Best graphic design color use books according to redditors

yes i would i will go to other timeline (with faster rate of reality) and finish book so you can go buy it.

okay i am back that was hard work here you go https://www.amazon.com/dp/1546649646/

Look, if you need something to keep yourself amused, just stick to coloring books.

My friend has a mandala book made out of it.

There's a book about that if you're interested, it's s good read

Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World
by Simon Garfield
Link: http://amzn.com/0393323137

I'm an introvert all the way so I love being alone, but a lot if times I slide into a pattern of marathoning shows on Netflix, which is not the most productive past time. I will say that Gilmore Girls has been lifting my spirits for a few months now, though!

After finishing the series I decided to put down the remote and pick up a crayon. Seriously! I bought a bunch of coloring books and I've been really enjoying coloring, sometimes while listening to chill music. My latest favorites are this book and listening to Atlas: Year One by Sleeping at Last spotify link.

Perhaps try Know your onions by Drew De Soto and How to Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy.

For what it's worth, the main things I've seen throughout my career that were surprises or turnoffs to new designers when they got out into the real world were:

1) You're not doing work for yourself. It sounds obvious but most people don't even think about the fact that you design for yourself when you're learning, but when you get into the workplace you design for someone else, which isn't nearly as fun. There are clients that will let you have creative freedom, but the majority will just want you to execute their ideas, no matter how bad they are.

2) It's a people job. Some folks are drawn to design because they're introverts and they envision being able to isolate themselves and be creative all day, but that couldn't be further from the truth. If you're freelance, you have to be super extroverted to drum up business for yourself - there's more face-to-face meetings and phone calls than there is actual designing. If you're in-house or agency, you generally will be working as part of a team and there's just as much confidence and extroversion needed to be successful.

3) The hours can be long and the pace can be fast. Design is deadline driven 99% of the time. That means coming up on hard deadlines you may not have a social (or indeed family) life. Most of my work days are 8-5 or 6, but deadline weeks can be 7-midnight and through the weekends. You are the last stop on the line which means you typically inherit everyone else's delays and have to compensate for them by working fast. Working fast often means you don't have the leisure of much brainstorming and concepting. Request like "I need this 18x24 poster in 30 minutes" are not uncommon. You need to be able to handle stress well, prioritize tasks efficiently and be able to turn out work that doesn't necessarily meet your own standards of perfection.

4) They won't always go with your idea. In fact they almost never will. I've seen a lot of young designers deeply frustrated that the lovely draft they sent to the client comes back as a rejection or covered in red ink. You have to be able to not take things personally, to listen and take criticism positively, and to act on alternative ideas quickly.


All that said, it is a fulfilling career if you really have a passion for visual communication, the wage is pretty good (in larger firms and agencies at least) and you can live on it comfortably, and there are upward movement opportunities into roles such as Art Director or Creative Director. Hope some of that helps.

I read a fair amount of pop history, and there's lots of good pop history! The "good stuff" tends to be quieter and not published by Certain Big Names and will cover more niche topics, or just generally make more modest arguments. I review pop history regularly on Saturday Sources. Honestly I tend to be harder on the academic history. Some recentish pop history I've liked (loosely defined as "costs less than $30")

• This Gulf of Fire: The Destruction of Lisbon, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason
  
  
• Neither Snow nor Rain: A History of the United States Postal Service I should be posting this review this Sat if I get my review together
  
  
• Lost Animals: Extinction and the Photographic Record
  
  
• [The Great American Cereal Book: From Apple Jacks to Wheaties] (http://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Cereal-Book-Breakfast/dp/0810997991/) breaks my rule because out of print, used copies are pricy for a reason... Happy Cereal Day.
  
  
• Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World
  
  
• Bel Canto Bully: The Life and Times of the Legendary Opera Impresario Domenico Barbaja

Amazon link to Art Fundamentals book- I loved this book, it was very easy to read and very informative.

Check out Feng Zhu, David Rapoza, Shaddy Saffadi on Youtube. Check out Daily Spitpaint and Level Up! groups on Facebook. Both have great communities and are super helpful for beginners.

Now to practice...

• Anatomy Drawing Practice - Great resource, I make a point of doing this as often as possible. Even just twenty minutes a day can bring you leaps and bounds!
  
• Anatomy Drawing Tips
  
• DeviantArt has a wide variety of stock images you can use for studies. Studies are pieces that aim to help the artist practice a certain element. For example colour, lighting, texture, values... etc. This study was something I did to practice hair.
  
