: Sources for Color Theory or Psychology of Color Does anyone have a recommendation for a good book/blog/forum that focuses on design principles such as psychology of color, specifically where it

@Alves566

I can see these on my shelf from where I sit. I have more; but, these references will cover most casual questions superficially, at least. The first four cover psychological aspects with some cultural references. No applied knowledge, though. The rest are more colour theory oriented —Different theories.


The Symbol Sourcebook (the short colour section in the back), by
Dreyfus
Color & Human Response, by Birren (or anything by Faber Birren)
The Luscher Color Test, by Luscher
Principles of Visual Perception, Bloomer
Color And Its Reproduction, by Field
Color Primer 1 & 2 by Zakia, Todd
Vision & Art, by Livingstone
The Eye, Torstar Books
The Optics Handbook, Optical Society of America
Principles of Color Design, by Wong
Colour Mixing By Numbers, by Hickethier
The Interaction of Color, by Albers
A Grammar of Color, by Munsell
The Elements of Color, by Itten
The Colour Primer, by Ostwald
Principles of Color, by Birren
The Contrast of Colors, by Marx

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@Speyer780

I really enjoy the Colors on the Web website on Color Theory and their Color Wizard. It makes color theory and picking colors for the web more fun. It's also very useful.


Colors on the Web Color Wizard
Web Canvas Art School has a really thorough 16-part series on Color Theory for free.
Handprint has a Modern Color Theory website that is pretty good.
Check out Color Matters

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@Sims5801359

A classic website that you may have already come across is colourlovers.com - it has a good blog featuring articles that may be of interest. Another great feature is the user contributed pallets for everyday pieces of work (magazines, posters, fashion catalogues).

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@Frith110

Two perception psychology books i recommend :


Colin Ware, Visual thinking, for design.
Stephen Kosslyn, Graph design for the eye and mind.

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@Cugini998

You asked for a specific book, but my recommendation is to buy a book written by someone from the culture you are targeting.

Color perception varies from culture to culture. If you use the advise from an US author and you are targeting Russian people, there will be a mismatch.

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@Murray976

This is a valuable resource for quickly summarizing different meanings of colours across different cultures. We often forget that in different countries a colour can mean something quite different!

Colours in Culture Visualization

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@Cofer715

Smashing Magazine did a 3-part series last year on Color Theory. You might find it relevant:


Part 1: The Meaning of Color
Part 2: Understanding Concepts And Terminology
Part 3: Creating Your Own Color Palettes

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@Goswami567

I recently wrote an article on my website, How To Choose A Color Scheme For Your Website, that compiles a list of the most useful tools and resources I could find on color theory and color psychology. It also provides a sample workflow for choosing a color scheme. While it's geared for websites and web apps, it could be applied to any type of design work.

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