4 comments about A Designer's Research Manual: Succeed in Design by Knowing You Clients and What They Really Need (Design Field Guides).

1. Graphic design is about much more than typography, composition and colour. Researching and understanding the client's needs and those of the target audience are key to the design process. This book is a valuable resource for designers seeking to understand the research strategies and methodologies appropriate for their work.
   
   Kudos to the authors and the professional community of contributors for this book specifically aimed at designers. A Designer's Research Manual conveys information in a clear and readable manner with concise text, helpful graphics and relevant international case studies.



2. This book is a must have for any aspiring designer. I have the good fortune of studying under the author of "A DESIGNER'S RESEARCH MANUAL" Mr. Visocky O'Grady. Ken is my 'Design research' instructor; he is a high-energy teacher with a vast knowledge in his field. I recommend to all designers/students that you add this book to your library.



3. I had to buy this book for a Design Research class. I like the simplicity of the book and the information it contains. The authors dont bogg the reader down with a bunch of advanced technical terminology. I think this is a GREAT book for anyone just starting to get into design research. Its clear, consise and an all around good read. I've taken a few classes with Ken Visoky-O'Grady and he's an amazing professor. I think the book is a great first attempt and would be an asset for any young designer.



4. In my search for structured discussion on design process and research, I was fortunate enough to find this book, "A Designer's Research Manual," at the MOMA bookstore in SoHo. I only wish this had been available and required text when I was still in school. The Authors have done a great service to the design profession, and it's clients. Those of us who are more designers than "artists" would do well to integrate the principles of this book into our processes & methodologies for tackling our clients' business problems. It's thinking like that in this book that will make the case for design's value to the business of our clients. Thank you Jenn & Ken Visocky O'Grady!

5 comments about Creating Nature in Watercolor: An Artist's Guide.

1. I found this newest Cathy Johnson book to be every bit as informative and entertaining as her many previous books. The artist's love of nature shines gloriously within these pages. Not only does she give clear and easily understood instructions to 'capture nature', she also inspires you! This book is both working text and entertainment.



2. Having used 2 of Ms. Johnson's books before ("Creating
   Textures in Watercolor" and "Watercolor Pencil Magic-sadly
   out of print") I had great hopes for this new volume, and it
   does not disappoint. More than a collection of pretty
   watercolor studies to be admired -though it is full of
   them! - this book breaks down the process and tells you
   how to get the result you're looking for. Ms. Johnson even
   gives tips on the practicalities of capturing the
   uncooperative moving creatures of nature on paper! I have found something valuable on every page.



3. Cathy Johnson's newest book, Creating Nature in Watercolor, is a most delightful read and it's filled with tips and techniques on appreciating nature and capturing your interpretation of that observation in watercolor. Whether you want to learn how to document botanical samples in a journal or compose an extensive landscape on a full sheet of watercolor paper, this book is a must have! Cathy has a teaching style that encourages everyone to jump right in and have fun learning. This book contains short exercises as well as step-by-step lessons for painting landscapes. A beginner will find this book to be a tremendous start off point and a professional will find many useful tips and notes to help them progress in their treatment of nature and landscapes.



4. Cathy Johnson's newest book is a work of art in itself. The inside page design is simply beautiful. The illustrations by Ms. Johnson are very inspiring. And her tone is one of gentle encouragement ("yes, you can do this too"). I just received my copy recently and have already spent hours savoring it. Many of Ms. Johnson's books seem deceptively simple. One could quickly glance over her notes and paintings and then set the book on the shelf. The real value comes from taking her books, page by page, and actually DOING the exercises she provides. Pay attention to her teaching, follow her examples, and wonderful things will happen with your artwork. Creating Nature in Watercolor is a wonderful book and I am thankful that the artist took the time to create it.



5. I have just recieved Cathy Johnson's new book, "Creating Nature in Watercolor, an Artists Guide." I sat down and read it through, and found it felt like an beautifully illustrated letter from a good friend, who is encouraging me to join her in her love of nature and creating. The art work is superb of course, as I expected, since I already own several of her books, and recently took one of her wonderful Online Classes...and she has been drawing and painting for her whole life...but I also found much more in it than artwork. She not only shares many, many, many valuable techniques and tips...but they seem unique to her charming way of helping us out with some of the little things that become big things when you dont know how to deal with them. And she adds so many details and makes them all so interesting!
   Her 'personal relationship' with nature pulls the reader and artist into a close connection with creation and creating.
   It is a book for everyone...beginning and professional artists as well as all who appreciate nature.
   For me this is her best book....so far...:)

5 comments about Draw Real People! (Discover Drawing Series).