• Do these EVERY DAY.
  
• This is an interesting article by MTG artist Noah Bradley that discusses why you shouldn't go to art school but I'm putting it here because there are a lot of resources he provides in it if you scroll down.
  
  
  I'll update this post if I think of anything else. These are just off the top of my head.
  

It's on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Fuck-Off-Im-Coloring-Obnoxiously/dp/1604336617
Pretty nice! Might as well get one myself

from the actual AMA:

>Dr Tingle, would you consider doing a Tingleverse coloring book?

>>yes i would i will go to other timeline (with faster rate of reality) and finish book so you can go buy it.
okay i am back that was hard work here you go https://www.amazon.com/dp/1546649646/

WHAAT WHHHAAAAAT


Weirder because it came out tomorrow, according to my Australian calendar.

conceptart.org has some good stuff, they make DVDs too. You could probably pirate them, were you a person of low moral fiber.

There are some good books out there too, which you can probably get from the local library. You might need to use interlibrary loan though, my local libraries have a poor selection of art books, but there isn't anything they haven't been able to find at another library.

Color in Contemporary Painting

The Art of Color

Mastering Composition

Abstraction in Art and Nature

The Art Spirit

Some people don't care about theory, but personally I find it inspiring. Art in Theory 1900-1990 is a good collection of writings by artists, critics, and the like. If you're weak on art history you might want to study some of that first, History of Modern Art is pretty good.

> fragrances evolve, and stronger elements fade and subtle undertones come to the forefront.

Indeed. I discovered about 20 years ago that every guy who splashes on some Polo smells like blueberry muffin mix after 30 minutes to 4 hours. That's the long-lasting undertone of Polo.

Truth: Food flavorings are perfumes for canned/packaged foods. They're not added for your taste buds, but for your sense of smell. And they are designed and blended by the same chemists and perfumers who also do perfume for the human body. IIRC, I learned this from a chapter in a book called Mauve, although that book is primarily about fabric dyes.

https://www.amazon.com/Mandalas-Meditation-Scratch-Off-Lark-Crafts/dp/1454710179

Any of Scott McCloud's books. Making Comics is good for the technical side, Understanding Comics (the 1st of his series) is also good to break down WHY comics are important.

(One can probably skip his second book, it mostly examines webcomics and since it was printed is fairly outddated now thanks to various internet technologies advancing as it all does)

DC Comics has also published a series of "How-To" books which are good to thumb through , I personally own all of them but the Writing one-

-[DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics] (http://www.amazon.com/DC-Comics-Guide-Writing/dp/0823010279/ref=pd_sim_b_4)

-DC Comics Guide To Pencilling Comics

-DC Comics Guide To Inking Comics

-DC Comics Guide To Coloring and Lettering Comics

-DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics

Since you mentioned the line thickness/thinness- um, the inking one would probably be a good one to start with. It'll show at least American/western methods of going about things, minus anything digital because the book was written before digital was big in the process. The Digital Drawing book somewhat helps on that issue but with programs like Painter, you can pretty much emulate any traditional tool fairly easily. If you have a particular style in mind you want, post it up and perhaps I can help determine what tools were probably used to make it???

Life IS about using the whole box of crayons! The giant box of 100 colors!

this looks like so much fun! I've had my eye on one for so long, I feel like it'd be such a fun activity!

I feel like /u/pinalope4real would dig the secret garden coloring book since I'm always receiving such awesome snaps from her garden ;)

yay coloring! Thanks for the contest <3

I used to have juuust enough color sense to know that my color schemes were crap. So I got some books full of color schemes, with bits of discussion on what was going on in them. At first I'd just pull colors out verbatim; as time went on I internalized a lot of things. If I was starting now I'd probably be hitting up the sites people mentioned above as well; this was back in the 90s before these kinds of sites existed.

The biggest advice I have: Vary things in hue, saturation, and value. A very very common problem is to only change H and S; when two colors are the same value, or close, they blend together indistinctly. I'll sometimes throw a desaturation layer over my work to make sure it works in greyscale.

Delete whatever default palette your art program gives you for a new document. It's probably full of hideous hyper-saturated colors that you'll end up using without thinking. (This is the equivalent of working with colors straight out of the tube in real media.) Keep your saturation below about 60-75% most of the time; save the super-saturated colors for when you want something to pop.

