Rating: 
Summary: An Indispensable, Entertaining Aid to All Artists
Review: In this companion volume to THE DESIGNER'S GUIDE TO COLOR COMBINATIONS, author/editor Leslie Cabarga has outdone himself; yet, the book is so spectacularly beautiful, witty and fun, that the reader may not initially comprehend just what an colossally ambitious work it is. Cabarga spent 19 months traveling the globe collecting color swatches from an enormous "database" of human tribes, countries and civilizations; rarely fine art, mind you, but the work of craftsmen and women plying their native trades... Cabarga winnowed down his collection to a few which might most closely represent the "inner colors" of a particular nation or people...
It's worth buying this book alone just to study the deep, soulful, mysterious green the Pakistanis cherish. Those already familiar with Cabarga's democratic and catholic (and witty) color eye know that he sees as much charm in a cheap, tacky Chinese toy label as he does beauty in a shimmering, transcendant Tibetan religious painting. Mr. Cabarga has reached that deliciously opportune time in his life and career in which he both thoroughly knows the history of the Old-Old-Old School... yet he is as bleeding-edge Hip-- or Hipper-- than anyone reading the book. (One is tempted to draw a comparison to a Leonard Bernstein and his Young People's Concerts.) Mr. Cabarga is every bit the graphic art genius that R.Crumb is-- but with a more humane and loving pen-- and this book solidifies him as one of our national treasures. Artists of every stripe will benefit from the text and color swatches within this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty, but not helpful
Review: The first in this series was a marvelous reference book. This one, however, seems more of an excuse for the author to "write" rather than illustrate color usage. The examples in the book are adequate, but not as comprehensive of a treatment of the various geographical locations represented as one would like. The commentary is superfluous and at times irritating. Not a bad reference for color combo inspiration, but overall disappointing and does not live up to its predecessor.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty, but not helpful
Review: The first in this series was a marvelous reference book. This one, however, seems more of an excuse for the author to "write" rather than illustrate color usage. The examples in the book are adequate, but not as comprehensive of a treatment of the various geographical locations represented as one would like. The commentary is superfluous and at times irritating. Not a bad reference for color combo inspiration, but overall disappointing and does not live up to its predecessor.
Rating:
Summary: Global Color
Review: This book looks beautiful and does have many color combinations to inspire. I was disappointed by the lack of information on the background of why the countries covered would favor the colors they do. Also, Canada was not covered and sarcasm written about their tardy submission-so all Canadians should suffer because of this? The book would be useful if you have a number of color references already as this uses a different approach.
Rating:
Summary: Eyecandy of great inspirational and practical value.
Review: This is the second volume, following The Designer's Guide To Color Combination. I own both and regularly browse them, just for pleasure or for practical use. For artists, designers and the general public interested in color combinations, this marvellous book offers a cross cultural approach to the use of color. Each page depicts an artists piece, which may be paintings, illustration or fabric, with a small description and why the color use is interesting. The main colors in the piece are then broken down into CMYK and RGB values. (For non computer artists: this means the values you have to type in graphic software to get the colors depicted). And if all this is not enough, there is also a second example on each page with a variation on the palette of the main piece, but with the main colors structured in a different way, which may give another mood. Add to each page, even more creatieve variations on the main piece, and you get an enormous amount of color combinations. However, this book will not teach you color theory. The author takes a intuitive subjective approach which does not go any further than 'this is eye catching'. But when you are from the school 'I don't mind about the theory, just show me the pictures', this book is simply the best you can get. If there is one negative thing I could say about this book: because the RGB and CMYK values are given for each piece it would be even more practical for computer users to add a cd, so they could straight away add all the palettes as files to their graphic software. Apart from this: this is book which you'll browse and browse again.
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