Design Recent Picks

December 2008

The underlined titles will take you directly to our catalogue.
Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

Postcard, by FL@33 (Author), Agathe Jacquillat (Author), Tomi Vollauschek (Author).
""Postcard" is a showcase of the most exciting postcard designs and postcard-related projects, including handmade artworks, limited edition sets and books, commercial promo cards, high-tech postcards and interactive online projects that successfully link the virtual with the physical world. Designed and compiled by international design studio FL@33, the book features more than 100 artists, illustrators, photographers, designers and studios/collectives from around the world, with emerging talents sitting alongside established artists. The book contains a collector's set of 20 specially commissioned postcards from some of the biggest names in the business." (Amazon)

1,000 Music Graphics: A compilation of packaging, posters, and other sound solutions (1000 Series).
"This book will offer designers a vast collection of inspiring and innovative graphic works from the world of music. The main emphasis will be on music graphics including album/CD covers and inside spreads, packaging, posters, and other sales materials from the past decade.By showing diverse album graphics from the last decade, designers get a glimpse into what makes or breaks album sales and just how risky the content can be before it goes too far. This book will be a compendium of all types of graphically appealing album art, covering all kinds of music and music developers." (Amazon)

Tim Walker Pictures, by Tim Walker.
"This book offers us a privileged glimpse into the artistic process used by top fashion photographer Tim Walker. This comprehensive overview of his work brings us deep inside his glamorous world of adventure. We share in source materials normally hidden within the photographer's studio. The evocative images are rich with textured nuance and intriguing details. Walker gives full rein to his playful side and intersperses collages among the photographs. The over-sized format showcases some of the most imaginative and exuberant art being produced today. Tim Walker's work appears in trend-setting magazines such as Vogue and W. He has also created advertising campaigns for exclusive clients such as Comme des Garcons." (Amazon)

Foundations of Art and Design, by Alan Pipes.
"This text provides an introduction to the fundamentals of art and design for students embarking on graphic design, fine art and illustration - and also allied courses in interior, fashion, textile, industrial and product design, as well as printmaking. Through a wide range of illustrations, the author demonstrates how an artist or designer fills a blank canvas - nothingness - with points, lines, shapes, textures and colours in order to create a sense of space, time and motion. He also reveals how to develop unity and harmony, balance, scale and proportion, contrast and emphasis, and rhythm - all in the quest for a satisfying illusion." (Amazon review)

The Art of Romance: Harlequin Mills and Boon Cover Designs, by Joanna Bowring (Author), Margaret O'Brien (Author).
"They're not exactly bodice-rippers or as dramatic as pulp fiction covers, but the romance novel art displayed in this book, dating back to the 1908 launch of Mills & Boon, the United Kingdom's leading romance fiction publisher, has a nostalgic charm and glamour all its own.
Starting as a general publisher (P.G. Wodehouse, Jack London), the firm began to focus on women's fiction in the 1920s, much of it with exotic themes and the illustrations depicted here reflect both social and graphic change, though in the end, it's the stereotypical characters that endure-the tall, dark, handsome rugged hero be he explorer, doctor, or pilot, and the young blue- or green-eyed heroine wrapped in his embrace. Quite a hoot." (Creators Syndicate)

New York Look Book: A Gallery Of Street Fashion.
"Since 2004, New York magazine has been celebrating New York City style in a feature called "The Look Book": a centerfold-with its subject shot at random anywhere and everywhere across Gotham-along with an interview about the subject's personal style. The New York Look Book collects more than 200 of the best Look Book features, and a special "Where to Find It" section offers readers not only store listings, but also an insider's guide to New York's distinctive neighborhoods." (Amazon)

Art and Sole.
"In recent years the sneaker scene has exploded with limited editions and artist/designer collaborations. These specialist shoes are invariably produced as short runs, using innovative or luxury materials and often have bespoke packaging. These are the shoes at the sharp end of sneaker culture not shoes that can be found in your average sports shop. The book also highlights how creative advances on the scene have been furthered by a growing number of artists who base their work on sneakers - from sculptures made from dissected shoes, to oil paintings on canvas, and even the customization of the shoes themselves. There is now a huge crossover between sneakerculture and the worlds of art and design." (Amazon)

Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture.
"In recent years, the boundaries between architecture and fashion have become increasingly blurred, and this beautifully illustrated new book explores the intersections and concepts that underlie the two disciplines. Both architecture and fashion are based on the human body and on ideas of space, volume, and movement. Each functions as shelter or wrapping for the body—a mediating layer between the body and the environment—and can express personal, political, and cultural identity." (Amazon)

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