No comments about Visual Design in Dress, 3rd Edition.

1 comments about Roots for Radicals: Organizing for Power, Action, and Justice.

1. The item was excellent. The transaction was also good. i love the item. Thanks very much.

5 comments about Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1987.

1. With a lot of so-called bargains on ebay, this really helps to verify if it is an athentic Warhol print. Good are the infos on Warhol's "after" prints like Sunday B. Morning.



2. This is more of an encyclopedic collection. Get it only if you are a student (or more than just a fan). To be sure, there are many, many beautiful images (as was much of Warhol's work esp in the 80s) but most of the images are 2-inch or 4-inch squares. This is not a coffeetable book designed for delightful perusing and seeing large images.



3. UNLIKELY IMPORTANT IS THE POMP AND DUSTY RESOLVE FROM ONE REVIEWER. THIS IS WITHOUT EQUAL A HAND BOOK FOR THE SILKSCREEN PRINTER. A VIRTUAL BLUE PRINT OF COLOR AND COMPOSITION LAYERED IN COMPLEX RICHNESS .
   FOR THIS REVIEWER, PROCESS,PROCESS,PROCESS IS WARHOLS GIFT TO ART HISTORY {EVEN IF HIS ART IS MISTAKENLY THOUGHT OF AS VAPID . }
   MASTERED BY SUCH PRINTERS AS ALEXZANDER HEINRICI AND RUPERT JASEN SMITH, SILKSCREEN PRINTING IS IN FACT A VERY COMPLEX ARTFORM.THESE PRINTS WHERE NOT MADE WITH THE AID OF COMPUTERS, SUCH AS TODAYS "ARTISTS" EMPLOY.RATHER THIS BODY OF WORKS ARE PAINSTAKENLY PRODUCED BY HAND EITHER BY WARHOL OR BY ARTISAIN PRINTERS.
   COMPLEX PHOTOGRAPHIC MEANS ARE EMPLOYED FOR WARHOLS STENCIL MAKING. AS IMPORTANT TO ART HISTORY AS SENEFELDERS LITHOGRAPHIC PRESS INVENTION, SO WILL SILKSCREEN TECHNIQUES ANDY WARHOL PIONEERED. PERHAPS WARHOLS WORK WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED IMPORTANT TO ART HISTORYS FUTURE PERVEYORS.IT WILL IN FACT BE TESTIMATE THAT A PRINTMAKING MEDIUM WAS MASTERED AND BARRIERS PUT DIRECTLY IN WARHOLS PATH BY BROW BEATEN ART CRITICS WAS CRUSHED,BECAUSE WARHOL GOT HIS REAR END OFF THE COUCH AND DID SOMETHING. I RATE THIS BOOK AS A 10 AND IS A MUST FOR STUDENTS OF PRINTMAKING AND MODERN ART.
   SINCERELY PETRA



4. All the prints, those published and unpublished by Warhol. A lot of color and the layout is good. There's a good essay (by Donna De Salvo) to introduce what Warhol's printmaking was about.
   
   As much as it may impress, seeing all these prints, unfortunately, conveys a Warhol on autopilot.The "machine" he spoke of wishing to be. Apart from a few famous themes Warhol's prints may represent a triumph of quantity over quality. Prints of many different contents but of the same mechanism, silkscreening, begin to look alike. The selection of images, initially striking in the few deservedly famous subjects (e.g. Marilyn, Jackie, the electric chair, flowers, self-portraits, the soup can, Mao), seems mostly mundane, perhaps tacky. No artist has perhaps created so much forgettable work. But the diversity holds the promise of leading you (and me) beyond any initial limiting set of favorites. Warhol attacked from many directions.
   
   After all, how much I'd like to have Marilyns or his flowers on my walls, to begin with. You have plenty to pick from in this book: even finding ten great images may be worthwhile. And, over time, as you change, your favorite Warhol prints may change.
   
   At the back of the book are a chronology and exhibition history which focus on the prints. At almost 400 large pages using excellent paper, this good value is made to stay. Nevertheless, one is left wondering whether the drive to create or the drive for wealth was stronger.



5. its a really great display of andy warhol's work.. theres alot of unprinted art work in the book as well.. its great i really enjoyed it. when i picked it up at the book store i sat down and flipped through it, and i liked it so much i flipped though it two more times after that. i love warhol's work, and i've seen some great books but this one is by far the most amazing. if your a die hard andy warhol fan, i totally reccomend this book.

