In an otherwise fairly simplistic design, the use of color is a key player in YULMTL, and serves as a guide, indicator and highlighter for the reader.
First, the book uses a consistent color pattern, with the prominent colors — yellow, pink, blue and gray — featured on it’s cover. These same colors are then used throughout the text, which allows for a consistent and cohesive experience.
Within the text itself, color is most prominently used to signify place. Each chapter is highlighted by one of the four prominent colors, and that color is used consistently throughout the chapter. Within the chapter, that color is used for boxes placed around captions on images, in illustrations and to add visual interest to pull quotes.
While the main uses of color in the book are the ones mentioned above, the most interesting usage comes is definitely when it is used to create meaning in complex illustrations. In the image below, the designer uses a few shades of the same color family wisely — combined of course with other design techniques — to explain a complex system of construction intervention sites within Montreal. Of course, I have no idea what exactly that means, but I can understand where these things are, and how they function together simply based on the design.