1. My eleven-year-old daughter wanted a how-to-draw-people book that was more advanced than cartoons. This is the one I chose, and she loves it. At her age, she just tries to copy the pictures, but when she is older I am sure that she will read it, and learn even more about technique.



2. Based on the recommendations I decided to give this book a shot.
   I am a dabbler in most everything, and have recently picked up drawing again...
   
   this book, has nice pictures of faces and up-close and personal body parts (like ears, and noses) it's not for the raw artists. There's a surprising lack of step-by step on how-to-, where to draw each part of the body and so forth. They have only a few samples with the steps drawn in; I'd love to have more pointers!!
   And, it should be titled, "How to draw the head profile" instead of "How to draw real people", since the author did not include how to draw human figure, hands, arms, etc.
   
   however, it's still a helpful guide in giving the basic knowledge of how to draw the human face.



3. As a self proclaimed 'doodler' I've always been fascinated with how you can make a drawing look lifelike... and not cartoonish. I could sit for hours and doodle and copy almost any picture, but they never looked real. This book is written in such context that even my 12 year old daughter has now taken an extreme interest in pencil drawing. It could have something to do with the examples in the beginning of the book of portraits drawn by children as young as 11 years old and they are better than anything I had ever done! After one day of reading the entire book and acquiring the recommended supplies, I took a deep breath and started the practice sessions. At the end of the first day, I decided I wanted to try to draw the eye and the lips using the newly learned techniques and was absolutely blown away at the realism on my piece of paper! Now, I shall try to draw the other facial features and then an entire face. I can't wait for my next break at work so that I can do more.



4. THIS BOOK IS EASY TO USE AND UNDERSTAND, WHICH I FIND MOST HELPFUL. THE STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS ARE EASY TO FOLLOW AND THE RESULTS ARE AMAZING. I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK FOR EITHER A BEGINNER OR AS A HELPFUL REFRESHER. THE TECHNIQUES ARE PROFESSIONAL AND INFORMATIVE AS YOU GO ALONG.



5. I am 13, and drawing has always been a major avocation for me. Normally, I don't like drawing books, because most of them only give you a limited amount of objects to draw, in one pose. The most useful part of the book was always the first one or two pages, which normally include an introduction to drawing and the basics of shading. "Blocking out the subject in simple shapes" has never worked for me, for whatever reason, and neither has the technique for drawing portraits where you put in lines where the eyes should go, exc... I found my drawings to be of much better quality if I simply looked at the picture and tried to draw it, as opposed to following the step by step instructions. Using this straightforward style, I started drawing people's faces, until I was recommended this book. I bought it, and it was a worthwhile investment.
   I'd never heard of this particular drawing style before, and I wish I had; it would have saved me much trouble. I wish I could post a before and after picture for you to see how much my drawing improved when I started using this style. Shading is explained thoroughly throughout the book, as is highlighting and many other important techniques. I recently painted an 8x8 mural of our school logo, a Native American, and this book provided priceless help. Though it might help to go through some trial and error first, I highly recommend this book to all classes of artists, beginners to professionals.

5 comments about Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society, 1970s-1990s.

1. The book is very informative on the artists,talks about their different pieces, I just wish it was in color instead of black and white because it takes away from the pieces meaning and depth



2. Read this book for a non-traditional studio class and it was a great introduction to many contemporary artists I did not know.



3. I can't believe that there are so many positive reviews for this book. Aside from any personal preferences, did anyone else notice that the text is FULL of grammatical mistakes? Even the artists' names are not spelled consistently the same way throughout an article. If you don't believe me, count the number of times she uses Mesa-Bains and then the number of times she uses Mesa-Baines.
   
   Aside from that, the writing style is simply awful, although I guess with this kind of subject matter, it's hard to do much better. This book, along with my Studio Art class, has helped me to develop a strong disliking for most of the contemporary art that is gaining attention. It is thoroughly disturbing and pointless. None of the artists manage to successfully convey their messages. I am very glad to never have to see this book again.



4. as a MFA student thats currently being educated by "the institution" i find myself flip flopping between wanting to drop out or drop in...this book didn't save me but it sure put things in perspective, never before in a book have I seen cover such topics where you can find Barbara Kruger and James Luna and Joseph Beuys and Tomie Arai between the same cover's in a book. This book also addresses an important issue for me. race. The art world is racist and if you don't know that just look around, art is life and a reflection of society and if you dont know that its because your a white (sorry but its true). This book may not address it but it surely helps to have some artists of color represented (although they aren't near the best art makers).