I don't ever really say "I want to go with a split complement scheme" or the like, I just think "well I did this as blue and purple, now I want this detail to pop, oh yeah something amber looks good". If you're working digitally then take advantage of whatever you can do to quickly push the colors around - experiment, play, learn! (It's not the endless rescalability that makes me love Illustrator; it's the fact that I can use 'global' palette swatches that immediately change the entire drawing when I play with them, as if I was palette-swapping a Street Fighter character or something!)

$7 http://www.amazon.com/Color-Your-Own-Deadpool-McGuinness/dp/130290051X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463939442&sr=8-1&keywords=Color+Your+Own+Deadpool

There are lots of books that are nice to look at, but the one I've personally gotten the most use out of is The Color Index. There are also companion books: the Idea Index and Layout Index.

I think this pretty colouring book for grown ups is a great idea. Its not too expensive but if you get it, you should also buy some nice quality colouring pencils to go with it. I love it because it's creative but relaxing.
Thank you for the contest :D if I win I would love a surprise! I have plenty on my wishlist for under £5 :)

Reminds me of this [coloring book](Grimm Fairy Tales Adult Coloring Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/1942275242/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_Ovnryb5PNDP5P)

We could color some stuff if you want. :P

this week just got started and it's sucking because I have $20 to last the next 2 weeks but this..

Color Your Own Young Marvel by Skottie Young https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785195556/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_It2ACbM3BSKV6

..would make me feel more on the super duper side.

It's too bad they don't have a web version of this book. I have found it very useful.
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Index-Revised-Jim-Krause/dp/1440302626

There's a lot to learn in terms of user experience, user interaction, user interface, and graphic design and typography. Often, a design team that works on major sites/software will be multidisciplinary with differing design backgrounds working to compliment each other's skills.

However, a good understanding of Human, Computer Interaction principles is essential for every developer. This might be a good starting point: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/human-computer-interaction-brief-intro but there is a whole canon of work from HCI up to modern UX thinking.

For a quick UI design walk through you could try Know Your Onions, you might find some of it useful and much of it quite basic. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Know-Your-Onions-Web-Design/dp/9063693125

I'm still using my copy of the color index, which has to be at least ten years old by now.

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Index-Revised-Jim-Krause/dp/1440302626

I'm a really big fan of Know Your Onions; it both serves to cover the basics of design, as well as some of the post-design process that often tends to be glossed over in other content.

There's a Web Design version as well.

After I read those two, I was looking for more oddly-specific nonfiction books and came across Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World, check it out.

I believe this book gets suggested quite often on the sub, it was also recommended by my course tutor.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/9063692587?keywords=know%20your%20onions&qid=1451835390&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

It covers a wide range and will get you started with principals and terminology allowing you to expand on that.

I'm sure others will post with more suggestions.

There are lots on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Your-Own-Women-Power/dp/1302901583/

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Your-Young-Marvel-Skottie/dp/0785195556/

I don't know where you live, but just go to Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Five Below etc and they have them there as well.

If you're into coloring books, may I also suggest Outside The Lines. A collection of coloring book art from 100 contemporary artists.

I love my inner child!!

Either:

Coloring for Grown-Ups: The Adult Activity Book

Or

Unicorns Are Jerks: a coloring book exposing the cold, hard, sparkly truth

Thanks for the contest!! It reminded me how much I LOVE to color! It's therapeutic for me.

Edit: I also have Between the Lines: An Expert Level Coloring Book == and == Outside the Lines: An Artists' Coloring Book for Giant Imaginations (totally stole that one from /u/chickenfriedsoup so if you pick this particular book, give it to them)

I have [this one] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0399162089/ref=aw_wl_ov_dp_1_14?colid=25BLPYUL7C3IL&coliid=I1LBMA2Q2Z7JT1) on my WL :D It is fancy. I like it. I love my inner child.

I read a book a while ago about this: Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World. Quite interesting. They got all sorts of cool stuff out of coal tar. Synthetic aspirin is another example as well.

I don't know any off-hand, but I would suggest looking for resources on comic coloring because most of that is done in Photoshop nowadays. There's a book I have that's pretty basic. One you get a handle on coloring, brushes and layer styles, you can probably get something close to that style. Keep practicing-- the thing about Photoshop is that there are always at least three ways to do something, and once you know them and have the understanding how to use them in conjunction with one another you can use the program with intent. It takes practice to get there though. I've taken two classes and watched tutorials but the way I really got good at Photoshop was to use Photoshop all the time.

