Colorist―A Practical Handbook for Personal and Professional Use

The Colorist seeks nothing less than to demystify color aesthetics. After three years of extensive travel and research, color specialist Shigenobu Kobayashi has devised a stunningly simple method for pinpointing personal color preferences. A series of clear-cut exercises allows you to accurately define your color sense and then locate it on an "image scale" in order to select compatible color schemes for home or office, or even wardrobe.

Next, Kobayashi illuminates the underpinnings of color in everyday and ornamental settings, revealing the hidden technique beneath each successful color scheme. He introduces a full range of colors for all moods and tastes, then presents eight psychological color types to assist you in putting your own color profile to practical use in the bedroom, den, playroom, or office.

With over 500 color photographs, 50 charts, and hundreds of sample "color-scale chips," the Colorist not only delivers a unique method of defining color sense but provides invaluable insights into the art of using color, making it an indispensable guide for home owners, decorators, artists, and designers-indeed, anyone who works with or enjoys color.

SHIGENOBU KOBAYASHI graduated from Hiroshima College of Technology and received his master's degree from Waseda University for his work in the field of color psychology. In 1966, he founded the Nippon Color & Design Research Institute (NCD) and has since become a leader in the field of color psychology. Kobayashi is the author of over 30 books on color in the Japanese language, with total sales in excess of 400,000 copies. Colorist is his third English-language publication, following A Book of Colors (1967) and Color Image Scale (1991). Kobayashi is also an active participant of the International Color Association (AIC) and a lecturer at the graduate school of the Musashi Institute of Technology.

THE NIPPON COLOR & DESIGN RESEARCH INSTUTUTE (NCD) acts as a color and design consultant firm to over 300 major Japanese corporations in fields as diverse as automobiles, home appliances, cosmetics, food, department stores, and home construction. Along with its theories on the psychology of color, the institute's Color Image Scale has been applied to numerous projects, and software based on the image scale has been developed.