5. I guess this book is meant as a real "intro" text, but if you do know something about this art, it seems pretty lite. Clearly, lots of people like it, but Weintraub seems to bend so far over to make complex work accessible that she really over-simplifines. And the "art" in the book is so scattered and uneven, you don't get any deeper sense of what is going on, what the historical context of any of this might be.

   Granted, there aren't many intro texts on recent art. So if this is one of the "better" ones, it's mostly for lack of competition. I wish there was some accessible middle ground between pop/gossip texts and academic tomes. This feels like it's written from someone really distant to the work, who's not always that well-informed.

2 comments about European Architecture 1750-1890 (Oxford History of Art).

1. took far too long to recieve the requested item. Was told it would be 1-2 weeks but recieved the item 6 weeks after purchase. this is the last time i will use this seller.



2. this book must be read with Modern Architecture by Oxford in order to understand the history of architecture. This book covers the must needed areas of the field including, the hut to Palladio, and others up until the rise of modernism, where incidently the book Modern Architecture takes over. I recommend this book in concordance to that book and for the architecture student whether for class or not.

5 comments about Oil Painting For Dummies (For Dummies (Sports & Hobbies)).

1. I have thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt as though I learned something the minute I opened this book. It is easy to understand and I am very happy with the my results. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is new to oil painting because everything makes sense. It is written so that even a novice like me can come up with a finished project. Love the book. Well worth the money.



2. I am currently working through this book and it is wonderful... a step-by-step guide that is simple, yet advanced.



3. Excellent book; I'd give it 4 stars for traditional oil painting. I'm knocking one star off because there is very little about water soluble oil painting, which is an important topic these days.
   I wish they had included more about water mixable oil painting facts and techniques. One example would be to warn people that you have to settle on one brand since they are not compatible as they are with traditional oil paints. Also, what about explaining about mediums to use? It's not the same as with traditional oil paints. So I have to go through this book ignoring the talk about how to mix with mediums and thus I have to find that information elsewhere, which interrupts the flow of working through this book.
   
   A couple of minor suggestions also:
   Include a checklist of the projects for readers to track their progress.
   The painting on page 15 showing the various stages of the painting process - explain more in detail, pointing out examples on the painting itself, maybe with arrows and circles on the painting explaining the different parts.
   
   I sure wish they would come out with a "Soluble Oil Painting for Dummies" book or incorporate it into this book, especially about how to use water soluble mediums.
   
   But otherwise this is an admirable book. I'm glad they wrote it.



4. I have read through half of the book and, even though I have some experience with oils, am learning something new or different in each section. It is easy reading and is designed to allow you to read each section independently in any order. However, reading it straight through exposes some redundancy - not necessarily a bad thing. The color mixing study, in the end, helps you to understand how to mix colors to create highlighting and shading. But the mixing proportions are not defined clearly enough - so the exercise does not yield accurate results. The author does not explain that the same color in different brands are not truly the same and produce different results. But you get the idea.



5. This is a great book for all us self-taught artists. It teaches us what all those terms and things are that we never understood, and how to acomplish them. I've been painting for 45 years and this book helped me a lot...."Back to the drawing board!"

5 comments about Perspective! For Comic Book Artists: How to Achieve a Professional Look in Your Artwork.

1. If you are looking to learn how to render great backgrounds for comics of your own, this may be not the best option.... look, I really enjoyed the book. When I saw some pages in the preview I thought " boy, this may be what I've been looking for" I have always tried to learn perspective, and I have had real problems copping with it... I thought this book will show applied examples of backgrounds in comic pages... but in the end, it tackles the topic pretty much as every other book does it and I personally feel the book should have gone deeper in how to render backgrounds for comic books after all that was the pledge of the cover.
   
   The intro was really good, The Mug character showing the pages with lousy backgrounds (almost like the ones I make)I thought the book will teach how to solve this specif cases but in the end turn out to be really technical and sometimes even boring.
   
   It is really a great book, it worth the money I paid for it, because in the end I learned some stuff that some of my many other books about the topic does not say.
   The best part I guess is the layout pages that has in the end, you may trace them and you'll come up with a decent background (this if you can decipher them)
   
   I may recommend "How to draw comics the Marvel Way" in a couple of pages tells you how to tackle the issue for the specific case you mean it; comics.
   
