2 comments about Fashioning Fabrics: Contemporary Textiles in Fashion.

1. The book itself contains nice layouts, plenty of accompanying text to reflect the designers it features, and nice to impressive photography that also reflects the designers' points of view. Most of the photos' visual impact comes from the (edgy) color and textile combinations used (including make-up affects); however, I wished it would've contained bolder layouts, but I guess this is what's to be expected of a paperback, slightly smaller footprint fashion book as I'm partial to the larger size books that can really wow you with one page full of vibrant color topped with a micro or macro aspect. The models were high fashion, runway model types wearing very creative pieces throughout the book but also expect lots of contextural writing. Note that I didn't actually read the book but scanned through the pics and some representative writings only for a minute because I was buying it as a gift for my high school grad niece who's interested in art school. I was more interested in how the visual impression of the photos would appeal to her. I was excited and thought it'd be good to excellent for her EXCEPT and unfortunately for one darn little but questionable photo! It was a frontal photo of a group of runway models wearing one featured designer's fashion (statement) in which one model was completely nude from the neck down and the other was nude from the waiste down (they were wearing "designer-modified" middle eastern type traditional women's clothing). I'm not a prude, and I probably should've known better via the fashion world perspective on the human body as art, but I certainly don't want my niece's parents to remember me as the aunt who unwittingly gave their daughter a book containing this particular photo. Had it not been a gift and for myself, I probably would've been fine with the book. So I'm returning it and felt the need to FYI other potential buyers. There was another tiny photo of a model's "behind" dressed in ethereal textile but it was done nicely and that I could've lived with.



2. This book shows us how to take a simple fabric and turn it into something more by manipulating or embellishing it into something else. We see the work of skilled designers who specialise in making something more out of a flat piece of material then transform it into something wearable.

3 comments about Arms and Armor: A Pictorial Archive from Nineteenth-Century Sources (Dover Pictorial Archive Series).

1. The pictures are indeed good quality and there are lots of them. I think it should be made clear, however, that this is only a book of pictures. There are no captions or explanations of any sort. You will surely see something in here that catches your eye, but will have little idea what it was called or where it was from. On many pages there is a country and time period, but most of the time, there are multiple countries listed with no distinction as to which image relates to the respective country. I was also disappointed in the almost complete lack of images of ancient Roman arms and armor. Middle ages to Renaissance is covered quite well, even some of ancient Greece, but Rome (arguably the greatest military force of all history) goes under-represented with only two small pictures from the Roman republic or empire.



2. I consider myself fairly picky about the quality of the images I use in my work. These clipart pictures are truly exceptional! Every single image, even the small helmet shots, are of an exceptionally high level of detail. You sometimes feel like the item is right in front of you. At this price, you would not expect the subtle shadings and hatching to be present in the art or print of the book, but they are there, giving the art a sense of depth that I have not found in other publications (even those in full color). This book provides well over 750 high quality clipart images. There are a very few images that are of a far lower detail, and hence, quality level. But that can be excused by the overwhelming achievement of the artist who produced the overall work of this book. For those looking to verbally depict armor or weapons, the value of this book cannot be over stated - it will inspire page after page with its high level of detail and the obvious inspiration of the smiths of history.



3. I publish newsletters for a non-profit organization that re-creates the Middle Ages to educate people about history - the Society for Creative Anachronism. "Arms & Armor" has been an invaluable resource to handsomely illustrate the pages of my newsletters. Dover's copyright on this book allows the use of 10 images per project - which is very generous, considering some other clip art books only allow 4 or 5 per project. Furthermore, the country and century from which the images were cultivated is listed at the bottom of every page. This is immensely helpful for using these images in education. When one of our members writes an article about 16th century German horse armor, I can find an exact image to match his/her description in the article. There is a wide variety of images to choose from, including sketches of helmets, swords, axes, full suits of armor, shields, battle scenes and armor accoutremonts. I have owned this book for three years, and I use it with almost every newsletter issue I publish. I consider it an essential resource for SCA newsletter illustration.

