Here are 34 books that Interaction of Color fans have personally recommended if you like
Interaction of Color.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
When I was at one of the lowest points of my life, color saved me. I started my color journey over a decade ago with a pack of Pantone postcards and walks around my neighborhood, and now I have the privilege of writing about color full-time. It’s amazing what a change of perspective color can bring. I hope that the books on this list spark something within you to add more joy to your day to day. Because life is too short not to have fun—especially with color!
As someone who studied history and who loves color, this book is the perfect hybrid of color with depth! Not only are there several unique shades of colors (it goes way beyond ROYGBIV), but the origins and historical context of them were fascinating!
It really helped me learn so much more about color. The biggest takeaway is that while sometimes people tend to view color as something for children, this proves historically how great of an impact it has on humans.
One of USA Today's "100 Books to Read While Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis"
A dazzling gift, the unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume.
"Beautifully written . . . Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers." -NPR, Best Books of 2017
The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of seventy-five fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
When I was at one of the lowest points of my life, color saved me. I started my color journey over a decade ago with a pack of Pantone postcards and walks around my neighborhood, and now I have the privilege of writing about color full-time. It’s amazing what a change of perspective color can bring. I hope that the books on this list spark something within you to add more joy to your day to day. Because life is too short not to have fun—especially with color!
This is one of those books that you pick up in a bookstore and don’t want to put down because it’s just too beautiful. The pages are thoughtfully crafted, and the projects make you see just how chic DIY can be when you do it correctly.
I loved the hybrid of crafting with colorful facts and tips on how to use a specific color. The first time I read the book, I immediately wanted to start making and adding color everywhere!
What began as an Instagram hashtag and project collection (#CrafttheRainbow) that quickly went viral has become a showstopping book, offering a rainbow of completely new project ideas. Learn how to make playful party decorations, luscious flowers, amazing cards, and sophisticated wreaths, garlands, centerpieces, and more than you can imagine-all with nothing but the creative power of paper. Sought-after designer Brittany Watson Jepsen is known for the unusually imaginative and amazingly beautiful designs she creates for her website and host of clients (including Anthropologie). In Craft the Rainbow, Jepsen walks readers through the easy basics of transforming simple paper-including tissue, crepe,…
When I was at one of the lowest points of my life, color saved me. I started my color journey over a decade ago with a pack of Pantone postcards and walks around my neighborhood, and now I have the privilege of writing about color full-time. It’s amazing what a change of perspective color can bring. I hope that the books on this list spark something within you to add more joy to your day to day. Because life is too short not to have fun—especially with color!
This is a book that I go back to time and time again because no matter how many times I flip through it, there’s always something new that inspires me.
It’s fascinating to see the exact color on the color wheel in a real life finished design. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked it up for palette inspiration! Plus there’s a deeper dive on color psychology for so many colors that it helps me think about color with intention.
The Designer's Dictionary of Color provides an in-depth look at 30 colors key to art and graphic design. Organized by spectrum, in color-by-color sections for easy navigation, this book documents each hue with charts showing color range and palette variations. Chapters detail each color's creative history and cultural associations, with examples of color use that extend from the artistic to the utilitarian-whether the turquoise on a Reid Miles album cover or the avocado paint job on a 1970s Dodge station wagon. A practical and inspirational resource for designers and students alike, The Designer's Dictionary of Color opens up the world…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
When I was at one of the lowest points of my life, color saved me. I started my color journey over a decade ago with a pack of Pantone postcards and walks around my neighborhood, and now I have the privilege of writing about color full-time. It’s amazing what a change of perspective color can bring. I hope that the books on this list spark something within you to add more joy to your day to day. Because life is too short not to have fun—especially with color!
This book is more than just a beautiful coffee table book! Of course it’s gorgeous and is full of beautiful photos and helpful interior design advice, but I think the biggest takeaway is how deeply personal color can be.
Creating a space that is uniquely yours can provide a sense of comfort even when the rest of your life isn’t ideal, and color has so much of a role in that.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A deeply personal and compassionate look at home ownership and rentership through more than 50 rooms designed by interior designer, photographer, and Instagram star Dabito.
