5 comments about Anatomy for Fantasy Artists: An Illustrator's Guide to Creating Action Figures and Fantastical Forms.

1. This book is okay and has some good information, but some of the artwork isn't very awe inspiring. Not too bad though.



2. This is a good book if you want to learn how to draw action figures that are real life people not creatures



3. Thankfully, I was able to browse at this in my public library before buying it. The title doesn't reflect on the actual book. While the illustrations were clear and quiet a few were lovely the book failed to explain how the artists used anatomy and how they determined how to compose their figures. for an anatomy book, this falls horrible short. There about a handful (literally one handfull) of pages with live models. The images are of various sizes and almost on top of each other. More annoyingly for what few live model poses we are given the best are put inbetween two pages. You'll have an annoyign crease righti n the middle of the picture. It's not that hard to fill in the gaps, but certain details are lost from this type of placement.
   Also when going into skeletal structures he might have used a real model skeleton instead of sketches. You don't get an adequate understanding of dimension with a pencil depiction alone. Also, most of the book is dedicated to the common characters of comics (e.g. the barabarian, the female robot, Muu the fatman, Brutus the hulk). All these characters really show are sketches at different angles with bullets with brief common sense info.
   Plus the anatomy of most of the characters arenot really explored. It would have been nicer had they compared the exagerated features with realistic features.
   Overall , despite some talented artists' contributions, this book fails in teaching anything abotu anatomy.



4. This is not only a great book but a wonderful guide on drawing great action figures. There are many tips and tricks I recommend in here and it not only looks at just one detain but many perspectives in drawing fantasy characters.



5. Get Drawing and painting Fantasy Figures and/or Fantasy Worlds first. This book is good if you can't get enough of source/guide/inspirational material.
   
   Of Course, R. Crumb said "Wanna know how to draw better? Draw. Wishing won't make it happen!" and that's the first and best advice. Still, I have all these books I mentioned and do not regret my purchase!

5 comments about Interior Graphic and Design Standards.

1. This book is out-of-date, poorly written, poorly organized, and a complete waste of one's money, time, and effort. The graphics are inconsistent and poorly done, and it is a nightmare trying to make sense of technical information provided by Ms. Reznikoff.
   
   This reference has been eclipsed in light-years by Maryrose McGowan's book "Interior Design Graphic Standards", which is now considered THE reference book of choice and the Gold Standard in its class. Use your money wisely and opt to purchase McGowan's publication instead of this one.



2. This book is a necessary staple for every Interior Designer's book collection



3. I recently purchased this book while taking a Commercial Interior Design course as part of my Interior Design degree. I found the book to be very helpful in many aspects of commercial design and specification. Also, my boss, who is a licensed Interior Designer and has been practicing for about 10 years has a copy of the book that she used while in college; she refers to it as her design reference Bible, haha. Although some of the material (such as codes) may be out of date due to the everchanging laws and standards, overall this book is filled with valuable information. A must-have for all interior designers!



4. A great book for interior designers. Serves as a great refrence. A must add to any library collection!



5. A very informative and usefull book for all designers.

5 comments about The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.

1. First of all, let me state that I still really admire Dali's undeniably talented and very imaginative work as an artist. At the time of writing this review, I can still honestly say that Salvador Dali is my favorite visual artist qua artist. However, I never realized how truly horrible of a person he is until I have read this book. In this book, you will find Dali gleefully describing, without any hint of remorse, how he would kick his baby sister in the head amongst other passages where Dali is obviously trying to make the reader uncomfortable, such as his extensive description of getting a piece of dried mucus lodged under his fingernail.
   
   Reading this book really has solidified my perception of Salvador Dali as the kind of individual who takes great pleasure in deliberately confusing, fooling or repulsing an audience. Reading this book will not provide you with insight on the motivation behind Dali's works nor will it offer an honest portrayal of his life. Instead, it will just be an extensive lesson in how Dali would entertain an audience through narration. Sometimes his anecdotes can be quite amusing, which suggests that this book is appropriate for truly devoted fans of the great surrealist. However, I personally found it to be too unpleasant to recommend.