5 comments about Quick Service.

1. Of all of the Wodehouse books we have read--and they have been many--this is one of the very funniest. The main character is, as others have said, largely responsible for the most comical parts, but he couldn't have pulled it off alone. Great reading!



2. "You can never trust a writer not to make an ass of himself," P.G. Wodehouse once remarked, and novice readers who have dipped into a Jeeves or Mulliner story must be wondering how long their luck will last. How long until they come on to some dog of a novel that forever smirches the name Wodehouse? Well, as opposed to nearly anyone else you can name, all the Wodehouse exhibits I've delved into so far have all been Very Readable or above. Not a dog in the bunch, except in the good sense of the dumb chums and interminable pekes collected in the Wodehouse Bestiary.
   
   But Quick Service was a favorite of PGW, whom you would think would know his own mind. This light novel from 1940 mixes equal parts musical comedy and whatever else his books are about, with some hysterical lines. "Oo!" said Miss Pym, pouring beer in a flutter. That's the response of the copper-coloured haired barmaid at the pub in Loose Chippings to the question posed by young artist and man-of-action, Joss Weatherby, who's madly in love with Sally Fairmile, "Isn't marriage a wonderful institution?" Miss Pym is dreaming of her betrothed, butler Sidney Chibnall, but that monosyllable is fraught with meaning, because she and Sidney are on to a gang of plotters, with Joss as suspect number one. An avid reader of mysteries, she warns Chibnall: "pretty silly you'd look if you suddenly found him murdering you in your bed."
   
   Of course there's about a million other things happening with the cast of dozens, and this is one of the few Wodehouse romps where I can follow all the romantic embroilments. This very visual book could easily be performed on stage given the music hall bits dropped in all through it, as when Miss Pym tries to draw out a stranger with a false mustache. "You can always tell an American," she says, "but you can't tell him much. Ha ha." "Ha ha," replies the other, the gag falling flat like a card played in a deadly cat and mouse game of intrigue, as Miss Pym might say. It's just about perfect.



3. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Howard and Mabel Steptoe are recently moved from Hollywood to Loose Chippings, Sussex, England. Here they reside in Claines Hall with Beatrice Chavender and Sally Fairmile, two of Mabel's relatives. Add into the mix Sidney Chubnall, proper English butler. They are joined by George Holbeton, who has just engaged himself to Sally.
   Enter the household one Joss Weatherby, who arrives seeking employment so as to be near Sally. He is soon followed by the man who sacked him, J.B. Duff, of Paramount Hams. Duff holds out at the Rose and Crown, where barmaid Vera Pym finds the merchant highly suspicious. The barmaid is betrothed to the butler.
   Comic situations are called for. Misunderstandings, deceits, and of course, True Love. The British are wonderful at this type of comedy; P.G. Wodehouse was masterful. Not heavy stuff, perhaps. You know everyone and everything will end as they should. Predictable? Yes, but also fun and with a natural innocence all too uncommon today.
   "Lord Holbeton stared. His question had been intended in a purely satirical spirit, and her literal acceptance of it stunned him. For an instant, compassion gripped him. She seemed so young, so frail to go up against one who even on his good mornings resembled something out of the Book of Revelation.
   "Then there swept over him the thought of what a lot of unpleasantness this would save him. If somebody had to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, how much more agreeable if it were not he."
   
   Penguin paperback edition



4. If laughter is the best medicine, then those who read Wodehouse are destined to live until 130. Quick Service, one of Wodehouse's non-series novels, is the ultimate pick-me-up. It is a novel filled with great schemes got astray, suspicious butlers, Americans who appropriately respond to the most difficult questions by saying: "Yeah", and the most delicious sounding, toothsome Paramount Ham. This novel has threads galore, twisting and entwined, and only a Master like Wodehouse could bring it all to such a satisfying conclusion.

