Sunday, January 23, 2022

Weekend Review: Showing Your Colors

 

Showing Your Colors / Jeanne Allen
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, c1986
128 p/

This simple, small book was fun to look through -- not much reading here but what there was reflected the 80s in which it was written. I found it entertaining! 

The book lays out five 'bands' of colour -- monochrome, vivid & bright, deep, pastel and earthy & natural. Then it goes on to illustrate how these colours coordinate, and the different effects placing two colours together can have. It shows how a green can pop or recede depending on what it's paired with, for example. 

The cover shows the style of the book. Each page is made up of rows of fashion sketches (all so 80s style) and compares differing combos. The text explains some of the effects of the different types of colour families together, but it is mainly looking at images. 

I loved the 80s vibe of this one! I first heard it mentioned by someone on IG and was able to find a library copy to peruse. It might not be completely useful for fashion these days, but the use of colour is fascinating in many different artistic areas, and this could be helpful for illustration or art purposes as well. I saw a few combos that I might not have thought about otherwise and might try out, like golden yellow and deep magenta. But overall this is just a fun, quick browsable book about colour, with lots of fun 80s style sketches to enjoy. 

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