2. Genius isn't pretty, if we are to deduce that this revelation of the secret life of Salvador Dali is representative of the inner reality of genius in general. For certain, genuine creation isn't pretty, as anyone who's ever witnessed childbirth might attest: it's accomplished by blood, obscenity, mucous, hysterics, farts, and pain. Out of such undifferentiated chaos does one mold the miracle of his creation. So in *The Secret Life of Salvador Dali* we get the "confession" of a man whose life from earliest childhood is replete with incidents, fantasies, attitudes, and behaviors that can only be considered pathological.
   
   But then how much of this memoir is "real" and how much artistic hyperbole is a question open to debate. For Dali consciously mythologizes his life and makes no secret of the fact that much of his "secret life" may not have actually taken place except in his imagination. "The difference," he writes, "between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant." And shortly afterwards he writes of his life that the "all-powerful sway of reverie and myth began to mingle in such a continuous and imperious way with the life of every moment that later it has often become impossible for me to know where reality begins and the imaginary ends." This is Dali's way of winking at the reader--and yet it's an ambiguous wink at best.
   
   For what must always be remembered is that for Dali, the imagination is every bit as "real" in its impact, just as material and plastic, as any historical or anecdotal fact of existence--if anything, the hyper-intensity of Dali's imagination gives his reveries even greater reality. And so Dali, by his own estimation the only true surrealist, presents the story of the first half of his life in its entirety: that's to say, the dreams, visions, and fantasies are given equal weight as the people, facts, and circumstances of conventional autobiography. For the former interact with the latter to produce the uninterrupted "surreality" of the individual life. A man, for instance, who dreams that his best friend has murdered him in his sleep and taken his wife to bed cannot possibly--whether conscious of the fact or not--have lunch with that same friend the next afternoon without his perceptions being altered, right down to his autonomic biological responses, in a very concrete way.
   
   Perhaps the best way to read *The Secret Life of Salvador Dali* is as a kind of absurdist novel about the life and ideas of an eccentric, legendary painter named Salvador Dali. For, indeed, this book very often reads like fiction, studded as it is with bizarre episodes worthy of Kafka or Poe. And yet there is also a good deal of Dali's very down-to-earth philosophy of art in this book: his championing of technique, craft, and discipline, and of the renaissance spirit of the great masters who he admires. These attitudes might surprise many who think of Dali solely as the revolutionary and iconoclastic wild man of surrealism.
   
   Although he's since become synonymous with surrealism, Dali actually considered himself a traditionalist and what made him a real "revolutionary" and ultimately more surreal than the surrealists was, in his view, the fact that he aligned himself with the most conservative aspects of his artistic craft and his Spanish-European-Catholic roots. In fact, it may come as something of a shock to some to find Dali railing against the dissolution of form, of abstraction, of undisciplined experimentation, of the laziness of modern art. From the opening pages when he bombastically declares with mock seriousness his disgust for the formless mush of spinach and his admiration of the rigorous solidity of shellfish, Dali separates himself from the leveling movements in contemporary art, politics, and society, most of which he consigns to the oblivion of the mulch from which the hierarchic tree of a society of true individuals, of the royalty of spirit, art, and culture will inevitably be reborn. Tradition may be chopped down, trampled, burned to ash...but the roots go deeper than revolution. Tradition never dies. Therefore, Dali sides with tradition.
   
   Written when he was barely 38 years old and thus comprising less than half of what would be his allotted life, *The Secret Life* has the feel of a complete autobiography composed from the sober vantage point of the old age Dali cherished and aspired to even as a young man. The text itself is beautifully written/translated--a prose masterpiece of surrealistic metaphor and absurdist hyperbole. An excellent, thought-provoking, and fascinating book from any number of perspectives, *The Secret Life of Salvador Dali* is every bit as unsettling, paradoxical, elusive, contrary, and, ultimately, beautiful, as the paintings for which Dali is so well-known, so misunderstood, and so famous.



3. I don't write many 5 star reviews, but I really really liked this book. It is truly a peek into a brilliant mind. As an artist, it is impossible for me to read this book and not be inspired. As usual, Dali has his fun with the audience, but that only adds to the greatness of this work.



4. So original and bizarre, the first half of the book should be made into a movie.



5. the book had a little of everything. Salvador Dali can be an interesting writer, and some sections of the book demonstrate this. The early chapters of the book covering his childhood are difficult to trudge through between irrational events and memories and ones that seem plausible. It is not a very good autobiography for recording ones milestones, but I suppose it recorded things that appealed and became ingrained in Dali to become motifs in his art, such as crutches for instance. As the book progressed Dali's philosophy became a little more clear and the book a little more interesting, especially as he and his wife Gala visited America and the world was prepping for World War II. All in all, I would rather have read a straight forward Dali biography than his convoluted auto-biography. You have to be a very tolerant reader to put up episodes that are difficult to visualizse or understand and to keep asking yourself, "Is this true or is Dali dreaming it up?"

