Jim Krause

This is my most borrowed book. By that I mean, my housemate Vallan comes and snatches it from my room on almost a weekly basis. But he does so because this book is genuinely awesome!

Rather than explain theory or even explain anything, this book is a series of color palettes that work. That can be frustrating. It's not a knowledge building book. It's a working book.

In the middle of a piece I'm working on, I pick up this book, flip to the sort of tone that I'm looking for (Active! Rich! show more Muted!). Then I find a color that I like on the outside margin, and find that color in a palette of two to four colors, and BAM! my piece is made all that much better with a sophisticated palette.

One day, I'll learn color theory and be able to know and see why certain colors work with others. Until then, it's almost silly to put this book back on my shelf. It's no more than a couple of days before I (or Vallan) pulls it back out again. show less

This little book is packed full of ideas, insights and suggestions geared towards designers who want to re-ignite their creativity. Much of the content reminded me of the kind of advice given to students or junior designers (“Just a friendly reminder: burnout is bad.” p. 225) but there was plenty of content that would benefit any creative person at any stage, such as several art project ideas and a reminder to “Invest in Yourself” artistically speaking “How far would your skills show more evolve if you made it a firm goal to shoot six dozen photographs per week? Dare you imagine?”

The presentation is quite appealing; each spread features a different design and plenty of illustrative material. Of course, as a designer myself, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the design seemed dated, but then the book came out in 2002—ancient history by design standards. For this reason I’ll be passing the book along to a fellow designer, though I did take some notes for future reference and also to keep a record of little gems like “Other careers suck too, but at least you get to use crayons” and also this bit of advice: “Consider making overachievement your routine” which reminds me all too clearly that having adopted that very attitude from the get-go was definitely a factor leading to my own burnout, which as we all know, “is a bad thing”. show less

Jim Krause starts off "Color Index XL" with a brief, informative introduction to color theory, which leads straight into almost 300 pages of palettes (4 palettes per page). The way he sections the palettes (warmer, mixed, and cooler palettes) makes it easy to sift through the book.

I personally see a lot of potential in this book as a great starting point while brainstorming new projects, but I can also see how this book would be useful in just about any step of the artistic process.

My only show more complaint about this handy palette guide is the four patterns Krause alternates between to lay out the colors for each palette. It's pretty to look at, but after more than half an hour my eyes start to hurt. I wish he stuck with one pattern per section of the book (warmer, mixed, cooler palettes), or maybe bigger shapes to lay out the patterns may have helped me here.

Overall, Jim Krause's "Color Index XL" is a very useful guide that I will surely be using regularly in my future projects.

http://hebrideshermit.blogspot.com/2017/11/an-extensive-palette-index.html show less

This is not your typical layout book! Essentially, this is an idea book for putting together brochures, posters, flyers, newsletters, page layouts, stationery, and even web design. It doesn't tell you "how" to do something - the projects are just presented, and as I skimmed through them, a stream of ideas came into my mind. It's a pocket-sized book (5 1/2 x 4 3/4") with a nice plastic cover, designed to be carried around. I bought it to use as an idea book for scrapbooking, and I haven't show more been disappointed - It has some wonderfully original art layouts. It also has a concise overview for each project which I found interesting. Next time I have to design a booklet or poster or flyer, etc. I would refer to this book first! show less