   But the main reason to read Quick Service is to make the acquaintance of Joss Weatherby. After it was over and the brain-box slowly pondered the preceedings, it came to me that Joss is a combination of Bertie and Jeeves rolled into one. On the Bertie front, Joss is quite capable of getting himself into one scrape after another without even trying. On the Jeeves front, he is able to rescue himself from these scrapes by using his flashes of genius. Also, Joss is a total charmer. It is not hard to see why Sally (our heroine) quickly joins the Weatherby ranks. I would love to have another novel and another chance to read more Joss adventures.

   Quick Service is now the third non-series Wodehouse I have read. I highly encourage those who have primarily feasted on Blandings and Jeeves to try these non-series gems. They are just as satisfying as any of the others. And we get a clear resolution of the scrapes within each novel.

   So, go out there, hunt in your used bookstores, or wait until the publishers have the good sense to re-issue Quick Service. But read it! The lips will curl, the teeth will part, and the laughter will flow. And if this is medicine, your good health turly awaits!




5. This is one of Wodehouse's many, many novels, and one of the more charming ones, due mostly to the main character, Joss Weatherby, a bright, exuberant, insanely optimistic and intelligent young artist who falls in love with Sally, a poor relation & companion to Mrs. Steptoe, a wealthy ex-American determined to enter and conquer the landed and titled social circles of England. Sally, a bright and feisty girl, is engaged to the Lord Holbeton, a spineless, intellectually-uninspired young man who sings "Trees" and whose money is held in trust by J.B. Duff, the Ham King, who is Joss' boss and was once in love with Mrs. Chavender who..... well, it's a typical Wodehouse plot, with people falling in and out of love, fortunes, inheritances held in trust getting in the way of people in love, obsessions with ham, bad indigestion, butlers going above the call of duty, paintings being stolen for nefarious purposes, all accomplished in loopy, flight-of-fancy, ingeniously light and happy prose that floats along, delightful and humorous. A Wodehouse effort other than his Jeeves and Wooster books that I really liked.

1 comments about Art Nouveau Cut & Use Stencils.

1. This book has some nice, simple patterns, including those with floral, animal, and geometric designs. They are printed on one side in black on a medium weight, cream colored cardstock. For actually use of these "stencil patterns," I would recommend copying or tracing onto a more durable plastic made for stenciling. Also, some of the stencils patterns are repeated in different sizes throughout the book (they range from 1 1/2 inches up to a full page). All in all, there are some nice designs, and there is a two-page introduction that details what you need to stencil. I think this is good book for a beginner, but too simple for an artist.

2 comments about Full-Color Fruit Crate Labels CD-ROM and Book (Dover Electronic Series).

1. This is a great book of vintage label clip art. Very clean images and lots of diversity in subject. I would recommend for any craft, or graphic project.



2. I bought this book and Old-Time Fruit Crate Labels in Full Color because I was interested in using some of the labels for decoupage. Imagine my surprise when I received them and found out the books have exactly the same labels inside--Full-Color Fruit Crate Labels just has the CD-ROM and a different cover.
   The labels are beautiful and I will be using them, but I am disappointed that it is not possible to determine from the book descriptions that they have the same labels. Oh well, I'm giving my extra copy to our local library.

4 comments about Learning and Applying AutoDesk Inventor 2008 Step-by-Step.

1. Just as it states, a step-by-step book to learn the basics. Good way for an
   old Acad user to get his feet wet learning a solid modeling program. I know there are hundreds of things to learn that it doesn't cover, but I feel comfortable enough now, to keep learning about what Inventor can do.



2. Learning and Applying AutoDesk Inventor 2008 Step-by-Step
   
   The is a very poorly written book with signficant mistakes both in displayed (screen dump) information and written information.
   
   For the novice designer, this book is terribly confusing and will inhibit learning.
   
   For the advanced designer this book is aggravating and wasteful in its approach and compounded by thoughtless errors and ommissions.
   
