Beige Is Not a Color

Book excerpt: Bland is anathema to Carlos Mota. As he travels the world--from Lisbon to Tangier, India to Santo Domingo, New York to Paris--producing feature stories and ad campaigns for countless publications and companies, he exults in every spark of originality and creativity he sees. Fortunately for us, he not only documents his sightings with his camera but also collects images by a Who's Who of interiors and architectural photographers. And in this volume, he has culled some 280 of his favorite images, all wholly different but all sharing one quality: the beauty of color, both literally and figuratively. There are interiors, table settings, fabric swatches, tiles, floral arrangements, sculptures, architectural ornamentation--whatever captures his discriminating eye. Peppered with quotes about color and beauty by a host of designers, Beige Is Not a Color is the antithesis of bland and as aspirational as it is inspirational.