Designers Books

I am a preschool teacher and love the fundamental concept behind this book! Teaching children to see art in the world around them is so fundamental to early and continued learning. The bear in this story is like many of my students, not realizing that art is all around us! Combined with many open-ended hands on art projects in the classroom, this book serves as a super teaching tool to further the creative and expressive thinking of my students!

Jan Tschichold, Designer: The Penguin Years is a seminal and impressive contribution to the history of publishing with its focus on Jan Tschichold and his influence with respect to the typographic revolution that was applied to Penguin's mass production of books for the general populace. Author Richard B. Doubleday (Assistant Professor of Art, Department of Graphic Design, College of Fine Arts, Boston University) brings a special research-based expertise to providing an historical and analytical survey of Tschichold's contributions during the mid to late 1940s that saw the emergence of a wide ranging Penguin Book Series that included both fiction and non-fiction. Many of Tschichold's preliminary hand drawn cover and title page designs are made public for the first time in order to demonstrate and document his meticulous attention to detail and the development of his `New Typography'. Enhanced with the inclusion of an extensive bibliography on Tschichold's writings and historical appendices of his inter-office memoranda and texts, "Jan Tschichold, Designer" is a significant addition to academic library collections on the history of publishing, and an especially recommended for students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in typography, book design, and the publishing industry.

Excellent book for one of the most famous new product designers. With small and understandable mentions of Jasper Morrison to all of his works. Explains how he inspired to do all of this works. From lightening equipment to chairs and tables, Jasper Morrison knows very well how to do the things look simpler and also functional.

As with the other books in the Universe of Fashion series, the Gaultier edition is mainly a photo look-book into the world of the designer. There is a short introduction about Gaultier, as well as a timeline of major events and collections in Gaultier's career. The photos used in the book are a good representation of Gaultier's clothing from his entire career, highlighting key pieces, and often showing them in interesting ways (a women's velvet cone bra dress is worn by male model Tanel in one photo for example). A great book for any Gaultier or fashion afficionado.

I am not that familiar with Jean Prouve's projects nor about him. I knew of Maison de Peuple and Tropical Houses, but this is a very exciting book to read and make connections with other giants of modern architecture. The book is not organized like other architectural monographs. Rather, it is organized based on tiny themes, and it feels as though you are visiting an exhibition at a museum and moving through. There are 5 large themes which organize smaller themes: 'technical thought', 'tools and production methods', 'factoried houses: metal, wood, concrete', 'furniture and interiors' and 'reception, legacy and biography'. Then as you are probably aware of Jean Prouve as not only an architect, but an engineer and constructor, the focus is much devoted to his latter role and design approaches as a builder. There are a lot of information on metal fabrications and interesting behind stories in relation to Le Corbusier, Mies, Tony Garnier... My favorite is about his involvement with the construction of Berlin Free University, one of the most significant modern (mat) buildings , designed by the members of Team 10, Candillis, Josic, Woods and Schiedhelm. The only draw back is that the usual architectural documentations such as plans, sections and photos etc on major projects are somewhat short. Nevertheless, I think anyone who loves buildings will enjoy this book for what it holds... not to mention that the covers are made of metal!!! So if you decide to get it, make sure that you find a copy without any dents.

I acquired this book as a reference for jewelry design, it was highly recommended by a friend who trained in Paris for Fine Jewelry design. The book contains just over 140 pages, the first 54 dedicated to text accompanied with quick sketches depicting Coco Chanel and her fashions; the remainder is filled with glossy photos of Chanel's jewelry creations, most in full color, a few other period stills in black and white. The photos are large, very sharp and show much of the fine detail of her jewelry, often dedicating one page to a single piece.

The book includes images of objects from antiquity, which clearly inspired Chanel, some even appear to be direct copies. Chanel's Byzantium crosses are especially intriguing for capturing a look of great antiquity. I found the strong Renaissance and Baroque forms to be equally inspiring.

I would have welcomed an even more expansive book that included more photos however this book covers pieces from the 1930's to the 1960's, and some space has been dedicated to all the various styles.

This is an unbelievably beautiful catalog of the work of a very proficient designer who, unfortunately, died "before his time". Long overdue! The illustrations are gorgeous. The major problem is the cost, but it is understood with the design and production of the work. Most of the illustrations are in color. The book's "housing" is certainly in his "style".