“Dabito’s work is sculptural and beautiful—everything feels like an art piece! It is elevated yet functional—my fave combo.”—Jessica Alba
Designer, photographer, artist, blogger, and passionate vintage hunter Dabito is beloved on social media for his creative use of color, space, and maximalist design style. Old Brand New offers readers actionable advice to layer spaces with meaning through refreshing décor and bold hues, whether you’re signing a lease or renovating or buying your…
I have always been fascinated with the idea of a dystopia. In fact, I teach it to my literature students here in the United States. Dystopias do an amazing job of teaching us what can happen when rules and regulations are too extreme. And, to be honest, it is chilling what they tell for it seems more and more like the world our society is becoming today.
Shades of Grey takes place in the imagined land of Chromatica, which is essentially an alternative version of the UK where one’s social class is determined by one’s ability to perceive color. To be honest, I thought this was so unique compared to other books that I read that I couldn’t get enough. Greys, in this society, cannot perceive color and so they are the lowest rank. 'Ultra Violets', on the other hand, hold the highest rank. The perception of color also affects their health and wellness. Certain colors have medical effects on people. Another really cool thing about this dystopia is that doctors are called “swatchmen,” since they show swatches of color to their patients. Anyway, I recommend this book because of its absolute creativity.
The New York Times bestseller and "a rich brew of dystopic fantasy and deadpan goofiness" (The Washington Post) from the author of the Thursday Next series and Early Riser
Welcome to Chromatacia, where the societal hierarchy is strictly regulated by one's limited color perception. And Eddie Russet wants to move up. But his plans to leverage his better-than-average red perception and marry into a powerful family are quickly upended. Juggling inviolable rules, sneaky Yellows, and a risky friendship with an intriguing Grey named Jane who shows Eddie that the apparent peace of his world is as much an illusion as…
I have been involved in the arts all my life, working as a writer, in film, and as a musician. I have degrees in music and creative writing and have studied visual arts and art history extensively as well. Besides being an author, I teach writing and humanities at the college level. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do!
This book tells the fascinating story of Ruth Asawa’s journey to becoming a sculptor and passing on these ideals to the next generation through her work as an advocate for arts education The illustrations are beautifully rendered and colorful. Inspirational for budding artists everywhere, the book also contains teaching tools and an art activity.
Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) was an influential and award-winning sculptor, a beloved figure in the Bay Area art world, and a devoted activist who advocated tirelessly for arts education. This lushly illustrated book by collage artist Andrea D'Aquino brings Asawa's creative journey to life, detailing the influence of her childhood in a farming family, and her education at Black Mountain College where she pursued an experimental course of education with leading avant-garde artists and thinkers such as Anni and Josef Albers, Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg. Delightful and substantial, this engaging title for young art lovers includes a page…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Understanding the world is important for everyone. For me, it takes the form of analyzing colorful images and artifacts in the built environment. In the broad traditions of the global northwest, color is regarded as deceptive and unreliable. For centuries now, and throughout disparate media and technical systems, color has had to maintain this secondary, subordinate status as “other,” linked to falsity, manipulation, and deceit or, to quote David Batchelor, “some ‘foreign’ body". In my work, I argue that we have all inherited this tradition in the global northwest, fetishizing color as both excessive and yet indispensable in its capacity to retroactively confirm the sanctity of what it is not.
In 1810, after decades of color rationalizations in early modern science, romantic poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) attempted to return color to its pre-Socratic, Homeric lifeworld.
His Zür Farbenlehre (Theory of Colors) glorified color for all of its inconsistencies and mysteries, making subjective perception—in marked contrast to Newton’s 1704 color theory—the most central and sacred to human experience, in service of achieving the “highest aesthetic ends.” For Goethe, color arose “in the spectrum” between black and white, a phenomenological observation dating back to Aristotelean antiquity.
Over two centuries later, this is still a fantastic guidebook for anyone interested in the phenomenology of color, light, and scintillations of subjective perception.
By closely following Goethe's explanations of the color phenomena, the reader may become so divorced from the wavelength theory—Goethe never even mentions it—that he may begin to think about color theory relatively unhampered by prejudice, ancient or modern.
