Color Scheme
In 2021, Princeton Architectural Press published my first book, Color Scheme: An Irreverent History of Art and Pop Culture in Color Palettes.
THERE’S A COPY FOR YOU AT:
• Bookshop
• Books Are Magic
• Amazon
• Amazon/Book Depository (International)
• Indigo (for Canadians)
• Your local bookstore!
Change the way you see color forever in this dazzling collection of color palettes spanning art history and pop culture, and told in writer and artist Edith Young's accessible, inviting style.
From the shades of pink in the blush of Madame de Pompadour's cheeks to Prince's concert costumes, Color Scheme decodes the often overlooked color concepts that can be found in art history and visual culture. Edith Young's forty color palettes and accompanying essays reveal the systems of color that underpin everything we see, allowing original and, at times, even humorous themes to emerge. Color Scheme is the perfect book for anyone interested in learning more about, or rethinking, how we see the world around us.
“My first job out of college was as a lowly assistant to the formidable fashion editor Diana Vreeland at Harper’s Bazaar. I heard the daily pronouncements about color that Edith mentions in her fascinatingly researched book. How thrilling it is to look at and study color, wherever we find it, and to realize that this formerly abstract and overlooked aspect of our lives is actually a source of power and joy, all around us, everywhere. This book is a brilliant surprise, and I recommend it highly.”
—ALI MACGRAW, actress, Love Story
"Edith Young’s glorious color palettes turn an art historian’s eye toward the colorful world around us—hairdos and costumes, paintings and backdrops. I love seeing what Edith sees, and this gorgeous book is a delight for all of us who like our lessons to be as whimsical and fun as they are studious and brilliant.”
—EMMA STRAUB, author of All Adults Here and owner of Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, New York
“This is art history looked at through an idiosyncratic, inquisitive, and highly personal lens. I’ve laughed my way through this book, and one thing is for sure: I’ll never look at any painting (or ice skating costume, for that matter), in the same way again.”
—LUKE EDWARD HALL, artist, designer, and columnist
"As someone who’s been criticized for wearing clashing colors, Edith Young’s beautifully written and gorgeous Color Scheme is a revelation and wake-up call. Young takes the reader on an amazing journey through color in the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, Dennis Rodman’s hair, David Hockney’s swimming pools, Etel Adnan’s suns, and elsewhere. After reading this breathtaking book, I look at the world differently, seeing colors—really seeing them—as I’ve never seen them before."
—DAVID SHEFF, author of the #1 New York Times best-selling memoir Beautiful Boy
“Color Scheme—like Edith Young herself—is absolutely delightful. I have always found art history a bit intimidating: What if I have the wrong opinion? What if I’m interpreting this incorrectly? What if I don’t ‘get’ it? Color Scheme waves all that nonsense away and welcomes you into the dinner party. (Speaking of which, I have the sneaking suspicion that having read this book will make me a far more interesting person to sit next to at dinner parties.)”
—AMELIA DIAMOND, coauthor of Body Talk
"[In] Edith Young's Color Scheme, the color palette becomes a vehicle to examine art history, popular culture, and the artist's own professional and artistic development....The primary allure...is Young’s artwork and methodology, but the writing, at times both humorous and sophisticated, will get you to stay."
—THE BROOKLYN RAIL
"Her palettes are funny, surprising, and extremely satisfying to behold."
—BLACKBIRD SPYPLANE
"Accompanied by witty, whimsical essays (and CMYK values), Edith Young abstracts the shades of, inter alia, Frans Hals’s ruff collars, all the yellow bills in John Audubon’s Birds of America and Prince’s concert outfits. Just my typology!”
—THE WORLD OF INTERIORS
"Color Scheme encapsulates the ethos of data visualization, making the unknowable, the overlooked, visible, all while presenting data in a captivating and enlightening way."
—NIGHTINGALE, JOURNAL OF THE DATA VISUALIZATION SOCIETY
"Edith Young’s new book—Color Scheme: An Irreverent History of Art and Pop Culture in Color Palettes—is a small wonder of incredible moments, equal parts art history and paradigm-shifting invention....If you love color, this book will speak directly to your soul."
—DESIGN MILK
“Color Scheme is a brilliant, smart examination of how we think about color, how material medium informs color, and how these ideas have changed over time…. Each palette is its own historical moment of collecting, cataloging, and considering. Color Scheme is short, pithy, and fundamentally challenges how readers think about and internalize the colors that surround them.”
—GLASSTIRE
"Color Scheme acts as both coffee table book (due to its brilliant, clean, and perfectly minimal/maximal design) and historical retelling of color palettes’ iconic moments in pop culture history—from Pete Davidson’s Weekend Update shirts to Tonya Harding’s figure skating costumes. It’s witty, it’s whimsical..."
—SELF MAGAZINE
”Mixed with anecdote, analysis, and occasional notes on her methodology, Color Scheme is a fun and innovative deconstruction of art and design through the lens of color.”
—PRINT Magazine
"The book goes both deeper and broader in its references—think: the title cards of the second season of SNL (1976-1977) and Dennis Rodman’s hair dye “in chronological order over the course of his NBA career”—and includes insightful and extensively researched essays to accompany them. It’s a fun way to reframe how we see and experience color in our everyday lives."
—GOSSAMER
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