Very hard to read book on a digital device. Formatting was off. I tried in three devices. This book should only be offered as a physical book. I’m

This is one of those books as someone not trained in design or graphics I wonder where it's been in my life. Why? I interact with colour daily in my work both as a hand knitting designer and working with technology clients. Colour doesn't come easily to me, I profer muted monochromatic options. This helps me to break free of that mold and also provide guidance to those technology clients who really want to combine colours I find garish. I definitely appreciated the section on colour theory. While I come across these frequently, I appreciated how huge, saturation, and colour are explained and how one then moves into building colour schemes from my beloved monochromatic to others.
While I don't have experience with the prior edition, I appreciate the addition of a fifth colour, each palette includes light, bright, dark, and muted options, and the print size is physically larger. Does this title survive in our app driven world? YES! I like that the patterns are not always the same and that they are sized to show how the colours interact in pattern.
This is a title I am thankful to have discovered through requesting a review copy and I hope to include a copy on my reference bookshelf soon.

I was lucky enough to review two new color inspiration books this month, Color Index XL by Jim Krause, and The Complete Color Harmony , Pantone Edition by Leatrice Eiseman.

"Color Index XL” is a collection of hundreds of five color palettes ranging from warm, to mixed, to cool, each with four versions ranging from bright to muted. CMYK and RGB codes are provided. There is an additional short section on color theory.

“The Complete Color Harmony, Pantone Edition” provides a more organic approach to color moods, along with a collection of two and three color palettes. Pantone codes are provided.

I’m a fiber artist, working primarily in knitting yarns, and am always looking for inspiration. Both of these books were useful working tools.

I reviewed the books in e-book form, and really enjoyed flipping through the different palettes and waiting for one of them to “sing” to me. I particularly liked the format of “Color Index” for its full page layouts. The tone of “Color Harmony” was playful and entertaining, if rather more of the book was dedicated to color marketing than I found useful.

This review applies only to the Advance copy of the title for the Kindle.

Although I am sure the author knows his stuff, this book was so badly formatted by the publisher and incomplete that it was totally useless. The point of the book, as stated by the author, was to give many five-color palettes to the reader in an extra-large format to make them easy to use.

Guess the publisher did not get the memo because only about 1% of the palettes show up and those that do are so tiny that they are useless. They cannot be expanded. So they are useless, you see more definition on a small postage stamp.

Instead we are treated to page after page of numbers, such as "M-20." I presume these to refer to colors in his basic palette but I wouldn't know because those pictures are missing as well.

Things are slightly better in the text introduction where more of the pictures show up. These are almost as tiny and only marginally useful.

If you are thinking of buying this book, do not buy the Kindle version.

I would recommend this book for new artists/designers, just starting out, as well as seasoned artists finding themselves struggling with creating color palettes.

I found the book very valuable for its use of color combinations.

Informative book on the use of colors, hues etc. Complete detail on all types of palettes. A must have for all artists, decorators, and anyone who has an interest on how color works.

I'm an artist and color is my *biggest* inspiration and jumping off point. This is a fantastic book of color palettes- and only color palettes. They are laid out in an easy to access grid format and it's easy to dip in and out of the pages and find colors to suit whatever it is you need.

Color is a really subjective and temporal thing, and so a lot of the color palette books out there can seem "off" or even dated by the time they are published, but I found Color Index XL more on the "classic" side, meaning the color palettes represented are not necessarily trendy, but more one that will work no matter the season or trends.

Highly recommended.

Very helpful and informative. Easy to understand layout. I was really impressed with this book and will use it in my work!

Great resource for many types of art. I will use it mostly in my knitting pattern design work.

This is not a book for an amateur but could be useful for designers and artists looking to produce digital art for example or graphic designs corresponding CMYK values could be useful .Thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.