The Designer's Guide to Global Color Combinations: 750 Color Formulas in CMYK and RGB from Around the World [Hardcover]

Leslie Cabarga (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

Following up on the popular Designer's Guide to Color Combinations, this book is certain to be an endless source of ideas and instruction for designers, illustrators and creative professionals in all fields. It features original designs from various regions around the world and examines their use of type and color. From Africa and Asia to Europe and the Middle East, readers will find dozens of fascinating pieces on display. Each design is carefully analyzed to show how and why it "works." The author also makes recommendations about which colors' should be used for type, border, background, etc. These suggestions, along with exact CMYK and RGB percentages for each design, will save designers much valuable time should they choose to incorporate the featured color combinations into their own work - a huge benefit for this audience.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Designer and illustrator Cabarga taps into the vast possibilities of color by presenting color combinations in eight sections, based on geographic regions. This volume is essentially an anthology of different types of art from around the world, illustrated throughout with examples of web sites, packages, posters, paintings, and architectural elements that show how different regions use color to reflect their cultures and identities. Much of the book is anecdotal, and the writing is not a strong point, its purpose being more practical than theoretical. Postage stamp-sized color designs accompany the artwork to demonstrate alternative uses of the color palettes found in the art on each page. There are also keys with 750 "process" (CMYK) and on-screen (RGB) formulas. With so many visual assets, this book is a valuable resource and time saver that will be useful for graphic designers. It may not be appropriate for libraries with very limited collections Johannes Itten's The Elements of Color (1970) should be the first color book in any collection but it does take a new approach to organizing the material. Dorion Beach, Turner & Assoc., San Francisco
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Leslie Cabarga is an illustrator, designer and author whose clients include Rolling Stone. Time, HBO, Sony America and the New York Times. He has also written numerous books on graphic design and is the recipient of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 175 pages
• Publisher: How Design Books (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581801955
• ISBN-13: 978-1581801958
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #895,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

For most of his life, Leslie Cabarga considered himself not so much a writer but as an illustrator and graphic designer. Yet his very first book, The Fleischer Story (a history of the Max Fleischer animation studio) was published when he was 19 years old, several years before he would become one of the most popular illustrators in New York. Leslie went on to write and/or edit over 40 books, ranging from clip art collections for Dover publications to the ever popular Logo, Font & Lettering Bible, the only manual showing how to create lettering from scratch in the digital age. But he also produced the channeled book, "Talks with Trees," which has been gaining popularity over the past 10 years. Leslie likes to take subjects (such as the Max Fleischer cartoons, and lettering and font creation) and produce the "last word" on each subject. As he says, "It's mostly just to get these topics out of my system so I can move on." And move on he has! As amazon reader reviews of his Lettering "Bible" attest, the humor throughout the instructional text is part of what makes this book so enjoyable. "So I decided to move away from design topics and go for the humor--along with a bit of forward-looking social commentary," Leslie says. The result is the recently-published "We Hold These Truths," the story of what happens when a Truth Bomb drops on the world and people everywhere are compelled to live their truths. The book is as profoundly compelling as it is amusing. Like the book "Trees," We Hold These Truths is a channeled book that Leslie first began "receiving" more than 15 years ago. The contrast between design and spirit channeling is not so far apart, for as Leslie says, "Artists are seekers of truth. We are always questioning ourselves--why should it be this way rather than that? Where is the truth in this statement? The best artists are often those who willingly subject themselves to the most unmerciful critiques of their own creations." And," he says, "my body of work in the graphics field shows that there's nothing airy-fairy about us channelers. Actually, I'm a very down-to-earth guy." Indeed, Leslie tells us he's got another dozen or so books in planning stages on subjects ranging from health and nutrition to human sexuality. Which brings up Leslie's latest book, "Topless Summer Love Girls; A Gentleman's Guide to Women, Relationships & Breasts." It is a book that looks seriously tat men's issues while at the same time satirizing men's obsessions.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Indispensable, Entertaining Aid to All Artists, November 1, 2001

By 

david lincoln brooks (boerne, tx United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Designer's Guide to Global Color Combinations: 750 Color Formulas in CMYK and RGB from Around the World (Hardcover)

In this companion volume to THE DESIGNER'S GUIDE TO COLOR COMBINATIONS, author/editor Leslie Cabarga has outdone himself; yet, the book is so spectacularly beautiful, witty and fun, that the reader may not initially comprehend just what an colossally ambitious work it is. Cabarga spent 19 months traveling the globe collecting color swatches from an enormous "database" of human tribes, countries and civilizations; rarely fine art, mind you, but the work of craftsmen and women plying their native trades... Cabarga winnowed down his collection to a few which might most closely represent the "inner colors" of a particular nation or people...
It's worth buying this book alone just to study the deep, soulful, mysterious green the Pakistanis cherish. Those already familiar with Cabarga's democratic and catholic (and witty) color eye know that he sees as much charm in a cheap, tacky Chinese toy label as he does beauty in a shimmering, transcendant Tibetan religious painting. Mr. Cabarga has reached that deliciously opportune time in his life and career in which he both thoroughly knows the history of the Old-Old-Old School... yet he is as bleeding-edge Hip-- or Hipper-- than anyone reading the book. (One is tempted to draw a comparison to a Leonard Bernstein and his Young People's Concerts.) Mr. Cabarga is every bit the graphic art genius that R.Crumb is-- but with a more humane and loving pen-- and this book solidifies him as one of our national treasures. Artists of every stripe will benefit from the text and color swatches within this book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Keeps getting better, April 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Designer's Guide to Global Color Combinations: 750 Color Formulas in CMYK and RGB from Around the World (Hardcover)

As a big fan of Leslie Cabarga's first book on color combinations, I found this one even better. Not only are the combinaitons vibrant and interesting as well as quite practical , the colors are now shown in both RGB and CMYK formulas. Those of us who work in the world of computer colors, especially the Internet where values are expressed as 6-digit hexadecimal numbers divided into RGB, this addition was quite helpful.

Cabarga's running commentary is clearly uncensored, and you can tell what the author has on his mind regarding the different examples of color combinaitons. The introduction to the book is a good cultural primer on colors from different places, most of which the author traveled to gather examples of interesting color combinaitons.

Like the first book, this one has many lessons not only in color combinations but in color arrangement. By juxtaposing the same color combinaitons in different arrangements, the reader can quickly see what appear to be different combinations but in fact are just different arrangements of the same combinations.

Finally, the best thing about this book is that it makes it easy for me to copy a color combination I like. I don't spend hours or even days agonizing over color combinations. I just go through ths book (or Cabarga's first one) and pick a combination I like and then I use it. It saves me time, it looks good, and I've got enough to do.

I can't imagine anyone looking for a good book on using color going wrong with this gem.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for any visual artist, November 18, 2002

By 

whiteshadow (Southern CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Designer's Guide to Global Color Combinations: 750 Color Formulas in CMYK and RGB from Around the World (Hardcover)

Along with its companion book in the series - The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations, The Designer's Guide to "Global" Color Combinations forms an essential reference for any visual artist or print publisher. I recommend these books to my students for their concept, storyboarding, color design, and animation layout work.

Each page breaks down a period, era, or style, and analyzes its color makeup with color and contrast swatches, CMYK data for each color, and a series of various combinations that are possible using the specified palette.

An artist could spend hours testing and comparing colors. Or they could look through these pages and find a color scheme in minutes.