Abstract: Color plays a significant role in data visualization,which is one of key visual channels for quantity estimation,pattern perception and anomaly detection.However,color design is often a trial-and-error process,which is inefficient,hardly to extend and easily causes misleading effects.Recently,the development in visualization evaluation inspires the automated color design.The intelligent color design can be considered as the optimal decision under the conditions of specific data,users,tasks and even devices.In this paper,we will review the references of color design in data visualization,including color design guidelines and perceptual models,automatic color design(colormap selection,colormap optimization,colormap generation and color retargeting),and adaptive color design in dynamic environment.We will discuss the role of existing color design research in motivating intelligent color design algorithms,conclude and analyze the future development in color computing.