5 comments about Rembrandt: The Painter at Work.

1. Excellent! Great images.
   
   (Although much of the text is very technical and concerned with small and trivial details.)



2. This book explain a little about Rembrandt technique and some details in his paints. You can understand how could he painted so beutiful arts. But you won't be Rembrandt reading this book. Only the technique is not sufficient to be a master!
   But, if you are a Rembrandt fan, you have to read this book!



3. This book is generous with loads of quality pictures of the masters work and an equal amount of text for the reader of history and the technical , a good buy certainly worth the money , I really enjoyed this and I suggest it to any one with even just a passing interest in Rembrandt and an insight into how he produced his work , they actually found some of his dna in his paintings (i bet that makes you curious). This and the other book " Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama" is another beauty possibly a bit better than this one Schama's book spend the first half talking a about Peter Paul Rubens and the dreams Rembrandt had of being his equal , both are great companions to each other I recommend them together.



4. There isn't much more I can say, which hasn't already been said to reveal the great merits of this book. However I think the sheer quantity of 5 star ratings speaks volumes. This book is essential for any academic or personal study of Rembrandt, especially so for a painter as I am. On top of all the incredible detailed scientific analysis, the text is written very clearly and is even a pleasure to read. Above all, the detail shots of his paint surface, are breath taking and most instructive for any painter. They utilized different levels of magnification to reveal his work from the entirety of the picture down to the microscopic level. This book has revolutionized my studio practice!
   
   Richard T Scott
   Joelle-Scott Gallery



5. This book is not easy to evaluate, at a first sight is a very irregular book, amazing in many passages but extremely boring in many others, a whole chapter dedicated to the canvas support !?, with a great mass of technical information about thread density and weave, I think it is too much, a very important Rembrandt's trick like "glazing and sweeping" (that it is supossed he created this technique) is just overviewed when it is perhaps one of the constituents for the most amazing passages in many of his paintings.
   My conclusion is that despite of Rembrandt's Project and a lot of scholars studying his masterpieces is very, but very little what we know. How he commited his works is an enigma like in Vermeer's case, so there are a lot of books about them but very little valuable information

4 comments about Humanities through The Arts.

1. This book provides a thorough survey of pretty much all the arts (not just visual arts) using plenty of well-chosen examples, many examined in some depth.
   
   The organization of the book generally has a chapter for each art form, with each chapter mostly organized into various themes. This complements other books organized according to an historical approach.
   
   By the time one has progressed through the journey of the entire book, the diligent reader should come away enriched with new perspectives on life and reality.
   
   The one downside of the book, which isn't minor, is that I found much of the writing to be unnecessarily complicated and tedious. I'm not saying that the authors needed to "dumb it down," but I do think they could have conveyed their message much more clearly without compromising its substance. It's as though they just adopted a clunky, somewhat highbrow style at the outset, got used to it, and than ran with it all the way through the book, forgetting the needs and wants of their audience in the process. Lest one think I'm being too critical, consider the book The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern, which is both enlightening and a joy to read.
   
   The above issue brings my rating down to 4 stars, but I still certainly recommend the book because of the considerable value it brings to the reader. Just be prepared to be genuinely attentive as you read it. Your investment of time and effort will be well rewarded.



2. I love to buy my books on this web site because i never had any problems with orders.



3. I ordered using ISBN number as given by my university. What I received was not the same ISBN. It was the same title of the book, just the incorrect revision. I am doing an accelerated course, so the seller's offer of just return it for a full refund was not very helpful to me. I don't know if the problem was with the seller or Amazon. I am quite dissapointed that I got the wrong book. There are discrepancies.



4. Speedy and as ordered. If you are ordering this book for a class, make sure you get the correct ISBN number. There is a 2008 edition of this book!

5 comments about Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965.

1. I decided to purchase this book after watching the Helvetica DVD and was so inspired by Swiss design, I had to check out this book. I was not disappointed, pages of full colour images, and detailed explanations about the artwork and the designers intended communication. Fantastic resource for graphic design students!



