1 comments about Design for Special Events: 500 of the Best Logos, Invitations, and Graphics.

1. Comprei este livro, na intenção de visualizar "idéias" novas, produtos diferenciados, mas encontrei convites, selos, e cartazes nada fora do normal.

No comments about Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius; Revised and Expanded Edition.

5 comments about The Triumph of Individual Style : A Guide to Dressing Your Body, Your Beauty, Your Self.

1. I bought this book "The Triumph of Individual Style" because a friend was excited about it. Her talk struck my curiosity, so I ordered it. Once I received it, I looked through the whole book and I lost interest right away.
   It must be the most useless thing someone suggested. It might be good for someone who has absolutely no eye for beauty and balance. I would rate it 0 (zero) if there was a zero star to add, but since there is not one, I have rated 1.



2. This book is for the experienced Fashion and Image Consultant that want the theory behind creating image and beauty.



3. I am a fashion designer who was looking for some good resource books to help with figure-appropriate designs. I came across this book after a long search and thought I had found gold. Unfortunately, it was not what I expected. I was really disappointed with the line sketches used to explain clothing choices and found those designs to be VERY outdated- especially considering the second printing was in 2002. For example, I could not disagree more with the advice for rectangular-shaped women- that they should opt for sack dresses that ignore the waist, rather than trying to create one.
   The chapters on jewlery choices and color charts were equally useless.
   I would not recommend this book to any fashion designer looking for figure-flattering design elements. "Dress Your Best" by Stacy London and Clinton Kelly is by far a better choice- especially considering the price.



4. This bok with it`s beautiful drawings adds dimension to it`s material. This is a must for people who want to look their best and also a great book for clothing designers as weel as image consultants.



5. I found this book six years ago in the libarary. I took copious notes from it over the next few years I checked it out. I finally purchased it and with every reading get more tips for style. I wish I had purchased it sooner.
   I sew and it has proven valuable for things like selecting prints, woking with fabric texture, and determining hemline, waistline and neckline lengths and widths. Other books tell me what to do to achieve an effect, but this one tells me why.
   I am exploring style and trying to develop more creativity in my sewing. I think this is the best guide around for that purpose. It also would have been a good companion for my "Dress for Success" efforts a few decades ago.

5 comments about Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change.

1. Papanek, like his mentor Fuller, took on a guru like status where rhetoric became more important than the reality. He bends facts and contradicts himself several places in this book.
   
   Here are a few that jumped out at me
   
   Misrepresentation of the facts -
   
   Page 89 - The Hyatt collapse wasn't bad design rather the builder changed the construction and inspectors weren't doing their job.
   
   281 - He talks about farm implement companies' negative reaction to his walking tractor proposal. Troy-Bilt Rototiller has around since 1937, was and is building a 10 HP tiller very similar to the one pictured.
   
   Contradicts himself -
   
   Page 6 he says, "Design must be meaningful. And meaningful replaces such semantically loaded expressions as ... "ugly"... "cute"...
   
   Page 93 - he describes gum as "tawdry
   
   Page 246 - He asserts that humidifiers are bad because they are "costly, ugly, and ... wasteful of water"
   
   Granted there are a lot of dangerous, overpriced, impractical, and generally unnecessary products on the market, but except for ranting about what he considers to be wrong, he doesn't offer much in terms of direction to others who want to be socially responsible.



2. I first heard a lecture by Victor Papanek about 20 years ago, shortly before this revised edition was released. He was a very impressive speaker, drawing from a seemingly bottomless well of ecological design ideas. His work has taken him far and wide and in the process allowed him to revamp many of his views on environmental design. This book is an extensively updated version of his seminal book on the subject. It has become a bit dated in the 20 years since its release, especially in regard to computer software design. But, most of the material he covers is still relavent to the present, as we have only begun to scratch the surface of sound ecological ideas.