4 comments about Shin Hanga: The New Print Movement of Japan.

1. Ukiyo-e, those ubiquitously plebian woodblock prints of courtesans and landscapes from old Edo, are readily recognizable in Japan and (perhaps more so) abroad as archetypal cultural artifacts of Japan, but what became of them in the modern era? Did they just die out? Well, yes and no. The tradition indeed withered in the late 1800's in the atmosphere of Meiji Westernization, but their lingering influence and popularity with foreigners inspired something of a 20th-century renaissance of sorts--or "reboot" we might say nowadays--in the form of Shin Hanga ("New Prints"), the subject of this fine, beautifully printed book.
   
   Barry Till's introduction makes for a fantastic overview of this artistic genre, outlining in informative, straightforward prose its origins around 1915 with the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo, the various careers of Shin Hanga artists especially during its heyday (1915-1937) but also following up on its slow fade as late as the 1960's and its impact on European and American artists. Till describes the distinguishing characteristics of these "New Prints" with astute clarity, especially the dynamics of its distinct neo-traditional blend of Japanese sensibilities and Western artistic techniques. Key subdivisions of subject matter are also discussed, those being ones somewhat familiar from Ukiyo-e but with a different priority of prevalence and emphasis: landscapes, beautiful women, actor portraits, and "bird & flower" nature studies.
   
   The bulk of the book is devoted to the actual prints, of course, and features 102 illustrations in vibrant full color; most are full page (as it should be), while some are reproduced a bit smaller and are printed two to a page (still adequate) and in two rare cases a horizontally-extended print takes up two full pages. A vast majority of the prints are by the acknowledged masters of the genre, mainly Yoshida Hiroshi and Kawase Hasui, but also Takahashi Hiroaki, Yoshida Toshi, Tsuchiya Koitsu, Ito Shinsui, and Natori Shunsen. Many more minor artists are represented with a single work or two, including obscure artists about whom little is known. The prints themselves are invariably a joy to behold. Many are indisputably works of fine art with a refined and resonant beauty and subtlety, and while a few others veer dangerously close to a touristy postcard aesthetic without quite lapsing completely, these too have a certain visual charm. In terms of printmaking proficiency and craftsmanship, all are of the highest caliber.
   
   A fine entryway into an important though sometimes overlooked modern Japanese artistic genre, this book will naturally appeal to anyone interested in Japanese art and culture (especially those with a strong nostalgic Romantic streak, like me) as well as those with a more general interest in the art of printmaking as a whole. It takes about an evening to browse through, but in that span of time opens up whole realms of beauty both humble and sublime.
   
   P.S. for books focused on the key Shin Hanga artists, see Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces and The Complete Woodblock Prints of Yoshida Hiroshi. For a look at Sosaku Hanga, a different modern Japanese print movement somewhat opposed to Shin Hanga, see Made in Japan: The Postwar Creative Print Movement.



2. Overall, a nicely produced book with a good general narritive. Gives a straightforwarard explanation of the movement and the players. Could have been better with more information on prints shown. Plenty of white space that could have been used to explain the markings on each. I would like to have seen more information on how to date a print and determine quality.



3. Small introductory book that will update your knowledge of what happened to ukiyoe and how Japanese woodblock prints morphed into Shin Hanga or new prints in the twentieth century. The woodblock print which was once a group effort became only the artist's creation. It's about the transition and expansion of subjects from the "Floating world" of the entertainment quarters in Kyoto and Tokyo to everyday life in modernized Japan. The Japanese love the sights and sounds of their country and are tourists par excellance from school to old age. It's no surprise that the landscapes of Hiroshige and Hokusai of famous sites translate easily to modern day views of the same famous Japanese places in the prints of Hasui,Yoshida and Kasamatsu. Mannered actor prints become more real and the Bijin prints of geisha change from the artificial to beauty in the natural female form in everyday life.



4. The Japanese term 'shin hanga' means 'new prints'. "Shin Hanga: The New Print Movement Of Japan" by curator Barry Till is a impressively illustrated and informative history of the 'new prints' art movement beginning with the Meiji period (1868-1912), continuing through the prewar years of the 1930s, and going on to the artists of the 1960s. Profusely and beautifully illustrated with more than one hundred color images, "Shin Hanga" is very strongly recommended for academic and community library Art History reference collections, and will prove to be of immense interest for art students, artists, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in Japanese culture, art and history.

5 comments about Make It Bigger.

