3 comments about The Idea of Design.

1. I know that designers sometimes would like to have a 1 minute answer, because design is still seen in the most cases as a practical discipline. But this book, even now a few years old, was one of the first important design readers which had been focused on the future,.. and theories, models are essentially more complex if the environment is also getting more complex. I would recommend thsi book for all designers as well as students who will be designers. It is a little theoretical, but it is worth while to read.



2. Good for overintellectualizing and pontificating idealistic principles of design; bad for any concrete examples. Sure, fanciful ideas of design's capacity to revolutionize social, environmental and cultural change is a splendid idea, but I'll need you to show me something that manages to accomplish that first. And hold all the airy, abstracted philosophical fluff please!



3. The Idea of Design is more the philosophy of design than anything else. It's true benift that is great for anyone in industial/graphic design and architechture is that it show a variety of view points. Romantics often get so caught up in their own vision they fail to see things from a different perspective. From reading the book I have learnt two very important lessons. (1) The most brilliant design resides in nature. Try as we will, our insight to solve one problem leads us to an ocean of social, economical and environmental difficulty. (2) In the past lies a higher understanding in which we often ignore. Before one creates, the designer must contemplate the change it will make in culture/society. This why studying a variety of different perspectives is imperative. Social responsiblity is hopefully making a comeback. Extremely interesting points are made in the essays, bearing in mind that you can grasp the daunting complexity of often abstact ideas.

2 comments about Draw 50 Sharks, Whales, and Other Sea Creatures: The Step-by-Step Way to Draw Great White Sharks, Killer Whales, Barracudas, Seahorses, Seals, and More (Draw 50).

1. My 8 yr old loves drawing! This book shows you step by step how to get sea creatures to appear on the page! Fun for all of us. Great gift idea for any budding artist (or any parent who wants to draw cool things for their kids).



2. "Draw 50 Sharks..." is an excellent book for children and adults interested in marine life, and at the same time wish to appreciate art. I found the step-by-step sketch examples non-intimidating as some drawing books present themselves. Children will find this book useful as a template for drawing sea creatures, and can improvise from them. The book is a "must-read" for children. Teachers should incorporate this book into their curriculum as a way to spark creativity in children.

No comments about Drawing Light and Shade: Understanding Chiaroscuro (The Art of Drawing).

1 comments about Signs from the Heart: California Chicano Murals.

1. I bought this book for a CHICANO/A studies course that I had and it really sank inside of me. It shows pictures of the beautiful murals that can be found in CALIFORNIA by some well known chicano/a muralists and others by popularly known organizations such as SPARC. Coincidentally SPARC which stands for SOCIAL PUBLIC ART RESOURCE CENTER are also the community artists that pained a 2, 435 foot long "GREAT WALL OF LOS ANGELES" which can be viewed at Coldwater Cyn and Oxnard St near Los Angeles Valley College. Very inspirational as well. These murals are also depicted in the book, but I recommend breathing in the life of the murals on your very own. It creates a sort of "ZEN" between you and history. Very powerful images!

   It includes inspirational and pride-filling pictures from "CHICANO PARK" in San Diego, East Los Angeles Ramona Gardens MURALS, murals from BERKELEY, murals from freeway underpasses, and San Francisco. These of course are only a couple of localities, there are more. It is an empowering book that really lets you see what struggles the Latino people have had to overcome. It depicts scenes from earlier pre-colonial struggles to recent political views. It is a book that you will pick up and want to add to your collection. This is a 2nd copy that I own and thought that I would share the knowledge with others. It really makes you want to go out and see for yourself what beautiful pieces of art lay within the urban chaos that we live in.

5 comments about Dos Logos.

1. It's great! so many examples of many different logos, but I prefer "Tres logos" is the latest book of the latest designs for logos



2. this set of books is an excellent resource for any designer ...stay in touch and on top of your game by looking at what other designers are producing around the world.



3. lots of fresh new, creative logos, well catagorized. I belive there is a First one called Los Logos. And if I'm not mistaken there is also a thrid, i'm guessing it's called Tres Logos.



4. If you're a designer that needs inspiration in this synthetic world (just like me) look no further.
   Just go ahead and buy the 3 books of the series (just like me). Don't be afraid the logos don't are seppareted in themes so one book complements the other.
   
