difícil saber qué color nos viene en mente cuando hablamos de azul cielo; y si definir un color es tarea complicada tratar de capturar la esencia de un siglo a través de los colores parecería tarea imposible. Algo es cierto, desde que Lawrence Hebert concibió el concepto de Pantone el mundo cambió y ahora definir los colores se ha vuelto cosa de todos los días.
Pocas palabras y 8 paletas de colores repletas de imágenes hacen lo imposible. Definir10 décadas con tan solo colores y capturar en ellos los momentos históricos, sociales y políticos que definieron el curso de la humanidad es un gran reto. Asombroso como los autores lo logran y sorprendente la validez de una gran número de estas propuestas. Es lugar común decir que todos los colores están ya inventados, ¿estarán ya definidas también todas las paletas de colores?

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing lens on American history. Leatrice Eiseman has been a major influence of my understanding of color, second only to Johannes Itten. And maybe also my college professor of color theory, who bore an adorable resemblance to Tangina, the medium from the film Poltergeist.

This book takes the 1900's one decade at a time, with 8 color palettes per decade that show the influence of color in society—or is it the influence of society in color? Hard to say, but easy to read. If only I worked in Hollywood or a museum, where I could apply some of these discoveries to my work. Nevertheless, this will be a vital resource for some future design projects. I'm sure of it. But at the end of the book it truly was about the history of America. A perfect election-season read, because it helped keep me from descending into our current political campaign cynicism.

Anyone want to gift me $2,000 so I can attend Leatrice's annual color retreat & workshop?

[Tamsyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book, lingering over the curated images and learning the historicity of colours’ influence and representation through the century. The book is like a mini gallery, and it was enjoyable slowly exploring images through the Pantone swatches, the impact and influence of colour on the human experience. I delighted exploring LH’s development of the Pantone system, Leyendecker’s Santa origins, and studying Parrish’s Cleopatra, the Funerary mask of Tutankhamen, and the Smithsonian Foucault Pendulum poster… A delight!

……“And finally, for those of us fascinated by color—we who routinely try to name the colors found in any given sunset or brilliant autumn leaf, every swatch of paint or complex fabric—how could we not try to understand, in color terms, the century in which most of us were born and acquired our own lexicon of color symbols?”……. Just gorgeous!

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is a bit misleading - the book does not describe holistically the colors and trends of the 29th Century; The author's admit this in the introduction. What it does provide are fascinating snapshots of events, people, trends - all underlined with the colors surrounding them (and influencing future color choices). A beautiful book, enjoyable, fun to share and a great springboard for further discovery.

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting exploration of the trends in color, art and design over the past 100 years. Being Pantone, the emphasis is of course color, but the evolution of design is beautifully portrayed, from Arts and Crafts, Art Deco, Bauhaus, Mid-Century Modern, psychedelia, even to the grunge style of the 1990s. A must-read for artists, designers, photographers or stylists.

[meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty.

[Bookish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Take a lovely romp through the 20th century and see the decade's color palette too.

[reading is my hustle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Iconic Pantone deconstructed!

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating to see the changes in color palettes over the decades

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not as insightful or detailed as I had eagerly anticipated.
Makes a great coffee table book that is engaging for guests to glance through.

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

kind of dull