ROY G. GIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color by Jude Stewart. Design by Oliver Munday. Buy now: http://www.amazon.com/ROY-G-BIV-Exceedingly-Surprising/dp/1608196135/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364581531&sr=1-2&keywords=roy+g.+biv
Color mavens, I’m busting my buttons with pride as I announce that my first book, ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color, is now available for pre-order via Amazon and elsewhere on the web. You’ll get it in your hot little hands in mid-September, but you can stuff your future with colorful mailbox joy now by placing an early order.
As its name suggests, the fully illustrated chapters of ROY G. BIV follow the colors of the rainbow, unearthing surprising facts, stories and lore about color drawn from many disciplines. Why did the British paint warships pink for a brief and giddy period during WWII? Did a particular shade of green wallpaper actually kill Napoleon? Why are pencils or taxicabs yellow? Why are barns almost always red? And what’s the average color of the universe? (Astronomers tussled over that one—first it was turquoise, but later, anticlimactically, it changed to beige.) Whatever your curiosity about color, this book will feed it while opening your eyes to a teeming array of surprises in this very democratic topic.
This book was gorgeously illustrated, inside and out, by Oliver Munday, a Print New Visual Artist rock star in 2010 and more recently featured in our February 2013 issue in a super-casual, Foosball-inflected studio tour. Munday’s designs feature all the wit, sensitivity and innate feel for color that one could ever hope for in a project like this. Feast your eyes indeed!
HOW Design Live 2013, http://www.howdesignlive.com
I’ll also be speaking at the 2013 HOW Design Conference in San Francisco—you’re attending, of course? (You’d be crazy to miss it. This annual event is a must for designers across the nation. In fact, here are some reasons you can use to convince your boss to pay for it.) I’ll look forward to filling our collective brains with color’s strangeness, variety and fun on Tuesday June 25th from 2 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. You’re also welcome to join me for the Lunch with a Speaker series, too.
Pattern Power: Superstripe, April 6-21, http://londonewcastle.com/arts-programme/events/2013-04-06/pattern-power-superstripe/
I’ll back next month with more goodies on color and pattern, including Pattern Power: Superstripe, a restless, ambitious exhibit and panel discussion in Londonewcastle with our pals at Patternity (check out Imprint’s Q&A with surface designers Patternity a few months back). Prepare to be dazzled with stripey-ness in April!