Know Your Onions: Graphic Design: How to Think Like a Creative, Act Like a Businessman and Design Like a God

I did indeed have artist experience, I was already an artist but I had never done anything that involved comics, so while I was new at it I had experience that really helped me out.

Sadly most tutorials online are rather rubbish, most of the don't tell you the important things like flatting, or how to make selections. Personally buy this book, it seriously turned me from amateur to professional and I still use it today. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1581809921/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_g14_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1Q4W47PA7Q69Y2G4XJR3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Sadly I feel the same way, I have worked on some awesome art in my day but seriously without colors it looks rather boring. Thank you for your appreciation. :)

I have a pile of coloring books I want, this being one of them.

I totally think /u/ilovepaperdolls would love something like this!

Life is about using the whole box of crayons

Not out yet, but the Skottie Young one might be a bit better: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Little-Marvels-Skottie-Young/dp/0785195556/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=61rBAdzsmAL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=01VEMGH2Z6X0QB3NA9PB

Doodle Fusion

+chucktinglethanks:

yes i would i will go to other timeline (with faster rate of reality) and finish book so you can go buy it.

okay i am back that was hard work here you go https://www.amazon.com/dp/1546649646/

This is the link... sorry mods!

Pretty sure it's on back-order though. This was gifted almost a month ago.

Hm, you might be looking at more general books then, so you could also ask /r/computergraphics or /r/3dmodeling.

Also this might be of your interest, and you should look trough this this list too.


There's also the C4D Beginners Guide - from this list.

• I like travelling, Ohio State football, watching gymnastics, reading and eating fruity candy. :)
  
  
• I would love to have this awesome coloring book. It's so cool!
  
  
• I'd like to win because I'm going to be living in another country for the next two years, and having a package to cheer me up (my mom would send it to me, so no international postage for you!) would be freaking amazing. Especially because I'll be spending Christmas in a Ugandan village where I don't really speak the language. And that's a bummer.
  
  
• Moon Knight

http://www.amazon.com/Hi-Fi-Color-For-Comics-Professional/dp/1581809921

Killer book. Highly recommended. I had been a colorist for about six years before reading, and I kicked myself for not buying it earlier!

I am in almost the same situation.
I have also been looking for books for motivation, inspiration and so on.
Here are some stuff that keep getting recommended as well as other books that I think are interesting judging by their description and reviews (note: I haven't read anything yet I am just sharing my searching results from the past 2 or 3 days):

For creative problems

• Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
  
• Burn your Portfolio
  
• The Design Method
  
  For Inspiration
  
  
• 100 ideas that changed graphic Design
  
• Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills
  
• Graphic Design, Referenced
  
• Drawn In
  
  And this one seems to go into depth of the business itself:
  
  
• Know Your Onions
  
  Like I said, I haven't read any of those but maybe this will save some time for you or for other people searching for books.
  
  There is also Thinking with Type, The Elements of Typographic Style, Universal Principles of Design, Deign for how people learn, How to be a Graphics Designer without losing your soul.
  
  Edit: I was actually going to make a thread similar to this but I am gonna post my similar question here anyway,
  Does anybody know of more books for people who are already involved in the medium ?
  
  A lot of recommendations I see around the internet seem to be for someone just starting graphics design or still in school but rarely is it something for a higher level.

The one I recommend really helped with getting into the mindset of what an agency MD is looking for in a designer. Contains really useful & insightful tips, as well as a glossary for jargon busting.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Know-Your-Onions-Creative-Businessman/dp/9063692587

It's an activity that is simple, but requires focus which helps alleviate some of the anxiety provoking "chatter" that goes on in one's mind. Knitting, crochet, instrument playing, wood working, coloring, meditation...etc. My favorites are slow yoga and this book: https://www.amazon.com/Mandalas-Meditation-Scratch-Off-Lark-Crafts/dp/1454710179/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485747585&sr=8-1&keywords=scratch+off+mandalas

Perkins' discovery of Mauve and the beginnings of synthetic organic industrial chemistry is also a good read.

Also might check out the Chemical Heritage foundation. They may be able to help you.

