For the Color Scholar: Out-of-Print Classics

The below is a list of notable out-of-print books in .pdf form. Each text has its own unique interpretation on color application, general theories, etc.

Source: Theory and Practice of Color

The oldest text of the group is Elementary Color (1895) written by Milton Bradley the same Bradley who is synonymously linked with The Game of Life, Candyland, and Battleship. This was not Bradley's first attempt into the forays of color. Prior to this publicaton he had addtionally authored Color in the Schoolroom and Color in the Kindergarten.

Faber Birren’s Selling With Color is a book that ...“ has been written to be of practical benefit to modern business, to assure the effective development of consumer products, merchandising, advertising, packages, displays”.

Regardless of when any of these were published, these texts still retain color standard information of which can still be found in practice today.

Colour Aesthetics: Combinations of Colors with Tints and with Shades
by F. Louis Barber (1900)

Selling with Color
by Faber Birren (1945)

Itten, The Elements of Color
Edited by Faber Birren (1961)

Elementary Color, 3rd Edition
by Milton Bradley (1895)

Goethe’s Theory of Colours
Translated by Charles Lock Eastlake (1982)

Color Balance Illustrated
An Introduction to the Munsell System
by A.H. Munsell (1919)

Color Notation
by A.H. Munsell (1913)

Theory and Practice of Color
by Bonnie E. Snow, Hugo B. Froehlich (1920)

Making a Color Exclusive

Logos, slogans, and colors, become synonymous with a product, company, cause or sports team over time. Studies to support consumer driven responses to color are constantly being monitored by the marketplace to maximize data on current and future color trends. Because color can stand independently of words, it is capable of being recognized on its own —devoid of any reinforced logo or text. With this in mind, should an organization strive to protect their color assets through trademark? Not unlike a logo or company slogan, colors can also be protected under the umbrella of trademark. But can these measures extend to the name of a color as well? Syracuse University filed a federal trademark for the exclusive rights to the word “orange”. From the university’s perspective it was a logical move toward protecting their sports team name (which in 2004 had been edited down from “Orangemen” to simply “ Orange ”). Even though the official filing was done in 2006, several colleges have ...

Another Pinboard to Follow

Having resisted Pinterest for about a year now, I finally dipped my toes into the virtual pool of pinboards. My apprehension was truly misdirected and I've come to find that the concept of organizing visual images/links onto a virtual board has become a great teaching tool. After covering the typical graphic design topics such as typography, and history it was a natural move to include color among the related topics. So here is a link to my All Color Matters pinboard .

Color from the Ordinary Made Into the Extraordinary: Fabian Oefner

From motor oil to evaporated alcohol Fabian Oefner wields these materials as if they were ordinary pigments found on an artist's palette. Known for driving a Ferrari into a wind tunnel to splatter with neon paint, Hefner does't shrink from using unconventional materials to pursue his fixation with color. Hefner's latest series “Photographic Paintings” was an outgrowth of observing the oxidation of b ismuth that he had melted on a hotplate. The cooled compound created amazing iridescent spectrum of color. Oefner quickly realized that a scraped off layer with a spatula would change the colors and that they would on be present for a brief tine. " You get those colors, which are essentially the colors of the rainbow,” he says. The photographs have a minimal amount of digital editing done to them. Hefner's work suspends your fools us by taken advantage of the interplay of poss...

All Color Matters

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