   It impress me because I acctually hate logo books, they are so corporate usually. But these stand up for the creative explorations over style, application and paradigm breaking.
   A huge collection of logos, I feel I don't need to buy other books in the genre, all I need is there (i am a designer not a agency director, so don't get me wrong)



5. i have tons of logo and corporate branding books and was pretty excited when I saw this in the undergroud book shop in the LES. when I got home, i must say though, was a little dissapointed. some are the logos are cool, but most of them are crap. the only thing that makes this book "ok" is the amount of logos in it, but even then, many pages of logos all look the same... over and over.

5 comments about Blackbook Sessions 2: Graffiti On Paper (Stylefile Blackbook Sessions).

1. A thick collage of varied styles. From figures to throw-up sketches this book's got a lot to look at. Mostly artists from Europe.



2. This is truly a good black book. There are so many different styles from so many artists. The book has english AND german (they both say the same thing) because StyleLife is Germany based. There's not too much text only an intro and an interview in the middle. A few of the drawings are a little wack but overall the book is GREAT. I recommend this book for anybody starting out graffiti or exploring new styles of graffiti.



3. What more could an avid graffiti writer look for in a book? This has everything! For a person who is always looking for new techniques, this is the graffiti writers bible. I couldnt ask for anything more, (except Blackbook Sessions #2.)



4. Great book to just thumb through for old b-Boys and reminisce or for true graff heads that appreciate street art.



5. If you are into hip hop and graffiti styles from New York, this book is definitely for you. This book will help inspire you to draw some graff of your own. It is good for all those writers that are starting out.

2 comments about Sticker City: Paper Graffiti Art (Street Graphics / Street Art).

1. Graffiti has its poster board roots on city walls, typically - but this worldwide survey documents a new trend: paper works glued to city surfaces. The author is a graffiti artist who traveled around the world surveying street art: some eighty artists' works are profiled in over 7,000 examples of this new 'paper art graffiti, providing both a historical survey and insights into the special demands of the new 'adhesive art' medium. Any art library holding will find this an excellent and unique acquisition.



2. An interesting and well-designed catalog of an emergent art form. I still consider most "Street Art" to be just a notch above blight and usually an eyesore, but this book revealed an imaginative world of design and artistic improvisation. Too bad Banksy's too much the recluse to be profiled here, but his absence is made up for by the wide survey of international "stars." Now I've caught myself paying more attention to the visual "noise" around me, looking for sly creative expressions. Too bad most of the graffiti, scratchiti, and tagging I see is still craptacular, and nowhere near as the intriguing as what's shown off in this book.

1 comments about Watercolor in Bloom: Painting the Spring and Summer Garden.

1. I have a lot of watercolor flower painting books, but this fills a spot that is different from the rest. The flower paintings and demonstrations are almost surreal in some ways--very vivid colors--also very beautiful and uplifting. There are 15 beautiful and well-written and illustrated demonstrations with step-by-step instructions. The beginning chapters explain a lot about "The Basics" such as tools, composition & design, techniques, color basics. I love the vivid colorfulness of both the flowers and the backgrounds of Mary Backer's flowers. This book is a keeper.

2 comments about Rapid Contextual Design: A How-to Guide to Key Techniques for User-Centered Design (Interactive Technologies).

1. If you are looking for an elegant, academic theory to suggest how contextual design might work in some controlled laboratory experiment-- this is not the book for you. This work gives step-by-step procedures on how to conduct contextual design in the real, uncontrolled world of people's lives, and how to do this work on an accelerated time schedule.
   
   This is a clear tutorial and worthy "field manual" on contextual design, task sequence modeling, affinity diagrams, and paper prototyping for applied work in the real world.
   