   Having read the more recent books on ecological design by Sim Van Der Ryn and William McDonough, I was surprised to see that neither mentioned Papanek, who prefigured many of the ideas they present in their current books. Papanek long ago advocated the lease/use principle, which makes much more sense in a rapidly changing technological world than does the buy/own principle that continues to dominate our social thinking. Papanek notes the many cultural and psychological blocks we have created for ourselves when it comes to ecological design, but also illustrates how we can overcome these blocks with methods such as bisociation, first proposed by Arthur Koestler. But, what really makes this book stand out are the great number of illustrations that Papanek uses to demonstrate his ideas. This is one of the most practical books written on environmental design.

   While Papanek was an industrial designer, his ideas are equally germaine to the field of architecture and biology. He advocated a multi-disciplinary approach, feeling that our universities had become too compartimentalized and were stifling creativity, which needs cross-pollination in order to thrive. The book is as inpiring as his lectures. Papanek challenges the reader to explore new avenues, not continue to follow the status quo, which only results in creative dead-ends.




3. I first spotted this book while studying in Denmark last year, where my host parents had studied under Victor Papanek. I would have studied under him at the University of Kansas, if not for his untimely and unfortunate passing. This book is one of the best books on the principles and ethics of design. It illustrates both the designer's responsibility and the potential to affect real change in the world through design. This most renowned of works by Papanek focuses on industrial design in two parts: How It Is, and How It Could Be. Papanek encourages radical thinking in design, and most of the topics in the book are easily translated to architecture. To my knowledge, reading this book has never been a required part of the core curriculum at the School of Architecture and Urban Design here at KU, but in my opinion, it should be.



4. one of the best books on design ethics till date!



5. It has been many years since I read this important book. I hope this book will be made a compulsory read for all design students. If only more designers would adopt Mr Papanek's approach to socially-responsible design, the world will be a much better place to live in.

2 comments about Apparel Product Development, 2nd Edition.

1. this book is a must for people seeking knowledge in the field of fashion & textile ,help in perparing for the gound realities of the trade ...



2. This book is the only book I found so far that has bring me up-to-speed in the apparel industry. It has explain a lot of details of the general business practices within the apparel industry and also give me a direction on how to start my apparel business.

2 comments about Plants: 2,400 Copyright-Free Illustrations of Flowers, Trees, Fruits and Vegetables (Dover Pictorial Archive Series).

1. I love the Dover Pictorial Archives Series and this book is a fine example of the copyright-free images that Dover offers in these books. Jammed full of beautiful black and white drawings in fine detail this could be the one book in your library to cover all your botanical needs. But it won't be. Once you see this book you'll want to add more Pictorial Archives Series books to your library.



2. This is a terrific book. I purchased it with the companion book on Animals. It is a "must have" for anyone interested in art, biology, or just a good coffee table book. It will keep youngsters quiet for hours with the facinating illustrations. Very high quality. You just can't beat the price either. I highly recommend it. You, too, can be botanically correct!

2 comments about Adobe Illustrator for Fashion Design.

1. I found that this book has so much information its difficult to follow in a structured fashion. The pros are the fact that it has lots of content, the cons are the fact that it seems to try to throw everything at the reader at once. Also, I find the sketches very amateurish and juvenile compared to other illustrator books for fashion. As someone working in the fashion industry for more than 20 years I would demand more professional sketches for flats and on the figure.



2. Adobe Illustrator for Fashion Design is a necessary tool for anyone studying fashion design. I am currently working in the Fashion Industry for a major designer, and use all of the Illustrator techniques I've learned in this book on a daily basis. All of the concepts are well organized with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions. I love this book!

5 comments about The R. Crumb Handbook.

1. R. Crumb just may well be the most honest observer of the American scene of our generation. Since the mid-60s he's been looking at us and himself and putting his findings on paper. His eye has shifted focus several times over the past 50 years: early, cute satire; greeting card stuff that frequently was too risque to make it into print; the zapped LSD-inspired hippie drawings that made him the "father of underground comix"; the sexual confessions that earned him the hatred of some feminists and got him blacklisted from libraries (see the librarian's review of this book); the social critic who deplores consumerism, agri-industry, mass media, the ratrace, and the worship of the Almighty Buck; the music afficionado who writes incredible stories about his favorite musicians and musical genre; the philosopher who speculates about life, sex, fear, fame, and death; and always the autobiographer, who plumbs and probes and fingers his own psyche.
   
