Gives you great combinations, layed out in themes. Very easy to use. Plus has exact CMYK/RBG numbers so you can type in the numbers and get the exact colors as the book. Great for painters, designers, artists, or anyone using colors for thier products or home. You can even use it on Microsoft Paint!

Usually, I don't write reviews, but in this case, I had to.
As a graphic designer, when I get recommendation for a book, I always keep in mind who gave it to me. That is why I bought this book. It is recommended by HOW Design magazine. But when I opened the book, compared the colors in it to the Pantone swatches, I was unpleasantly surprised. The colors are WAY OFF from what they should look like. It might have good ideas about colors, but when I realized the quality of this book is low, it turned me off.

If you are a professional who works with Pantone book, DON'T buy this book. I am very disappointed, especially because "HOW" graphic design magazine is the ones who publish this book.

I admit, I was skeptical at first. Just a bunch of color combinations with RGB and CMYK formulas? Heck, I could do that. So I thought. Now I'm totally hooked on it. It's INCREDIBLY helpful for coming up with color combinations for brochures, ads, promo materials, web design, you name it. Pantone swatches are nice, but they don't include suggestions for color combinations by an excellent designer.

I love the way the book is set up, with everything from intense colors to muted ones. It really helps with ideas, and saves a lot of time. Jim's a great designer - very creative and funny and humble. He can make a very complex thing seem simple - GREAT book, highly recommended!

I am not a designer. It was only after I bought this that I realized I was really looking for inspiration (for clothing and interior). The color index contains a lot of color combinations, but presented in a way that did not work for me. Somehow all the color combinations look boring, perhaps because there are many similar color combinations packed together on small pages, with tiny images. For my purposes, "A Book of Colors" by Shigenobu Kobayashi was better. It contains less color combinations and no rgb values, but there are less very similar combinations on a single page, and the images are slightly bigger. The result is more inspiring to me. So the color index is not for everyone.

The Color Index along with its siblings are by far the most referenced handbook in my collection. I use this in conjunction with my Pantone books. The possibilities are endless. No shelf should be without it!