   Because it takes you through each activity step-by-step, this book does name the tools used at the time this work was crafted. Some reviewers consider that blatant advertising-- and in the case of citations for "CDTools" perhaps that's true. But in most cases it is very helpful to know that some specific products are more field-worthy than others. I strongly doubt these authors have any financial interest in boosting sales of 3M Post-It notes. (Though Amazon may profit from sales of 3M - 2051-FLT - 3M Post-it Bright Colors Memo Cube)
   
   :-)



2. This was an assigned reading for a graduate level course at a Big Ten University. I wish our instructors had written their own book or selected a different text because this text is terrible in an academic setting. Flipping through the book, there are constant references to various brand names and software tools. Using the digital edition in-text search, I found the following:
   
   -The Sharpie(r) brand appears on 6 different pages. We're instructed to buy 12 red sharpies, 12 blue sharpies, and 12 green sharpies.
   -The Postit(r) brand appears on 53 unique pages. Including this gem, "Use high-end sticky notes like the Post-it(r) brand because other, less expensive brands will fall off the wall more easily over time" (page 164)
   -The company 3M is mentioned on 4 unique pages.
   -The software tool CDTools is mentioned on 32 distinct pages. CDTools costs $750.00. CDTool's parent company, InContext, is mentioned on 10 distinct pages. Coincidently, Co-author Karen Holtzblatt is one of the founders. Other software (such as Visio or Powerpoint) is only mentioned twice, one of which is just a client case study.
   
   I think the statistics speak for themselves.
   
   I think Rapid Contextual Design (as a concept) carries some weight as a business process, however it should not be put into a book that reads like a shill for their software tools. Perhaps this would be a great book to bundle with CDtools or sell to companies but is *not* appropriate for an academic setting.

5 comments about Secrets of Digital Illustration: a master class in commercial image-making.

1. Pay attention to the cover of this book. If you find it useful, the book might work for you. What's on the cover turns out to be a good example of the book's design and of the author's approach.
   
   What doesn't work for me is that the format is so heavy-handed that the featured works end up as ornaments to the author's own book design. Although there might be quite a lot of diversity here, it's eclipsed by large, bold serif numbers and by works packed onto pages like eggs into crates, but often with less care. The pieces look homogenous.
   
   Don't look to the text to rescue the page design. The typeface is tiny, as if the author and editors agreed that readers should be discouraged from trying to parse nuggets such as, "Finding a method for combining the analogue and the digital while retaining a unique personal visual language is now top of the agenda for those embarking upon a creatively fruitful pathway."
   
   Still, I wouldn't blame an author for a book's inapt title. Be warned, though, that the "master class" meanders between the unsourced (i.e., author's) banalities (see above) and platitudes documented by interviews. Again, if that works for you...
   
   My hope was that this book would show a variety of artistic approaches. Unfortunately, what it shows instead is the author's illustration of illustrations: a long shadow that leaves readers in the dark about the topic.



2. I bought this book because of the reviews and the title. It's okay - hence the three stars but it is most certainly NOT a 'masterclass' on commercial image-making. It would best be used as a visual brainstorming aid as the 'secrets' it contains are more like: "if you have a tight deadline and you're stuck, look out the window and make the first thing you see, your solution" (my paraphrase). Hmmmm.... If you're looking for a masterclass book, this IS NOT IT!



3. Anyone who's asking for a "how to draw..." books really isn't cut out for this book yet. This is a book for people who want to get into the industry and have skills. It provides very good insights into how a wide range of people work through creating designs and how they have achieved success and thier advice to others. It is entirely fascinating and brilliant, but don't expect it to hold your hand along the way and guide you from infancy.
   
   This book is for people really on the cusp, if you're not there don't bother - get out of the kitchen.
   
   If you're a student, if you're wanting to work in the industry.
   GET THIS BOOK. (Especially if you've ever liked IdN or Computer Arts magazine).



4. For anyone actually interested in a masterclass in digital image making this is NOT the book. This is a great book, with a well-rounded collection of profiles for some of today's up-and-coming illustrators and a solid overview of the current directions in contemporary illustration, most of which an illustration student won't learn about in school. So I do recommend this book to illustration students and illustrators but not for what the title says. There's only a couple of tutorials throughout the entire book. I was hoping to get a glimpse at the method of some illustrators, particularily Adrian Johnson and Chritian Montenegro within the book but no such luck.
   
   Another book by the same author, which I recommend is the Fundamentals of Illustration. Again there is not
   a lot of actual how-to [make an image] but its a complete exposition on what a freelance illustrator does, can do and should do when starting out.



5. Just got my copy today. Great collection of work from today's top international talent. Very informative features showcasing various styles and comments from the artists. The book is literally a who's-who of the movers and shakers of todays illustration landscape. A must have for anyone in this field.