   Cheers!



2. I purchased this book for it's intended purpose, to aid in the production of realistic comic books. Apart from it's routine treatment of one, two and three point perspective drawing, the book is by and large incomprehensible. I simply could not follow the author's diagrams and explanations in any way that made sense. The fact that it is written and presented like an actual comic book may have something to do with this.
   
   A comic book artist needs to understand perspective in the same way as an architect. You have to understand scale, plan drawing and how to project a drawing in three dimensions. For example, a room layout sketched as a rough plan and placed into perspective and scale. This book offers the reader very little easily understood or practical instruction in these crucial techniques.
   
   The Andrew Loomis books, sadly, are long out of print, but if you can get hold of 'Creative Illustration', 'Successful Drawing' and 'Fun With a Pencil' do so, as the subject is beautifully, almost magically explained.
   
   'Vanishing Point-Perspective for Comics From the Ground Up' by Jason Cheeseman-Meyer is a very good book for the comic artist that lucidly explains the basics as well as providing many 'cheats' and solutions to specific problems.
   
   However as far as perspective is concerned, you are better off biting the bullet and learning the whole thing from the ground up. Your drawing will take on a totally different, life-like quality and will progress much quicker.
   
   Knowing perspective inside out will take your art to another level, but not with this book.



3. I've really come to appreciate such high quality work. This book ranks near the top for providing effective, entertaining, clear instruction at a level that will not disappoint. Very impressed with author's efforts and finished product; compare this book with the brief attempts in many other books by other authors at explaining perspective. The depth and useful illustrations haven't been matched in any other known source currently available. If you find a better source, please post.



4. Since I'm a storyboard artist I like a good book on perspective; I bought this one. What a disappointment. It only teaches the basics, and takes a long time doing it. It spends 3 whole pages teaching us that things bigger are closer and things smaller are further away. I kid you not. About 20 pages are spent on 1 point perspective. And so on. The examples are teensy, about 2 inches by 2 inches, so even if you're trying to learn the basics it doesn't give you much room to see it. The jokes are lame. Some of the perspective is even incorrect! (Check out the way the characters stand/sit in some of the panels. Also there's a frame on how to draw women's [...] in perspective...I've honestly never seen anyone with as badly drawn "perspective" as that.)
   
   If you want to get a book on perspective, you don't want to get a sissy book like this. You want to get a man's book. Check out Brian LeMay's layout books, or even "Perspective Made Easy" by Norling. I'm a little crabby I got suckered into this book.



5. 
   Positive aspects of the book: Unique style- comic book form. Lots of interesting pictures.
   
   Negative aspects of the book: the writer is autistic to his reader's individual needs and capabilities coming into this book. He communicates to a fictional character called 'Mugg', who automatically knows more than I do, and so by the end of the book, Mugg graduates from his lesson and I'm in the corner left wondering, "what the hell is going on?" The problem was that the author needed to make the book a sufficient length, and so he writes more than he needs to- he even admits this in the final chapter, "Shortcuts to Perspective". The result is that the book is poorly organised and with so much information ploughed on to us, it is easier to use the pictures for reference. Consequently, I have to shop for another book on perspective because this book doesn't quite do the job. Nevertheless, I'll still keep it for future reference because the pictures are unique and intriguing, revealing an active imagination communicating with unique symbols- and that's the essence of graphic novels.

4 comments about Kandinsky.

1. The book was received timely and in good condition. I am enjoying the art work. The book is verything I expected to be, very abstract.



2. 
   
   Normally I do not read art books, for art tends to speak for itself.
   
   My wife bought this one in response to remarks I had made in an art boutique in Maui about a Miles Davis painting we saw there. The comment, the same one I made on other occasions upon seeing similar paintings by Ornette Coleman, Calman Shemi and Wasssily Kandinsky was that "I could hear the paintings much better than I could see them."
   
   Shemi actually has a series of painting, fittingly called "Jazz" - and if you do not think about them too hard, you can actually hear the music in them.
   
