Here at COLOURlovers we are absolutely in love with everything related to color and color theory. We recently posted the first part of our interview with the incredible and talented Jude Stewart, author of the new book ROY G. BIV. Her book delves into the exciting and wonderful world of color.
We had the chance to sit down with her an ask her some more questions about color and her new book.
What inspired you to write this book?
ROY G. BIV started as a magazine column for a now-defunct publication called STEP Inside Design. I pitched them the idea of an infographic-style column over two pages that would capture some of the quirkier anecdotes and facts I could amass about a given color. The premise for that column was pretty simple: since nobody is inventing new colors, graphic designers (like STEP’s readers) have to dig deep into the same colors to build brand-new color palettes for that next project. I wanted to give them fresh inspiration, reawaken their eyes, and jolt them into thinking differently about color, its meanings and associations.
That column ran for just over a year, but even as it ended I found I had lots of great material, and much more to say, around this topic of color. So I started noodling how to package the idea as a book. That posed new challenges: how do you write a satisfying (and finite) book about a potentially infinite topic like color? How do you trawl an ocean? I wanted to keep some of that non-linear, infographic-style freedom while still providing a book you could read cover-to-cover if you chose. I really love books that offer readers a compelling game, that press the boundaries of what we think books can be formally. After experimenting with a few formats, I hit upon this idea of organizing the chapters into single colors, but supplementing that clear, linear organization by sprinkling thematic cross-references throughout the text. So if you’re reading in the pink chapter about Mountbatten Pink, which the British briefly used to paint warships during WWII, you’re invited to hop to another anecdote about imperialism in color in the green chapter: an entry debating whether or not Napoleon was killed by his green, arsenic-soaked wallpaper.
How did you research this book?
I’d say the hardest part of researching the book was deciding when and how to stop. There’s simply tons of fascinating material out there about color, but you can’t own a zillion-page book. Ultimately I decided on a few rules-of-thumb that I explain in the book’s introduction. I didn’t see the point of listing every single meaning for the color red because really, what good is that? You’re going to forget most of that laundry list until there’s a gripping story attached to a particular meaning. So I focused on the best, juiciest stories connecting colors to various meanings – facts and anecdotes that caught my attention and sustained it, that felt like a revelation.
I also tried to tackle many big-picture color questions—Why is the sky blue? Why is pink for girls and blue for boys? Why do prisoners wear orange?— but I included only those explanations that involved a bang-up good story, one that would swim suddenly into focus the next time you encountered that color.
Who designed the cover?
I developed the book’s design concept with my dear friends Chrish Klose and Tine Gundelach, formerly of Studio Grau in Berlin. Chrish now runs a lovely bookbinding and paper-goods studio with her sister Jenny called Wednesday Paper Works. Because she was busy with this new venture, we turned the project over to a new designer, the amazing Oliver Munday. He took the project over the finish line while giving it a unique stamp of his own. I can’t imagine a stronger realization of this elusive idea than his.
What inspired you to select the specific quotes you feature in your book? Do you have a favorite?
I love so many of the color quotes, it’s tough to choose a favorite. I suppose I selected all of these because they make it clear how forceful people’s opinions can be about colors. Color is an incredibly strong topic that riles people up.
But it’s cheating if I don’t actually choose a favorite quote, right? Below are two of my favorites. I like how, as a pair, they express color’s dual nature: both a trick of perception, a cognitive phenomenon dependent on many factors, and as an emotional, visceral, swooning experience.
Color is an illusion, but not an unfounded illusion.
—C.L. Hardin, author of Color for Philosophers: Unweaving the Rainbow
Color is like a closing eyelid, a tiny fainting spell . . .
—Roland Barthes, French philosopher and cultural theorist
So, Jude now that we know a little bit about your book …Tell us about the woman behind the masterpiece.
Where are you from?
I’m originally from Philadelphia and have lived for long stretches in New York, Berlin, New Haven CT, and now Chicago.
When did you begin writing?
ROY G. BIV is my first full-length book on my own, but I do have other book projects. I translated Tales of the Danube, a book of fairy tales, from the German – that translation will be published later this year.
Who is your favorite author?
My favorite author is probably John McPhee. He’s a long-time New Yorker writing with a marvelously fine style, just perfect really. He’s written a book called Oranges that represents possibly my ideal of what’s beautiful and true in a great book. It started with a mundane premise: back in the 1960s, he wrote a magazine article about how frozen orange-juice concentrate was so popular it was eclipsing fresh-squeezed juice. So he trundled down to Florida to figure out how and why that could be true. Out of this fairly humdrum concept he unearths this extraordinary story spooling all around oranges: their history as a fruit, the lore surrounding them, the industries intertwined with them, how culture and fruit and color intersect in this humble food. It’s incredibly good.
What are you working on now?
I’m having my first baby, a boy named Lev Henry, in early August. A monster project in a pint-sized package! I’m also working on a second book project, a popular cultural history of graphic patterns like polka dots, camouflage, fleur de lis, et cetera. (We are pleased to announce that Jude gave birth to a healthy baby boy after this interview! Congratulations Jude!)
More about Jude Stewart
Jude Stewart writes frequently about design and culture for magazines including Slate, The Believer and Fast Company, among others. As a contributing editor for Print, she blogs twice monthly about color, patterns, and other design-related hilarities. Her book ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color is available now. She lives in Chicago.