1. I ordered this book late November in 2006. It was not in stock, so expected to ship sometime in February. Every 3 weeks I received another email notifying that the expected ship and delivery dates were pushed back another month or two.
   There's NO reason that this should happen - so I googled the book and eventually found a publisher's site to order from.
   
   Great book, but BOO amazon.



2. A great read for anyone who is ready to make the jump from art school to working clients. Scher goes into excellent detail about working with illustrators, the structure (and politics) of agency work, her strategies/approach to design. She also shares good insight on how to work most effectively with clients who may not know a whole lot about design. I found this very practical, and a very easy read. I am also a big fan of her work, which spans several decades.



3. Paul Scher hit me. No, literally. On a student tour of the Koppel/Scher offices, I was standing by a closet--Paula flung the door open and I provided the rubber stop. Though it's been a struggle, the last 12 years have softened my emotional pain. Make It Bigger provided some very necessary closure.
   Also, trust whatever Randy Silverman (a previous reviewer) says about anything, especially anything concerning design. Frighteningly insightful.



4. I have to say I'm not a big "fan" of Paula Scher's visual style, it's far too "horsey" and "big-boned" for my taste, but I am a fan of what she has to say about the design profession and her experience in it.

   This book is an excellent reference/story book on the frustrations of dealing with clients (which are many, as I can relate) who have poor taste or are just clueless. I agree with everything Paula says here and enjoyed the grain of salt with all that's said. I can feel the frustration and exasperation Paula speaks of as anyone worth their blood has designed something great, only to have a client with tunnel vision ruin it. Sigh.

   Any serious designer should read this book, or already has. I would have no problem calling anyone who hasn't read it a poseur in this profession!




5. Too often designers see their own result(s) and design solutions without the knowledge of the 'client process' . . . a truly remarkable reality in this business. ALL design students should be made aware of this aspect of the profession, possibly even before seriously considering if one wants to be a designer. There is so much more to it than having an 'AHA' on one's own. Ms. Scher has presented this in a manner both pictorially and honestly with examples and explanations . . . and, of course, with much experience in the real world of design (which must also include some humor). I have been a designer for thirty years and would recommend this as part of required reading from the start for future "wannabes" and for all of us who need that reassurance that this is indeed how it works.

5 comments about Becoming a Graphic Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design, 2nd Edition.

1. I am finishing up by degree in Graphic Communications in December. I checked this book out of our school library and didn't want to give it back...so I bought my own! What I love about this book is that it breaks it down by industry and specialty area. I also like the way it breaks down what you should include in your portfolio for those areas. It is nice knowing that there is more to Graphic Design than just being a Graphic Artist in a print shop or a newspaper. This book gives you an idea and an overview on what's out there. Awesome!



2. This book is a good overview of what it means to be a graphic designer. It goes through the different areas of design, and different job positions.
   Everything you need to know about the design world is in this book.



3. This book is a good overview of what it means to be a graphic designer. It goes through the different areas of design, and different job positions.
   Everything you need to know about the design world is in this book.



4. There is a lot of good to be said for this book. But the thing that jumps out and slaps me in the face, right off, maybe because I have dealt with new design students and new professionals for the past several years, is a few dumb comments such as "If you are going to be a good designer, fine. If you aren't don't bother. The field is full of mediocre talents as it is."

   And how, pray tell, does one know whether one is going to "be good" during the first year of ones study? --Or even during the first few years of ones professional practice, when sweeping out the place may be included in your job description, and hands-on real world work may come your way slowly and in small discreet bits? And doesn't every creative person at one point or another question the worth and validity of what he or she is doing, EVEN after recognition has started rolling in and they understand that their work is generally perceived by their peers as good? Further, I would ask whether everyone HAS to be a Saul Bass or a Neville Brody. Isn't design a broad enough field to encompass the work of those with less Olympian ambition? Comments such as the one above are relatively few and far between, to be certain. But where on earth was the editor when pompous uninsightful stuff like this flew in under the radar? Although the sheer snideness of the comment may make many jaded pros cheer, I have to wonder what useable information this kind of comment contains for the neophyte at whom the book is supposedly aimed? --To show that a lot of jaded pros have a really bad attitude?

   I do not favor the Pollyanna view whether we are talking art or careers. But I believe it is impossible to know how you will fare at something before you have been doing it a while. Thinking otherwise --for example, that a teacher in a design 101 class can tell you whether you are "any good" (and I have seen or heard about many students asking this very question)-- just intimidates and discourages people from being brave enough to give the life that they would see for themselves a try. To me, that is way too limiting.