Joining of Plastics authored by Jordan Rotheiser and published by Hanser Gardner Publications, is an outstanding handbook covering everything from Adhesive joining to Welding of plastic components. (Note that there are no joining techniques starting with letter Z!) The author draws upon more than thirty-five years of plastics product design experience to present this encyclopedic coverage of joining techniques most commonly used in the plastics industry. This book not only offers a detailed guide to a novice reader in easy-to-read format, but also a complete reference manual for the experienced designer who occasionally encounters a new or unusual problem.

The author's unique approach to presenting the information is very refreshing and it fulfills its stated purpose of providing a handy desk reference and a design guide. Case in point, chapter one covers rapid guidelines for joining of plastic and efficient use of the handbook. This gives reader a quick overview of all available assembly methods in terms of description of the method, advantages, limitations, applications, and processing considerations. The general guidelines provide the direction for further reference and in-depth exploration of the particular subject. The importance of properly designing the parts to avoid assembly problems, improve efficiency, and reduce assembly time cannot be over emphasized. The chapter on designing for efficient assembly deals with this subject and provides the guidelines for the proper design along with an invaluable product design for assembly check list. A separate chapter for designing parts for disassembly and recycling covers increasing problem of solid waste management and makes important recommendations.

The relationship between the assembly methods, the Materials, and the plastics manufacturing processes is generally neglected in the available references. This book, in two separate chapters Assembly method selection by material and Assembly method selection by process, addresses this important but often overlooked relationship. Some of the individual topics discussed in detail are, adhesive and solvent joining, fasteners and inserts, hinges, variety of welding techniques including hot plate welding, gas welding, and induction/electromagnetic welding. Also, there are separate chapters on press fit, snap fits, spin welding, stacking, and cold forming. One of the most useful features of this book is the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each assembly method, making the selection process fast and easy. For example, the author succinctly points out that if high levels of molded-in stresses are a huge concern, one may want to avoid insert molding altogether. Chapter 13 on Insert and multi part molding discusses one of the fastest growing injection molding techniques to reduce assembly cost and components, often referred to as multi-component molding. Over forty pages have been devoted to the detailed discussion of Ultrasonic welding, a very popular and widely accepted joining methods.

In order to increase the versatility of the book and meet the goal of providing a ready reference and "how to" on the subject, numerous illustrations, charts, and tables have been depicted through out the book, names, addresses, and phone numbers of suppliers and equipment manufacturers are given along with adequate reference section. In the humble opinion of the reviewer, the readers would benefit even more, if additional actual photographs showing applications, equipment, and case studies were included. Whenever possible, inclusion of the supplier's website and e-mail address, should prove very valuable. Perhaps, the author would accept the suggestions for the future revision.

In the end, this handbook is the original work and no tired revision of an old text. The author has worked very hard to put into one volume much data that some of us have collected from various sources over a period of years and so often is buried in the files. Joining of Plastics is a very useful addition to any plastics engineer's library; however, it is a must for all plastic part designers.

this nicely illustrated book covers some of the most popular works of schinkel. included are his buildings paintings and some furniture designs.This is a small book and the informaion is concise so if you want in depth or analyitical information you might want to get another book as well.

I first be came aware of the work of Karl Gerstner while at art college in the late Fifties. I bought a copy of his first book 'Cold Art?', written in German, so I couldn't read it but I could follow the excellent analytical diagrams explaining the basis of mathematical abstracts as produced by Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers, Max Bill, Richard P Lohse, Gerstner and others. Thirteen pages of 'Cold Art' and spreads from his other books are also shown in this beautiful book of Gerstner's career.

His creative work from the fifties and sixties always used the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk (Standard Medium in English speaking countries) for text and headlines, despite, as he says, there being no italic. To make this type more complete he redesigned it as Gerstner Program and his work on this and another of his faces, IBM Original is explained in detail in the book.

His books, publication design, typefaces, logos, ads, packaging and thoughts on design and related areas of creativity are well presented throughout the book. I especially liked the last few pages which have some examples of his amazing computer generated art (in spreads from the Swiss magazine Basler Magazin) and this is why I find Gerstner so interesting, his graphic work covers such a wide area and interestingly, in the book, he also provides an intellectual underpinning of his creativity.

BTW the same publisher has produced a book devoted to Gerstner's paintings, graphics and computer art (ISBN 3775791515).

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.