Language of Colour

Theo van Leeuwen is Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney. He is author of An Introduction to Social Semiotics (2005), Reading Images (second edition, 2006) with Gunther Kress, and The Language of New Media Design (2008) with Radan Martinec, all published by Routledge.

• Selected Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Colour Meanings 3. Colour Systems 4. Colour Names 5. A Parametric Theory of Colour 6. Colour in Art and Architecture 7. Colour in Contemporary Life

"Theo van Leeuwen is one of the master teachers of visual communication, and his new book, The Language of Colour, goes beyond the usual sources in history and psychology to propose a social semiotics of color, providing concrete examples and exercises to dazzle the eye and the mind." Kevin G. Barnhurst, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA"Now more than ever colour is playing a central role in everyday communication, and, with this book, at long last, we have a systematic method for analyzing how people use colour for cultural expression and social communication. The framework presented here takes us beyond traditional approaches that simplistically map colour to meaning to a perspective that helps us to understand the socially situated and material aspects of colour as a semiotic mode. This book will be of great interest to students in a variety of disciplines from design to discourse analysis as well as anyone else interested in the ways we make meaning in our increasingly ‘technicolour’ world."Rodney Jones, City University of Hong Kong