2. This book goes into immense detail, with countless full colour reproductions of some of the seminal works in the development of Swiss graphic design. It is well laid out, and with large margins which hold thousands of tidbits of related background information; the information on many of the important designers in this movement is invaluable, and many of the reproductions are of rare works which aren't normally found in other books.
   
   The text clearly and concisely sets out exactly how and why graphic design in Switzerland developed as it did. It is useful not only as a reference book with great insight into the period, but also as a book which is endlessly fascinating to just pick up and browse through. Highly recommended



3. Una magnífica edición. Muchas imágenes, alguna un poco pequeña - para el tipo de imagen, se echa en falta quizá alguna imagen de detalle o incluso un encarte -, pero en líneas generales muy buena selección, y cantidad de imágenes.
   
   Los contenidos interesantes, por tratarse de una generación histórica en el diseño gráfico universal. Es un libro muy recomendable.



4. This is a nice, well made book. It's a great reference for designers or art directors that need to put a Swiss spin on things.



5. Hollis's book, while extensive in its documentation and admirable in its visual organization of the Swiss developments, comes to several conclusions which should be questioned. The first is the disproportionate and misguided prominence afforded Theo Ballmer as a prime influence stemming from his experience at the Bauhaus. Whatever Ballmer's influence as a poster designer in the 20s was, he had gotten his essential training in the Basel school, which underwent its own ongoing and largely independent modernist development, prior to Ballmer's very brief time at the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus influence is deemed minor by the emerging Basel school, and Ballmer's later influence in teaching photography and lettering has to be considered a lesser one.
   
   Significant also is the confusion in reporting influences in development of the cutting edge Geigy Pharmaceuticals graphics program where the influences of Armin Hofmann and Emil Ruder as educators of the leading Geigy designers are missing. While this is inferred on page 162 in the statement that "the Geigy style originated in the teaching at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule," the key influences in Basel--Hofmann and Ruder--are not mentioned.
   
   Similarly, Hollis attributes Müller-Brockman's "conversion" to the influences of Lohse and Vivarelli, the evidence being the concert hall posters of 1951 and 52. While this is definitely a move in that direction from an earlier illustrative style, the most convincing change, and the style by which Müller-Brockman is widely known, emerged on the hiring of graduates of the Basel school under Armin Hofmann in 1955. This means that Hofmann and Ruder pre-date Müller-Brockman's mature style instead of being placed as p. 214 as a separate and later development--and not as a precursor feeding the larger Swiss development from a more humanistic perspective than the more constructivist direction of the Zürich school. One can argue about which contributed most to the international prominence of Swiss design, but Hollis's own statement p. 215 regarding the world-wide significance of Hofmann's Graphic Design Manual, Principles and Practice, on education is telling. Müller-Brockman's more objective approach was probably more influential in the world of corporate graphics.
   
   Hollis betrays a bias, perhaps, in his strange analysis of Hofmann's Tell poster and omits such key poster achievements as the "Switzerland in the Roman Era" (1957). It is unfortunate that Hollis did not interview Armin and Dorothea Hofmann. They are few of the remaining key figures from the era of Hollis's investigation.

No comments about New Shoes: Contemporary Footwear Design: Contemporary Footwear Design.

2 comments about 500 Metal Vessels: Contemporary Explorations of Containment (500 Series).

1. I love ALL of the 500 books from Lark. They are great for inspiration and for learning new artists. I have almost the whole series!



2. I really like this book, there is a lot of good work. For those of you who had a fit about the unwearable jewelry in the various 500 jewelry books: many of these vessels are non functional. So I don't want to hear your complaints like, "I don't see how anyone could use that teapot..."

5 comments about The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design.

1. Purchase it believing there would be a history of the chair and its development through the ages.
   Very little on the history. The main body of the book deals with ergonomics and future design with very ametuer
   drawings.



2. This book is a really impressive interdisciplinary work, and was useful in helping me buy the "perfect" chair. (Actually one of the author's most interesting points is that a perfect posture does not exist, since movement is inherent in human bodies.) It would have been nice if the production was a little better with more sophisticated photos and colour, but the content is all there. Except that I feel the author should have made much more reference to the mind-body disciplines and meditation. For example, a key concept in meditation is that one should sit with one's back straight because the energy moves up the spine better that way. I was hoping to read something about how that relates to work and sitting in front of a workstation, as well as read about how sitting affects breathing. But other than that, a great book.



