Chromorama How Colour Changed Our Way of Seeing

By: Riccardo Falcinelli

Published by Penguin Books, Limited, 2025-08-28

The new colour bible: a gorgeously illustrated exploration of colour and the modern gaze, from an award-winning designer

'One of the best books on colour I've read. A layered tapestry of stories, insights and ideas, each beautifully and clearly written. For anyone interested in colour, it's a must' Marion Deuchars

Why are pencils yellow and white goods white? Why is black the colour of mourning? What connects Queen Victoria's mauve gown and Michelle Obama's yellow dress?

In Chromorama, acclaimed graphic designer Riccardo Falcinelli delves deep into the history of colour to show how it has shaped the modern gaze. With over four hundred illustrations throughout and with examples ranging widely across art and culture - from the novels of Gustave Flaubert to The Simpsons, from Byzantine jewellery to misshapen fruit, from Mondrian to Hitchcock's thrillers - Falcinelli traces the evolution of our long relationship with colour, and how first the industrial revolution, and then the dawn of the internet age, changed it forever.

Beautifully designed, deeply researched, and written with warmth and wit, Chromoroma is an engrossing account of shade and light, of tone and hue, of dyes, pigments, and pixels. It is the story of why we now see the world the way we do.