ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color

ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color
Jude Stewart

September 16th, 2013

Price: $10.80 (~~$22.00~~)

(as of 2013-09-16 17:00:20 PST)

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Literature & Fiction

Released: 2013-09-17

ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color by Jude Stewart

Description

Color is all around us every day. We use it to interpret the world—red means stop, blue means water, orange means construction. But it is also written into our metaphors, of speech and thought alike: yellow means cowardice; green means envy—unless you’re in Germany, where yellow means envy, and you can be “beat up green and yellow.”

Jude Stewart, a design expert and writer, digs into this rich subject with gusto. What color is the universe? We might say it’s black, but astrophysicists think it might be turquoise. Unless it’s beige. To read about color from Jude Stewart is to unlock a whole different way of looking at the world around us—and bringing it all vividly to life.

The book itself is organized around the rainbow and is lavishly designed, with cross-references that liven up each page. (Follow the thread of imperialism, for example, from the pink-colored colonies on maps of the British Empire to the green wallpaper that might have killed Napoleon.) A lovingly packaged, distinctive book, it will be the only one of its kind.

ROY G. BIV is a reference and inspiration for designers and artists, as well as a unique, beautiful, and irresistible book for just about anyone.

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Editoral Review

A brief Q&A with Jude Stewart, author of ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color.

1. What inspired you to create ROY G. BIV?

Jude Stewart: Color is a daily mystery we all swim in–yet it’s so ubiquitous, it becomes invisible. I wrote ROY G. BIV to reawaken our eyes to color, so we can see how startling and amazing this everyday phenomenon is.

2. How did you come up with the layout and look for the book?

JS: It’s impossible to write a complete book about an enormous subject like color. That’s why ROY G. BIV offers a satisfying read cover-to-cover, but also invites readers to leapfrog across colors, so you can pursue some thematic affinity connecting, say, blue and yellow. Color is dynamic; it’s witty; it’s serious but also endlessly fun. Hopefully this format makes readers feel as if they can play the book’s game of fascinating associations forever.

3. What color fact in ROY G. BIV surprised you the most?

JS: I’m a fan of the astronomers arguing about the average color of the universe; the surprising explanation for why brown isn’t in the rainbow; the many legends accounting for why barns are red; the material histories of color before synthetic dyes were invented, in which brilliant, rich, expensive pigments were produced from extremely stinky ingredients… oh, I’ll stop now.

4. Where does your love of color come from? Why do you love it?

JS: A big part of why I wrote ROY G. BIV was to figure out why I love color so much – and honestly, I haven’t touched bottom on that question yet. But if pressed to answer: I suppose I love how color brings out strong opinions, how it engages both our feelings and reason so intensely. Reacting to color can make us feel fully human.

5. As an expert in design, what are the any common color mistakes we all make?

JS: It’s a big mistake to play it too safe with your color palette–but then again, I recognize why people opt for safety. They’re afraid that going bolder will just look ugly–and it’s true, not every color experiment pans out.

Here’s an easy way to experiment with strong color: choose only one bold shade that really speaks to you and build your look around that. Say you like a deep saturated orange, for example. Stick with brown shoes and a belt and wear a scarf that includes that same shade of orange along with quieter colors. (If you’re decorating a living room, try a bold orange accent wall, bold orange details in throw pillows–but stick with a neutral-colored couch.) As you play with strong color more, you’ll get more confident about how to marry two exuberant shades.