   The R. Crumb Handbook is the latest chronological/autobiographical compilation of his work. It's a good companion volume to The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book, which came out a decade ago. Crumb apparently doesn't like putting these things together, and does so only when he needs some cash (the Coffee Table Art Book paid for putting central heating in his French house). But both books are fine introductions to Crumb's work for those who've just discovered him, and nice walks down memory lane for those who are longtime fans. The artwork is punctuated by short Crumb essays, as well as a few appropriate quotes from folks like James Kunstler, C.G. Jung, and Charles Bukowski. The Crumb essays are interesting, but not as detailed as those found in the Coffee Table Art Book. But the Handbook includes the fantastic CD of music recorded over a period of 30 years by Crumb and his music pals
   
   But there are some pleasant surprises in the hefty Handbook. There are several pages, for example, of "The Crumb Family," a strip co-authored by Crumb and Aline Crumb-Kominsky (pp. 218-229). It's absolutely hilarious, and exceedingly clever--which may be why the strip never made it to serialization. There are photos of Crumb-inspired tattoos--including one on a woman's firm tush--is it Aline's?--and of the life size statues of Devil Girl and Vulture Goddess Crumb sculpted in the 1990s. The Handbook also documents several European exhibitions of Crumb's work, including the one at the 1992 Angouleme comics Festival in France which featured a huge walk-in sized Crumb exploding head.
   
   For my money, though, the best of the latest stuff collected in the Handbook are the "philosophical reflections" on knowledge, personal identity, significance, and so on, with which Crumb filled his sketchbooks in the late 90s (pp. 370-390). They suggest a man who's beginning to feel his time running out and who wants to try to figure out a few things before the night closes in.
   
   One of the most touching--and revealing--illustrations in the Handbook is its final illustration in which Crumb lists the cartoonists and illustrators who've influenced him. At the very top of the list is his genius and tragic older brother, Charles Crumb, Jr.



2. A fascinating man talks about his life. Small format means the artwork is a little hard to read, tho.



3. Includes a great CD Sampler with some hard to find Cheap Suit Serenaders songs, along with some of R. Crumb's other bands. Worth the price for the disc alone, and you get a great book as a companion!



4. I'm not vouching for the viewpoints taken or the commentaries on our bizarre human condition and culture necessarily, but this thick book (with a great cd of original and funny music) with its outrageous take on everything sacred is an inspiring dig into an artist's convoluted (but somehow eerily solid) psyche. I first saw many of these strips and characters in underground comics, tabs, independent newspapers, etc. back when I was a teen in the 70's and always was amazed at the hard-hitting art and dialogue. IT IS A TRIP! Sometimes, when the right frame of mind is brought around, this book will have you laughing more than you can barely stand. Just flow with it and forget your rigid alter-ego at the coat check. This is theater for the insane (with strong metaphorical realism). TAKE IT FOR FOR WHAT IT IS! A WINDOW INTO THE MIND OF A TRUE ARTIST. Makes a great gift for the moral majority members of your local PTA.



5. Before I got this a few weeks ago, I didn't think much of Crumb in comparison to the other 60's underground cartoonists that I read of in a book called "rebel visions". But that tome contained skimpy explainations on the featured artists, and really only contained Crumb's more "commercial" (crappy) work. But this handbook, with extensive artwork, photos, and narration by Crumb himself is a different, and oddly uplifting critique of the media illusion, personal failure and triumphs, family values, and of being left handed-I know, I'm one of em'-yes, were all perverts, yes, were all useless people with a knack for genius, and yes, were all attracted to music, concepts, and culture that few people can possibly comprehend or appreciate. Read it for all the gory details! The CD is okay. The cartoons are hilarious.

No comments about Inside Fashion Design, 5th Edition.

No comments about Daniel Eatock Imprint: Works 1975-2007.