By the time Goethe's Theory of Colours appeared in 1810, the wavelength theory of light and color had been firmly established. To Goethe, the theory was the result of mistaking an incidental result for an elemental principle. Far from pretending to a knowledge of physics, he insisted that such knowledge was an actual hindrance to understanding. He based his conclusions exclusively upon…
As a mixed media artist, I use color every day. Color is my language and my Secret Decoder Ring. It allows me to create moods, tell stories, illuminate a message (or a mystery), and express/expound/explore. What’s my favorite color?–All of them! My approach is “more is more,” and I use color in abundance. Nothing is as lavish as a canvas or journal page slathered in bold colors, and nothing makes me happier than a color-soaked room full of vibrant textiles and collections. And books! Color rules.
When a book has compelling content plus is a beautiful object, I call that “having it all.” This handsome volume takes us inside the nature-centric world of color and is an admirable, elegant treatise on the subject.
I enjoy sitting with this book, flipping through the pages, rewarded on every spread with engravings, etchings, color swatches, marbled end papers, and tasteful typography. I can either dig deep and explore an unrivaled tutorial on the subject, or I can focus on the endless visuals—either way, the enduring beauty of Nature is richly represented in this stately volume.
A gorgeous expanded edition of Werner's Nomenclature of Colours, a landmark reference book on color and its origins in nature
First published in 1814, Werner's Nomenclature of Colours is a taxonomically organized guide to color in the natural world. Compiled by German geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner, the book was expanded and enhanced in 1821 by Patrick Syme, who added color swatches and further color descriptions, bringing the total number of classified hues to 110. The resulting resource has been invaluable not only to artists and designers but also to zoologists, botanists, mineralogists, anatomists, and explorers, including Charles Darwin on the…
I love suggesting these topics of coloring books because my clinical work involves using art, coloring, and creativity in a therapeutic setting. I am an art therapist working with children in a hospital setting and am trained in applying the arts to build coping skills for managing difficult emotions. As a Christian author, I like to integrate both scripture and art to allow big concepts to become more comprehendible for the younger reader. Growing up, I've always been a visual learner! Art accesses parts of the brain that reading cannot. So, I hope these recommendations and my book can be just the start of discovering the benefits of art.
This book is so fun! It invites the reader to create art in response to a truth about who you are! The activity book engages its reader in creativity and artistic expression after reading a devotion and scripture verse. Personally, I adore any book where its sole purpose is to remind the reader who God created them to be! It is an empowering read and is really hands-on. I would recommend this book for any girl who is creative at heart, and wants to grow their faith with Jesus! It's another great resource to have on you so that your child can do the activities with a group of their closest girlfriends.
For girls who like to draw, sketch, imagine, explore, paint, smudge, color, write, and bring ideas to life! You are a wonderful work of art, a unique creation put together by a loving God who has big plans in mind for you!
Paint, doodle, and craft your way to a better understanding of who God created you to be! You’ll learn art concepts and do fun projects with Lauren, an art teacher who wants to show you how to use your God-given talents to worship Him! Each day, you’ll read a Bible verse and…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I’m a professional artist, and I’ve been fascinated by light and lighting for most of my life. About twenty years ago, I realized there were no books available on this subject at all and very little information around, so it was difficult to take a deep dive into the topic of light in relation to visual art. I wrote some articles on my website, which became very popular, and this resulted in a book deal with Laurence King. My book was published in 2011, and in the interim period, more books have appeared, offering a wider and more diverse range of knowledge from differing perspectives and different artists.
What I like about this book is that it gives me a different perspective on a subject that I know well—light—but it comes at it from a different angle: that of a painter using traditional media. Starting from the history and tradition of painting, topics such as color are tackled by merging scientific and artistic elements, drawing from the history of color theory to create a comprehensive whole.
Of course, the text is greatly enhanced by the dozens of wonderful illustrations created by James Gurney, which offer beautiful demonstrations of the subject matter.
A researched study on two of art's most fundamental themes, Colour and Light bridges the gap between abstract theory and practical knowledge. Beginning with a survey of under appreciated masters who perfected the use of colour and light, the book examines how light reveals form, the properties of colour and pigments, and the wide variety of atmospheric effects. Gurney cuts through the confusing and contradictory dogma about colour, testing it in the light of science and observation. A glossary, pigment index, and bibliography complete what will ultimately become an indispensable tool for any artist.