   I suppose since there are no art books about Miles, Ornette, or yet even about Shemi, the next best thing was for her to get me one about Wassily Kandinsky, known to be my favorite artist. And speaking of books about heroes, never was I more disappointed than by Miles' own book "Decoy," whose title could not have been more prophetic as it was not so much about his music as it was a decoy deflecting one from Miles' music and focusing on how Miles - even deep into his fifties - seemed still obsessed with remaining a "hip East St. Louis inner city thug." And while "Decoy" certainly cut Miles down to human size, nothing can ever erase the impact of his musical genius and legacy. Miles, whatever else, were his failings, did for music what Kandinsky spent a lifetime trying to do for painting: He freed American music from its rigidly imposed aesthetic structural strait-jacket of time and chordal discipline, in one fell swoop.
   
   His "Kind of Blue," is such a pure expression of musical yearning for freedom; such a pure expression of musical genius, such a pure stretching of the boundaries of musical form, and such a pure stripping away of social orthodoxy, that it alone serves as a transcendental model for yearnings for freedom that go far beyond the bounds of music or even the arts. We are unlikely to see one musical piece have such a profound impact on the psyche of a culture repeated ever again.
   
   What a surprise it was to discover in this volume by Ulrike Becks-Morlarney, that Kandinsky was nothing if not a frustrated musician, using his palette of colors as a musician would use a horn: to express his emotions through the visual modalities of color, light and his own understated and reorganized idea of form. Kandinsky does so with the same freedom from the rigidity of structural orthodoxy as that expressed by Jazz musicians such as Coleman, Coltrane, Monk and Davis. And while any description of what was going on in his head has to be a vast oversimplification, it is not too much of an exaggeration to suggest that Kandinsky was a "revolutionary musician" with a paintbrush, an easel and a palette of colors, rather than a horn.
   
   And just as Miles staged a quiet musical revolution with the album "Kind of Blue," one that overthrew a half-century of musical orthodoxy, Kandinsky, who gave up Law at the late age of 30, also staged a quiet revolution again the established orthodoxy of painting at the turn of the 19th Century. Both of these syn-esthetic trailblazers had keen cross-modal sensitivities and sensibilities, and could smell, feel, see and hear across and well beyond the established aesthetic boundaries. Both used these heightened sensitivities and sensibilities to burrow beneath the established orthodoxy so as to better upend it.
   
   And upend it they did.
   
   While Miles' used "structural understatement," "rhythmic nuance," and "tonal finesse" to get his abstracted musical message across, Kandinsky used "overstatement," "boldness," and "surprise" to communicate to us abstractly through colors, light and form. Miles' muted trumpet "tip-toed" across the musical canvas like "walking on egg shells," while Kandinsky's bold colors and angular lines "shocked and awed" the old representational objects and their representations motifs back into the closet somewhere well "off the stage" of the canvas.
   
   And while there is a great deal that is both comic and tragic about the lives of both of these "larger-than-life" artistic geniuses, what provides the common thread between them is their relentless single mindedness yearning for freedom from mindless and repetitive orthodoxy. In the end their goals were the same: to free art (and by extension people) from the shackles of conventional orthodoxy and mindless constrictions. Taschen has produced an enduring masterpiece of artistic biography here. It summarizes in the most exquisite way the essence of the man, Wassily Kandinsky Five stars.



3. "The artwork is composed of two elements. The inner and the outer. The inner element, regarded individually, is the emotion that feels the artist' s soul . That emotion is capable to provoke a parallel emotion in the spectator. Generally, while the soul remains bounded to body, only the vibrations will be able to be attracted though the sensation. Hence, the sensation is a bridge from the materialness toward material (artist) and vice versa (spectator). Emotion-Sensation-Work-Sensation- Emotion." (Wassily Kandinsky)
   
   Wassili Kandinski represents by far, one of the highest peaks in what concerns the reinvention and redefinition of art, deeply worried about Theosophy, inaugurated several artistic movements in pursuit of new forms of expression. Indeed, his memories from Moscow, his unforgettable impressions from the childhood, generated a vigorous inner creator impulse that would become a true driving force.
   
   The text describes with zealous detail, his metamorphoses in Munich since 1896 to 1911, his decisive meet with Gabriele Munter, his settlement in Murnau, as well as his breakthrough toward the abstraction "The blue rider" his interlude in Russia 1914-1921, his fruitful period in Bauhaus 1922-1933 until his last stage: the bio-morph abstraction in Paris 1934-1944.
   
   That febrile disposition respect the perpetual innovation, the same fact he could live in worlds so opposite (October 1917, respect the new tendencies of Paris and Munich as gravity centers of fevered proposals), the sharp contrast between tradition and innovation, the breakthrough of so many paradigms, the Fauvism, Cubism, Impressionism, Constructivism, enlivened in his soul the imperious necessity to transcend the Halls of his art and thence, his concerns for publishing and divulgating his standpoints.
   
