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Alex Jones

I lead teams at the intersection of strategy and design. Autodidact. Polymath. Barbecue acolyte. I start fires (the good kind).

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The Grammar of Ornament

I received some excellent books for my birthday this year, including The Grammar of Ornament, a stunning mixture of design knowledge, history and inspiration. The book, first printed in the middle of the 19th century, discusses a wide swath of ornamental styles and design from a wide array of sources and eras, including ancient Byzantinium, Greece, and Egypt, Imperial China and the European Renaissance.

While I have already spent a lot of time flipping pages, marvelling at the color reproductions, I have also started reading the book from cover to cover, just as I do with any other history source. The Grammar of Ornament provides an amazing opportunity to learn more about the history of those design elements we see throughout our day. All the better that it proves to be a great fount of ideas, even for those of us who design for an electronic medium.

Color Index

One of the greatest things about sharing a love of design with Sarah, is the fact that we share various books, sites and creative inspiration on a daily basis. She was kind enough to get me Color Index for my birthday, which provides 1100 color combinations with their RGB and CMYK values. I absolutely love the power that this book, alongside the Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color provide. I have come to discover color combinations that would never have occurred to me, yet prove to be exactly what I need for a specific project. It can be hard to move beyond favorite colors or combinations without some visual inspiration. A quick flip through the pages of this book solves that problem!

Pantone Guide to Communicating with Color

Leatrice Eiseman has put together a beautiful guide to color usage that is useful to designers and non-designers alike. While it discusses color theory and the connotations of specific colors, I find its strength lies in the color combinations and the way they are categorized.

Many projects requires a solid color set, to convey a specific tone (subdued, traditional, unique…) – a daunting task while staring at a blank screen. Yet, easily solved by flipping through the book and choosing a few color sets for application within a layout.

For non-designers, this book is just as useful in other areas, including paint choices (why stick with boring wall colors?), and I would assume, fashion.

While this book has much in common with Color Index, I think of them as complimentary to each other, as opposed to redundant.