5. This book rocks! Once you read it you'll know WAAAAAZZZZZUP!

No comments about Fashion as Communication.

2 comments about The Fashion System.

1. I love fashion theory writings. I really do. And i know this is a seminal text in fashion theory. But man, oh man, is it a doozy! I'd give this book a 5 for the concepts, but a 1 for the ease of understanding. It is really hard to plough through - it is translated from French so features some tortuous sentence structure, and feels like the writings of a guy who really loves to read his own work; the higher the word count the better. I feel that it is work like this that leads people to view academic writing as necessarily dry, dense, verbose and pretentious, when there are amazing theory writers out there who are accessible and interesting to read.
   
   OK, admittedly a lot of this style is because of the era in which it was written; maybe a little because of the gender of its writer, and a lot because of the complexity and originality of the ideas Barthe is illuminating. But I would strongly recommend leaving this book until graduate level. Undergrads are better off with any of the contemporary writers in fashion theory, gender or cultural studies who have addressed Barthe's ideas in simple language.



2. For any reader who has had a father that read *Playboy* "for the articles," even Barthes' highly analytical approach to the relation between image and text--which he insists *produces* Fashion or "real clothing"--can be funny. I.e., reading in translation the American reader may not identify so much with the eccentricities of Barthes' style so much as his choice of subject. Barthes' work remains entirely relevant, even though the book was published in 1967--the decade where fashion models withered, along with any grand sense of ethics on the part of commercial artists, clothing designers, and filmmakers, down to nothing. Perhaps Barthes would say this Nothing was a *commentary.* Perhaps not. But certain details of Barthes' analysis hold very interesting still: for example, the fact that Barthes refers to the way the "written-garment" in a layout calls attention to specific portions of the "image-garment" as "amputations" (15).

   For the reader, it's important to place the book into some sort of context, as Context is Barthes' entire position when he insists that in relation to popular imagery, text "arrests the level of reading at its fabric, at its belt, at the accessory which adorns it" (13). Barthes' idea that the language used by magazine writers does not comment upon but rather *creates* Fashion arouses some questions about certain social centerpieces in, for example, popular (once "folk") music: Janis Joplin to Madonna to Britney Spears. While Barthes clear interest is a structuralized definition of Fashion, not women, studying Barthes' book may help us understand at a more analytical level just what these women "mean" as they are mediated through imagery and arrested by their respective (worn and written) articles. Barthes is crucial for anybody who has ever noticed that, compared to that which accompanied artists of Joplin's caliber , the accompanying texts of contemporary magazines read, more often than not, like a report of Time Temperature and Date.

   Furthermore, the book certainly becomes enjoyable for the more fantastic-minded who could envision a day when fashion magazines no longer have to rely on flamboyant nudity, tasteful or otherwise, or suggestive postures, but wherein nudity and erotic positions are implied in a truly Barthean, truly erotic manner: by the fact that all text has been stripped bare. After all, even in a picture-mag where there is no writing, there is still, if one reads Barthes, *writing*. This reviewer would imagine that in Barthes' eyes, the old fashioned critique of the ironic incongruities between the image and the text of other vestments of fashion (such as shampoo commercials whose orgiastic imagery and sounds have nothing to do with the actual product) could be easily solved by one magazine, of any kind, that had no writing at all but consisted entirely of centerfolds.

5 comments about Fairie-ality: The Fashion Collection from the House of Ellwand: The Deluxe Edition (Fairie-ality).

1. Beautiful photos and inspirations for creating "fairy" clothes. My daughter loves the book and has given it to two friends (10 year old girls) for presents.



2. You will be stunned by this book. Such beautiful art and creativity will provide you with hours of some very satisfying eye-candy! This is one of my favorites. I bought a few copies when it first came out for Christmas gifts! Everyone loved this book!



3. "Fairie-ality"..........it's so easy to be at a loss for words on this book, page after page of a beautiful collection! It is so beautifully done and illustrated that if you don't think "Fairies" have a wardrobe of their very own.... this will change your mind :). This book is a must have for all fairy collectors, little girls that dream of magic and also for those that just need a jump start for their own imaginations to take over. LOVE THE BOOK!!



4. I would list this book a 10 if I could, It is truly an inspiration to the creative juices. Excellant in every department.
   I would purchage this again and again if needed!



5. Very pleased with the book. It was a gift. In as new condition, as described. Fast shipping. Best price I found anywhere. Thanks so much!

No comments about Signs and Symbols.