Amazon link with more examples

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1604336617/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_WHHlDb3XBE6KV

Tokidoki

Sweary

And bonus:
Sweary Sequel

To keep the interest up, here is a book that is not a textbook, but a fun read nonetheless. History is important, plus it teaches a valuable lesson about not ignoring results just because they aren't what you were looking for - something organic chemists especially must be aware of.

http://www.amazon.com/Mauve-Invented-Color-Changed-World/dp/0393323137/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321478836&sr=8-1

It's on Amazon: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/130290051X

[Relevant] (http://www.amazon.com/Knotty-Words-Crass-Celtic-Coloring/dp/1945218002)

The Art of Color by J. Itten

I know nothing about typography, but this book was my bible for color theory. I've read it enough times for it to become part of my subconscious and it's changed the way I look at color more than I can explain. (photographer here)

edit: warning... its fucking expensive. but worth it

It's from this book: https://www.amazon.com/Doodle-Fusion-Zifflins-Coloring-Book/dp/1517376912

Neil Armstrong tripping on the moon (I'm aware moonboots aren't laced)

> One small step for [a] man... ohsi...


Lee Harvey Oswald tripping in the depository and JFK inciting Russia into a nuclear war resulting in a fallout-style wasteland...


William Perkin failing to create the color Mauve and the ramifications of that decision...

Think of the famous scene in Norma Rae when the textile worker, played by Sally Field, shuts down her machine and, standing up on it, trips and fails to convince all her fellow workers to strike because she lost her credibility.

Trotsky: "If neither Lenin nor I had been present in Petersburg, there would have been no October Revolution." Lenin trips on shoelace, breaks a leg, misses Petersburg trip, rendering Oswald's shoelace redundant.

Google "One man changes the course of history" and then replace the last part of the sentence with "but trips and doesn't" then extrapolate the consequences.

I used to be exactly like you back in high school. You have the raw talent, now you need to pair that with an education on art fundamentals. These fundamentals exist irregardless of medium, so you can practice with just your doodles. The main fundamentals are anatomy, color and light, perspective, and composition. In your case, I recommend buying a book on proper figure drawing. You have really cool ideas, so you just need to nail the proportions. This was the first book I read on the subject, and I fount it really helpful. If you want more after that, Andrew Loomis and Bridgeman are the some of the other classic figure drawing educators. As for the other fundamentals, ctrlpaint.com is a probably one of the best free resources, and as for books, here's one I would recommend that covers all the essentials. Again, if you want to take your art to the next level, whether it be just doodles or digital art, it's all about dem fundamentals. Best of luck!

Mauve was the first synthetic dye, created in the 1850's. It was totally by accident, the inventor was trying to create a cure for malaria, I think. But the color became a instant fashion craze, and everyone had to have it. It set off a real race among the chemical companies to create new colors and dyes. There's a book about it and the chemistry revolution it started off: Mauve

This one mang!
https://www.amazon.com/Dapper-Animals-Coloring-Design-Originals/dp/1574219588

This one I really want! I've gotten a couple like it (pinwheel designs & folk art) & they are awesome to do when you're stressed out or anxious or just feel like coloring! I've almost finished the pinwheel design one I have!

Thank you for the contest c:

I LOVE MY INNER CHILD!

I received this scratch art book recently and it’s a perfect thoughtless way to relax! I highly recommend one for anyone.

Found this on Amazon! I saw another little on here get another version of it so I went searching.

I recommend this instead.

I don't actually have much of an online presence. (I'm blessed with a steady stream of commissions.... So I've never really needed it)

Should you be interested in checking out my coloring book, it's called "Knotty Words: A Crass Celtic Coloring Book."

Here is a link

https://www.amazon.com/Knotty-Words-Crass-Celtic-Coloring/dp/1945218002/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539805513&sr=8-1-fkmr1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=naughty+words+a+Crass+Celtic

tokidoki Coloring Book Here ya go, I am like 99.9% sure this is the one I have!

There are so many. Here is a well-written, easy to read introductory book for some of them:

https://www.amazon.com/Know-Your-Onions-Creative-Businessman/dp/9063692587

So this should give you a good introductory to PS colouring while also moving up to some basic professional techniques, and I use one of these for my tablet.

The Wacom Bamboo series is affordable and really great to start with. There's a learning curve if you're coming from tangible media, but it's something you get used to.

I love to color! It takes me out of my stress and into the world of whatever I am coloring. :P

I love to color while listening to these guys!