   The fact that the author is a Ph.D. would indicate a degree of professional pride that is clearly lacking. I wouldn't want my name on this book as my contribution to the 3D Design Industry.
   
   A waste of money. I am thankful the place I bought the book from has a 14 day return policy. I am returning this book!



3. Well this book certainly got me started but it did not go into detail for the functions various options, also there were several mistakes that confused me for awhile. Before long i found my self skipping pages as it was so repetative in the descriptions and then before i knew it i was 400 pages in and really had only covered the basics.
   
   But it diid do what is said"Step by Step"



4. I needed a book to get me started in Autodesk Inventor 2008. This book did, that is why it gets 2 stars instead of one. The step-by-step directions, with one step on one page, use up a lot of pages fast. It took about 3 hours to read the book and left me with the feeling that a lot was left untouched. The book does finish with a piston/con rod/crank animation that is very informative. It would have been nice if the author included:
   1) dialog boxes - why each choice was made
   2) dialog boxes - what the other choices do
   3) a brief description of all of the commands

1 comments about Calligraphy for the Beginner.

1. Tom Gourdie's Calligraphy for the Beginner will make you a Calligraphic Winner! You heard it here. I bought this book with hopes of learning how to create some simple calligraphic techniques to write love letters to my girlfriend. After a couple weeks of practicing I felt I was a master. Gourdie lists easy excercises that you can do to teach yourself the basics, then he gives you more ways to improve. If you already know quite a bit about calligraphy, you might want to skip ahead and get a more advanced book, but if you've never tried it before and are interested in learning and making yourself a calligraphy wiz, then this book is for you. I was having so much fun writing the letters that I didn't even care when my girlfriend broke up with me! Seriously, I'm still using the book to perfect my technique and wouldn't trade it for anything!

2 comments about Scandinavian Design (Taschen 25).

1. Ikea would have you believe that legions of brilliant, unknown designers toil tirelessly in arctic sweatshops across Scandinavia to bring you items you didn't even know you wanted. This book is the next best thing to an anxiety attack over swedish meatballs at the local Ikea megastore.
   
   My criticism is that there is little rhyme or reason to the pieces chosen for inclusion. The book just haphazardly marches through: here a chaise lounge, here an end table, here a sconce grafted to a candelabra. If it were better organized with more descriptive text and designer bios including guiding ethos, it would be an excellent introduction to Scandinavian design.



2. Another one of those excellent Fiell/Taschen overviews on design. This time, a huge 704 page, beautifully designed and printed pictorial collection of the essence of Scandinavian creativity. Although it covers the obvious furniture, metalware, glass, textiles and ceramics it also considers commercial products from companies like Fiskars, Hasselblad, IKEA, Lego, Saab, Volvo and nicely, even a company like Kompan, a producer of childrens playground equipment that is sold worldwide. I think this one reason for the commercial and creative success of Scandinavian products, they believe that good, simple design should be applied to everything and be available to all, the introduction calls these products democratic objects.
   
   The book is a joy to look at. Each designer (or company with their logo) starts on a spread with a small head shot of the person, some text and the rest of the space, sometimes over several pages, devoted to photos. Interestingly with so many photos (more than 1600) many of which came from various sources, the color values are very similar and they all blend together throughout the book. I think Taschen are to be congratulated on producing (yet again) a stunning looking book that covers the subject so well and anyone involved with craft creativity and design will be pleased to have a copy.
   
   ***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

2 comments about Figuring the Word: Essays on Books, Writing and Visual Poetics.

1. Drucker is undeniably THE authority on how the visual word gets displayed and used within the book form today. Thus this collection of interviews, essays, poetic reflections, etc is broad-reaching in its reflections both on others work and her own origins as a poet and printbook-maker. It is a book which makes her reflections palpable, personable and inspires and invites the reader to participate in the process of asking "where now?" concerning our next step in Figuring the Word withing the book's frame. A great pair to her much headier, scholarly book The Visible Word.