   His life was a worthy example of Camus statement. "To create is to live twice" and this book provides of a very ordered sequence, every one of his different stages of transformation.
   
   Highly recommended.



4. Ulrike Becks-Malorny has brought recent perspectives on Kandinsky's career to further light with this new biography.

   The density of the layout is phenomenal: so much is crammed into this volume it is almost unbelievable. It includes many plates in colour and numerous documentary photographs.
   
   The handsome large format paperback begins with his artistic life in Munich, in the process showing many of his earliest impressionist, fauvist and folk inspired paintings, photographs and sketches, lino- and woodcuts, etchings and drawings never seen before.

   Most illustrations are captioned with insightful comments about the work and matters of relevant historic interest.

   It also shows how his work developed in dialogue with other artists, architects and musicians of his era, especially the Jugendstil artists, Gabriele Munter and other Blaue Reiter painters, Paul Klee, Adolf Hoelzel, Kasimir Malevich and Alexander Rodchenko.

   My only problem with the book is in the non-justified text and choice of font in Times Roman, which in this particular leading, is not the easiest typeface to scan these days.

5 comments about First Steps Drawing in Pen & Ink (First Step Series).

1. As a non-artist who's trying to learn to be an artist, this book really helped me find a medium that worked for me, and no other book has inspired me to get to work learning to draw.
   
   You'll need some experience sketching with pencil to make most of the drawings work, but the great pen-and-ink art in this book has inspired me to get better drawing with pencil.
   
   Note that online auction sites usually have great deals on sets of Rapidograph pens. Don't pay full price!



2. I wish I had had this book years ago. It would have saved me lots of mistakes and given me the courage to pursue my passion sooner.



3. This is an awesome book, especially for those just learning to draw with ink. It has hand control exercises and shows all the basic strokes. A great feature of the book is the progessive projects. And the tips about using your fine technical pen are very helpful. Claudia Nice's work is beautiful. This book makes it simple and rewarding to pick up a pen.



4. I borrowed this book from the library and used it so extensively for three weeks that I decided to buy my own copy. The book contains information on tools and techniques with instructions and lessons for both beginners and more accomplished artists. I feel it is a good reference that I will go back to again and again.



5. Having picked up a drawing pen after many long years (actually my last drawing instrument was a made by Crayola!) I found this book to be very helpful in learning the basics, fiding materials, and simply getting started. I have found it worth every cent I paid for it.

5 comments about Illustration Now! (25th Anniversary Special Edtn).

1. As good as Ilustration Now, Vol.1.
   It has a great colection of artists (very different between one another)and it also include each artists web pages so you can search deeper into each artits work.



2. The book is in good shape. It has a lot of good information on many illustrators of today which help inspire me in my own work.



3. I'm glad I didn't pay full price for this book.
   
   I like that there is only a small 'blurb' from each artist on their header page; the publisher (and I LOVE taschen books) left the majority of space on each page for the artwork.
   I didn't buy this book to read; I bought it to flip through and absorb the imagery.
   A bonus is that more information on each artist is listed alphabetically in the back if you want it.
   
   I love that there are a whopping 150 artists in this book, and about half are really quite good.
   The book includes some of my favorites: Tomer Hanuka, James Jean, Simone Legno, Tara McPherson, and Yuko Shimizu. Finding those artists in this book was a very pleasant surprise (I had no idea who exactly was included in this book).
   A lot of the book, however, is mostly crap.
   
   I suppose this is why art is considered subjective.
   
   I also can appreciate that the book covers a huge range of style and media and includes artists from around the world, but like I said before, I'm glad I didn't pay full price.



4. Wonderfull selection of artists, very inspirational each time you open it.
   Good quality reproductions.
   I wish it had more theoretical text and practical information about world of illustration.
   On the other hand, I must say that all the web sites and agent info for each
   artist were very helpful.
   Anyone who wants to get into this kind of work or just enjoys great art will
   benefit from this book.



5. I love this book. I bought it as an impusle buy but I can't stop flipping through it. Lots of inspiring artwork. My only complaint is that the artist's blurbs were for the most part unsatisfying. They sounded like something the artists release en masse to their publicists. I would have liked to hear more about how they work and their techniques. But I guess they can't give away all their secrets. I like this book just for the sheer fact that there are not many books out there of up and coming pop artists. This is definately a good start and inspiring for a budding artist like myself.