Living Your Colors

These days colour is used in everything from design to diet. But what's your colour? Tom Maddron has put together a quick and easy guide that will tell you what your colour says about you and your relationships.

This book investigates the social history of skin color from prehistory to the present, showing how our body's most visible trait influences our social interactions in profound and complex ways. The author begins with the biology and evolution of skin pigmentation, explaining how skin color changed as humans moved around the globe. She explores the relationship between melanin pigment and sunlight, and examines the consequences of rapid migrations, vacations, and other lifestyle choices that can create mismatches between our skin color and our environment. Richly illustrated, this book explains why skin color has come to be a biological trait with great social meaning-- a product of evolution perceived by culture. It considers how we form impressions of others, how we create and use stereotypes, how negative stereotypes about dark skin developed and have played out through history. Offering examples of how attitudes about skin color differ in the U.S., Brazil, India, and South Africa, the author suggests that a knowledge of the evolution and social importance of skin color can help eliminate color-based discrimination and racism.

Internationally renowned textile designer Lori Weitzner presents a novel, layered perspective on the use and significance of color in design and culture in this spectacular treasury illustrated with 225 full-color images. Ode to Color, a stunning anthology by renowned and award-winning textile and wallcovering designer Lori Weitzner, principal of Lori Weitzner Design, Inc., offers an immersive, sensual, and engaging journey in the world of color as it applies to culture, design, mood, and memory. Each of the ten chapters in this richly illustrated volume presents a distinct color world through an intimate and often kaleidoscopic perspective, a compilation of the numerous—and often shifting—associations and emotions we assign to a color or group of colors. Each chapter combines diverse imagery—evocative fine art and photography, environmental interiors, details of Weitzner’s gorgeous designs as well as her sketches and watercolors—with excerpts from literature and her own essays on a wide array of topics relating to the palette. The result is a fully sensory conveyance of each palette’s particular power as well as a consideration of its tangible and intangible connections, from its place in religion, pop culture, and commerce to the impact it has upon our decision making, our moods, and our tastes. While each chapter is unique in its approach to the ten worlds, with its mix of essays, prose and range of art, from a Technicolor Disney cartoon in Out Loud to David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust in Silverlight, each chapter includes: An introductory essay on a subject that characterizes the palette A two-page photographer of an open drawer in Weitzner’s studio that she has arranged with various fabrics, skeins, and objects that, together, comprise the palette; An evocative two-page word collage that presents both color names and the words commonly associated with the palette; Design pointers that provide in-depth insight to working with color and to decorating with each palette throughout the home, from wall treatments to accessories. Spectacular and imaginative, this experiential volume will captivate, inspire, and inform a broad audience, including interior designers and decorators, architects, graphic and fine artists, and anyone interested in art, design, fashion, pop culture, and spiritual discovery. Sumptuous, beautifully designed, and filled with wondrous imagery and compelling stories and facts, it makes an inspiring and unusual gift for almost any occasion.

Alter the colors around you to improve your quality of life! Color has been used for thousands of years to represent an individual's mental and emotional state. The colors that we surround ourselves with allow for a deeper exploration into the inner self. Used positively, color can have a profound healing quality, enhance our well-being and improve our lives. Now, in Color Your Life, veteran color therapists Howard and Dorothy Sun explain how color can be used to promote health, healing, and personal growth. This book will help you discover how to do your own Color Reflection Reading, learn about your aura and chakra colors and discover how color in your life can be the answer to spiritual growth and well-being.

Discover inspiration from the most colorful homes in America with this vibrant lookbook and style manual that brings the magic of color into your home—from the author of Living with Pattern Personalizing your color palette may be one of the most important decisions you make in your home. The right combination of hues can set the mood and transform any room from ordinary to magical. Textile designer Rebecca Atwood invites you to take a color journey in this stunning yet practical guide. In Living with Color, you’ll tour beautifully designed homes to see some of the most interesting uses of the rainbow and to gather inspiration for your own spaces. You’ll train your eye to notice how color lives all around you, from the pink light bouncing off a building you see every day to the exact blue of the ocean on your last getaway. You can even learn how to express yourself through your own custom palette with Rebecca’s accessible, illustrated overview of color theory. As you embark on your color hunt and begin to trust your own instincts, Living with Color will embolden you to breathe life into every part of your home.

A consummate guide to color, this indispensable, spiralbound volume displays 80 color schemes -- drawn from a variety of different mediums, from architecture and apparel to paintings and pottery, across a range of historical periods -- each individually presented, described, and illustrated in a handy, gatefold format, with representative four-color images and actual printed chips for matching against the project at hand. From the dominant reds of ancient Egyptian ochers to the psychedelic palettes of the sixties, Living Colors will inspire professionals and laypeople alike in choosing colors for a multitude of uses.

Move over Color Me Beautiful, an Emmy Award-winning costume designer shows women how to find their authentic style archetype. David Zyla has made women look sensational on the runway, television, and Broadway for twenty years. In Color Your Style ,David shows how every woman can unlock her authentic style based on a combination of her personality, her eight true colors, and one of twenty-four color-palette archetypes-from the Wholesome Flirt to the Romantic Poetess to The Maverick. Through quizzes, charts, and stories, women can discover the colors, clothes, and accessories that will attract love, power, energy, and attention. Color Your Style is like getting an astrological reading-only color-inspired-allowing you to learn more about yourself while you make over your wardrobe. We are at our best when we feel comfortable, confident, and know we look fantastic. Zyla and Color Your Style shows women how to be their best-without being slaves to designer labels or the latest trends.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A mind-expanding tour of the world without leaving your paintbox. Every colour has a story, and here are some of the most alluring, alarming, and thought-provoking. Very hard painting the hallway magnolia after this inspiring primer.' Simon Garfield The Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most 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 the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acidyellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book Kassia St Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colours and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilisation. Across fashion and politics, art and war, TheSecret Lives of Colour tell the vivid story of our culture.