2. I really enjoyed these essays, which range from theory to personal reflection. When discussing specific projects that she has been involved with, it's fascinating they way you are drawn in to feel like you're seeing the behind-the-scenes of the creation process. The treatments of issues of theory were cogent, and well presented. I confess that I dog-eared many a page. The moments of personal reflection were at times almost too personal to bear...not what you might expect from a collection of essays, but welcome to this reader, nonetheless.

5 comments about Nash Editions: Photography and the Art of Digital Printing (VOICES).

1. I found this book to be quite a good read, but it should looked at as a historical work first. However the amount of text in this book is a lot less than you might expect, probably less than 50% of the book is written material. The remainder consists of wonderful prints from many artists.
   
   I did enjoy it, but it should be purchased understanding the odd format, a few essays, all well written. With many prints, not all are photographs. The Wilhelm essay on history of print longevity is especially good.



2. The history of digital photography has twists and turns, and the Nash Editions book gives us a record of some of the key events. Worth reading, and the images are splendid.



3. With respect to the nature of this book's content and message Eric Burrows' review title hit the nail on the bean: "Not how to do it but how it happened". Don't buy this book with the expectation of learning technical tricks for printing. Rather, "Nash Editions; Photography and the Art of Digital Printing" is a retrospective look at the pathfinding inkjet printing work of Mac Holbert and Graham Nash. The book actually consists of several essays by various authors, including Mr. Archival Permanence himself, Henry Wilhelm.
   
   I found this book to be a fascinating stroll down the relatively short (to-date) path of fine art inkjet printing. But I also found it strangely inspiring. After spending a couple of hours with this book I felt compelled to devote even more effort to my own printing.



4. Nash Editions deserves all credit for kick starting the fine-art/inkjet revolution but I'm not sure this book adds much to what is already well known. For sure there's lot of great images herein, but the presentation is a bit sloppy. We hear the same story over again from multiple participants and (in my copy at least) the more interesting narration from Holbert ends mid sentence. If you're interested in the history of the inkjet, this is a book you'll have to have but the lack of care/thought in its presentation does seem a little like exploitation.



5. Just a few years ago the terms "art" and "inkjet print" weren't tolerated in communal context. Now, as with many media evolutions, sensibilities have to a large degree changed. One of the forces instrumental in altering the art community's entrenched mindset against the inkjet process has been a small digital fine-art inkjet photography studio by the name of Nash Editions. Through the collaborative pioneering of a handful of deep-pocketed, influential, and very determined artistic entrepreneurs, Nash Editions helped develop, refine, and establish broad acceptance for the digital fine-art inkjet printing. This is their story.
   
   At first blush this lavishly printed (and expensive) book promises a consuming elegance that sweeps you away. It has star power too, with one of the leading personalities none other than Graham Nash of Crosby, Still & Nash fame. It also includes rich and very personal histories of the birth and labored growth of the digital printing service company, of permanence in various photographic media, and of photography itself as a medium of expression. The book also includes images by a broad selection of visual artists spread throughout in an eclectic smorgasbord.
   
   But there are a few elements that detract somewhat from the book's rich objectives. With several authors contributing, certain parts of the story get repeated - several times in fact - and the tone at times begins to sound slightly obsequious and self-lauding, to the point that one is led to the impression that Nash Editions (the company) was pretty much the sole entity that dragged digital printing from practically nothing in the early 1990s to it's high level of sophistication and acceptance today. While Nash Editions can certainly claim historic "firsts" in several categories within the digital printing revolution, a thoughtful person might wonder if there weren't just a few other significant contemporaries working toward the same goals. And on a purely technical note, one of the sections of the book ends in the middle of a paragraph, leaving the reader guessing as to the intended conclusion; perhaps a little tighter editing would have been helpful.
   
   So, should you buy this book? Yes, if you're a photographic artist interested in the history of the digital printing process or the concept and science of photographic media permanence. And of course it will serve too as visual stimulation and a contemporary two-dimensional artwork study; one can learn a great deal by looking carefully at other artist's work.