3. Galen Cranz on "The Chair"
   Reviewed by Rani Lueder, CPE
   
   This book is about seating and sitting. Having once spent my vacation scouring Europe's museums for the earliest representation of a chair (earliest I could find was 1570), I looked forward to opening its covers.
   
   Dr. Cranz teaches Environmental Design at the UC Berkeley Architecture Dept. Not surprisingly, she cuts a wide swath on seating, spanning history, sociology, industrial design, architecture, ergonomics, and holistic body/mind approaches - particularly the Alexander technique.
   
   Parts of her book are engrossing. In particular, her historical perspective of how chair design has evolved historically [if it is accurate] may be unmatched. Her discussion of the holistic aspects of posture is also interesting.
   
   That said, this book is NOT noteworthy for its review of the ergonomics research on sitting postures and seating. Much of it is plain hogwash.
   
   Throughout the book she refers to us as "ergonomicists" [should be "ergonomists"] and claims the discipline is derived from the Greek "ergon" and "omics" [should be "nomos" (laws)].
   
   It is sometimes painful to read her sweeping generalizations. Dr. Cranz writes that ergonomic researchers "have concluded that the workstation should be an indication of the worker's status" (p. 55) . . . and "status differences have to be maintained, ergonomicists say" (p. 56), citing as evidence two office planning guides written by and for architects that fail to mention ergonomics or ergonomists anywhere in the books.
   
   She misrepresents research, as when she castigates Dr. Etienne Grandjean's "poor reasoning" in Fitting the Task to the Man, writing "Amazingly, Grandjean starts with the slump as a goal" (p. 108). Drs. Grandjean et al's research actually documented computer users' self-selected postures. These researchers reported that rather than sitting upright, the computer users they observed tended to recline somewhat.
   
   She cites findings from a small laboratory study by Drs. Bendix et al. (12 subjects for 2 hours in 3 back support conditions) as proof that lumbar supports on chair backrests are unequivocally unnecessary (p. 109) - but not the many studies that contradict. Minor assertions are meticulously cited, but questionable conclusions often are not sourced.
   
   If you are looking for a thorough analysis of seated posture, this is not the book for you. It provides a unique and multidisciplinary perspective on the context of seating, but - please - take her review of the ergonomics research on sitting postures and seating design with a heavy dose of salt.
   
   Rani Lueder, CPE has consulted in occupational and product design ergonomics for over 25 years. Her activities on seating include co-organizing the Second International Conference on Sitting Posture, held in Tokyo. Her second edited book "Hard Facts" is about sitting postures and seating (Taylor & Francis). She served on the seating subcommittee for the American National Standard ANSI BSR/HFES 100. She consulted in the research and design of over 350 lines of seating. Her newest edited book is "Ergonomics for Children: Designing products & places for toddlers to teens" (2007, Taylor & Francis).



4. How many of us are aware of the furniture we use in our everyday lives? These are things we feel, touch and see everyday. Yet they are always in the back of our subconcious, we never really notice them, or realise how these pieces of furniture affect us physically, as well as psychologically.
   "The Chair" makes us look at the ordinary chair as something beyond a piece of furniture and as a symbol of wealth, status, honor, culture and comfort. In its own way, it shapes our everyday life and things related to it.
   The author traces the origins of the chair through human history and how it changed and evolved through the ages. Going deep into the issue of chair design, the author tears commonly held views about comfort into shreds and illustrates how these "comfortable" chairs actually harm the human body. After taking a good look at ergonomics, Cranz talks about the body's conciousness and how it is related to the sitting posture. With the help of somatics and the Alexander technique, she says we can improve the ways in which we sit and improve our comfort.
   What captured my attention the most was the manner in which this opens up the mind to different psychological and physical effects that a commonplace object like the chair can have on human beings and how we can improve our daily lives by thinking about these issues.



5. It is an easy reading and houmorous book. It deals with many aspects of sitting and seats, including aesthetics, style, ergonomics and as a status symbol. I beleive the knowledge presented in this book represents decades of dedicated reseach on this subject by the author. It also enlightens one to realize that a seat is one part of the story and the way one sits is the other part: To ensure the well being of a sitting human organism we have to address both parts. In summary, it is a pleasure to read this book.

No comments about Cuba: Art and History from 1868 to Today.