If you are at all interested in design or art, enlighten yourself with one of the most important books on colour ever written. It’s called The Interaction of Color, and now you can experience it on your iPad.
The book was created by painter and Bauhaus teacher Josef Albers in 1963. Albers spent his life obsessing over how we perceive and manipulate colour. You’ve probably seen one or two of his dozens of studies made up of vibrant geometric forms.
Albers’ masterwork was originally intended to be a visual experience, with folios of swatches and shapes to be manipulated by students in concert with the text.
Paperback versions of the book lacked this original dynamism. But the iPad app, released by Yale University Press, adds layers of interactivity to bring the experience closer to what Albers had envisioned. Download it here.
Apps like The Interaction of Colour are a great example of a yet untapped future for the good old Coffee Table Book, a form of media that has, for the most part, yet to migrate into the digital realm. Enriching the experience of consuming art and design through thoughtfully designed apps could potentially rescue these types of publishers from the death of print. [Co. Design]