Customer Reviews

Pantone's Guide to Communicating with Color

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If your going to Fairleigh Dickinson University you will need this book if your taking Digital Design and Graphics Price is GOOD

Good content - terrible graphic design of this book. The book designers should leave this profession.

I received this book at the Pantone "Communicating with Color Seminar" held in NYC last year. Leatrice Eiseman was as great a speaker as she is a writer and her cutting edge color information couldn't be more on target, in fact, she is THE person to watch for color and trend forecasting. This book, as well as her lecture, stresses the roles that our senses and emotions play in the way we view and experience color and how designers can best use that information in the marketplace. A sizable portion of the book is devoted to exploring all the major color groups, and there is also a chapter on selecting colors by color combinations as they create different moods and feels. She wraps up the book with very useful conversions for printing four-color equivalents of most of the pantone colors. Any designer who follows his or her job through printing will greatly appreciate that section.

Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color is always within reach in my studio and would provide an invaluable guide for any designer.

I read Eiseman's color guide literally cover to cover. I am not only impressed with the way she writes about color, from the perspective of color psychology, but that she is able to effectively organize an extensive series of exquisite palettes according to so many different "feeling states."

I teach color theory in my two-day Dynamic Graphics Training course and had always recommended another book that has a similar
approach--Designer's Guide to Color 5 by Ikuyoshi Shibukawa and Yumi Takahashi [Chronicle Books, San Fran]--but Eiseman's palettes are better, color-wise. And they use a more sophisticated presentation by having both a dominant color and surrounding secondary colors, as well as offering a more extensive library of palettes. And they not only give CMYK values like the Color 5 book, but also the PMS spot color and the hexachrome color values. And of course the beautiful layout and typography of the book add quite a lot to the book's seduction. It's utterly enticing! Well worth the investment.

I have a part-time avocation as a graphic designer, having spent many years as a public relations/communications director. One of the elements that always made my print pieces stand out was the use of colour, and I learned how to use colour from Pantone.

This is a good guide for understanding colour and its uses for print and visual media. It discusses how the different colours interact, as well as what mixtures produce different kinds of depths and hues in the colour itself. There is a section that addresses the kinds of emotional responses people give to colours - why, for example, McDonalds had for a time such a predominance of the colour red in their stores, or why certain colours of cars are more or less likely to stand out among the others. Even subtle uses of colour are addressed - why does a teacher grading with a red pen become known as being more critical than the teacher doing the same commentary and correction with a green pen? But not all of these are obvious. For example, black in print and colour media often symbolises power, sophistication, style and elegance (think tuxedos) instead of more traditional 'dark' ideas. The guide states that 'In recent years, attitudes about black have changed more than any other colour with positive associations outweighing the negative.'

This book also gives some fascinating insights into the future of colour. Particularly where print media and personal photography is concerned, the use of colour has never been more possible. Illuminated manuscripts of old, which used to be the only full-colour texts, now have the modern full-colour-process productions as competition for grandeur; the typical Sunday comic pages has more colour that the typical production of almost any sort for centuries.

The graphic layout of this book is interesting and thoughtfully done, and, as one can expect, done in glorious colour. The layouts are artistically creative, giving literally hundreds of examples of use of colour in different ways.

This is a good guide, and a fun book.

As an owner of a graphic design studio, I have a huge library of design books. Your book is one of the best investments I have made since I opened my business. It's wonderful for design and color inspiration.

This book is packed with great color combinations catorgorized into color schemes by the emotional moods they generate. When I am working with clients in web design, I use this book to help them focus on the tone of their website or product. First, they choose from the many categories such as Classic, Strong, Energetic, Calm, etc., and from there they choose one or two of the perfectly matched color combinations for their basic website colors. It's a great visual tool!
Also included are some basics on color theory, setting moods with color, and some useful advice in choosing appropriate colors for different projects.
Well written, easy to read, and to the point, this book has become a favorite on my desk!

I have this book at work. It is indespensible. I am buying it for my home. I think I need a copy for every desk I am ever at. This book is amazing with its themes. Turn to a theme like "calm", and the left side of the page will have ads and pictures showing how these evoke a calming effect. Then on the right, there's pantone groups with a main color, secondary, and accent. This book is a must-have for graphic designers and even people who do web design. It is the first book I refer to at work when I need inspiration.

I really love this book.

What it IS: This is a lovely little book filled with colors, color combinations, moods, visuals, designs, ideas, and more color, color, color! I find it sparks reactions, starts dialogue, and fuels creativity for myself and for my clients. As a professional designer, I find this is great to use with clients to help them get VISUALLY into the their project so I can get out of them the things I need to create and produce an effective product that pleases the client AND fulfills its function. I also leave it out on the coffee table in my lounge (with my portfolio) so clients can look at it and they do.

What it is NOT: This is not a book about color theory or color management. Although it includes some basic text about how different colors are supposed to convery different things in the marketing and communications world, which may be somewhat useful on some ocassions, color can be so subjective to the individual, the culture, the times, that I wouldn't follow the text as absolute.

Recommended? Yes, if you want a fun, inspiring and useful little book that is also lovely to look at and helpful to share with your clients.

This is quite a practical book on how to express, how to talk with colours. You don't find cultural or history thoughts on it.
Nothing about Van Gogh, nothing about Mondrian.
But you can find ways to efective use colours in marketing or web interfaces, for instance.
It's more a book to look at than a book to read. It's pretty well illustrated, mainly with ads.