Its contemporary focus makes it the most complete and up-to-date book available, and it is the only book to feature parity between male and female artists and designers, as well as parity between fine art and design illustrations.

Contemporary Color is a textbook written for first-year or foundation college level students. It has been and can be used in the traditional first semester 2-D design and color class. It can also be used in colleges, universities and art schools that have a separate introductory color course. In addition, because of the depth of coverage within the book it can also be used in advanced level color theory classes.

All students, regardless of their major, will have to work with digital color. Only Contemporary Color has a full chapter on digital color. It also covers gaming and animation and will appeal to a broad range of fine arts students, no matter what their major.

Written specifically for fine arts students, this edition includes a wealth of new pedagogical features:
* Richly illustrated with 245 color images, including many examples from contemporary artists as well as some more traditional examples from artists including Monet, Van Gogh, Albers and Rothko.
* Chapter previews at the beginning of each chapter cover the main topics to be discussed in each chapter. Each chapter ends with questions or activities for the student to consider and to encourage thinking conceptually about the elements in the chapter discussion questions Color Concepts.
* Contemporary Colorists - Each chapter has a special call-out feature presenting a contemporary artist or designer using the concepts detailed in the chapter as either the basis of their work or an important element in the work examined. They are an illustration of how these concepts are being used today by artist and designers.
* Color Glossary - a detailed list of some of the major vocabulary covered within the text.

Plus online resources for instructors at https://routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/instructor_downloads/.