I have to ashamely say that I read this book at Kinokuniya book store, after a failed attempt to look for a sketch book this afternoon.

If you look at the cover, the part where the stick man stands, is the dip, the period when beginner’s luck has run out, when things are going tough, when many call it a quit, and cause you to be scarce if you stay on – which is a good thing – and when you persevere and take the right steps to ride through the storm, that’s when you your efforts will pay off again and the dip turns upside down.

I’m not sure if I’m getting lazy, but nowadays I started to have a good impression with thin books. This book will help you to analyse your current situation, if you are in the dip or in a cul de sac, if you should stay on or if you should call it a quit.

Advocating that successful people are not the ones who don’t quit, but also those who know when to quit. It is alright to call it a quit, the idea is not to waste time and resources on things that will not work, but to focus on areas that will work.

Something that I can relate to as a young startup, and it also reminds me of my hurdle in relationship.

Just managed to grab a copy of The Art of Start by Guy Kawasaki.

After a long day, before bed, I picked up the book, and read the first few lines, a quote by Halford E. Luccock. I thought it is quite enlightening, though confusing at first.

Many years ago Rudyard Kipling gave an address at McGill University in Montreal. He said one striking thing which deserves to be remembered. Warning the students against an over-concern for money, or position, or glory, he said: “Some day you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are.”

– Halford E. Luccock

I saw this book when I was hanging out in library@orchard. It was displayed on top of a bookshelf. The colours of the book cover were so vibrant and eye-catching that it was hard to ignore; they justify the book title, Colour Management. Judging a book from its cover, I trusted this book to be a good one. I have just finished reading it and I am not disappointed.

I don’t have have a graphic-design degree, thus I had not seriously studied about colours. My colour judgement was merely from my gut, feeling and common sense. So this book is the first one that seriously exposed me to the amazing world of colours. Seriously…be forwarned, this book is really serious about colours.

What I like about this book is, it starts with basics, the colour jargons (okay, may be not really basics, as some of the terms may still be hard to be visualized by beginners), then it goes deep into the topics, and the authors would also repeat some the important points again, so that we will remember.

For a start, you are thrown with the terminology of colour for 82 pages. Then it gets serious about basic colour theories, the creation of colour wheels, colour readability and legibility, colour calibration and overprinting, colour prepress and printing and the last chapter, the behavioural effects of colour.

When I finished reading this book, not only I understood more about colours, but I also felt like I was ready to perform a minor eye surgery. I learned how our eyes interpret colours, starting from the light, going through the cornea, then through the pupil and the iris, and straight into the retina, sending signals to the rods and cones, and finally interpreted by fovea and triggering signals to our brain for the visual interpretation.

Holy cow, I wasn’t even sure the difference between pupil and iris before that. It also teaches you about analogous colours, complimentary colours, harmonious colours, tinting, shading, scaling, split complementary, monochromatic, achromatic, the colour theories (substractive, additive and 3-D), colour temperature, colour mixing, colour toning, the list goes on.

Since it covers so much details, this book may not be so suitable for beginners, but it’s definitely a serious book for designers, be it web, product, environmental or fashion designers, or any nuts like me who would like to get serious about colours.

p.s. The extra explanations, diagrams, and examples on the bottom third of each page are really useful.