When deployed wisely, it can bring us pleasure, choice, strength, decency and much more. But if its power is abused, the outcome can be wasteful, confusing, humiliating, even dangerous. None of us can avoid being affected by design, whether or not we wish to. It is so ubiquitous that it determines how we feel and what we do, often without our noticing.Hello World explores design's influence on our lives. Written by the renowned design critic Alice Rawsthorn and designed by the award-winning book designer Irma Boom, it describes how warlords, scientists, farmers, hackers, activists and designers have used design to different ends throughout history: from the macabre symbol invented by 18th century pirates to terrorise their victims into surrender, to one woman's quest for the best possible prosthetic legs and the evolution of the World Cup ball.At a time when we face colossal changes, unprecedented in their speed, scale and intensity - from the deepening environmental crisis, to giant leaps in science and technology - Hello World explains how design can help us to make sense of them andto turn them to our advantage.

    Where do we come from? Who created us? Why are we here? These questions have puzzled us since the dawn of time, but when it became apparent to Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show that the world was about to end, they embarked on a massive mission to write a book that summed up the human race: What we looked like; what we accomplished; our achievements in society, government, religion, science and culture -- all in a tome of approximately 256 pages with lots of color photos, graphs and charts. After two weeks of hard work, they had their book. EARTH (The Book) is the definitive guide to our species. With their trademark wit, irreverence, and intelligence, Stewart and his team will posthumously answer all of life's most hard-hitting questions, completely unburdened by objectivity, journalistic integrity, or even accuracy. Also available as an ebook and as an audiobook.

    His style and encouraging words are a form of therapy for the weary, but with Bob it is always about more than painting. There is a hidden depth within his easy chatter, another layer to everything he says. When he talks about painting, he's using it as a metaphor for life!Happy Little Accidents: The Wit and Wisdom of Bob Ross opens with an introduction and brief biography of Ross, followed by a collection of Ross's greatest quotes and most majestic works of art.Relax. Unwind. Be inspired.“Just let your imagination go. You can create all kinds of beautiful effects, just that easy…”

    He insists that the problems of vision are inseparable from the operation of social power and examines how, beginning in the 1820s, the observer became the site of new discourses and practices that situated vision within the body as a physiological event. Alongside the sudden appearance of physiological optics, Crary points out, theories and models of "subjective vision" were developed that gave the observer a new autonomy and productivity while simultaneously allowing new forms of control and standardization of vision.Crary examines a range of diverse work in philosophy, in the empirical sciences, and in the elements of an emerging mass visual culture. He discusses at length the significance of optical apparatuses such as the stereoscope and of precinematic devices, detailing how they were the product of new physiological knowledge. He also shows how these forms of mass culture, usually labeled as "realist," were in fact based on abstract models of vision, and he suggests that mimetic or perspectival notions of vision and representation were initially abandoned in the first half of the nineteenth century within a variety of powerful institutions and discourses, well before the modernist painting of the 1870s and 1880s.

    We live in a world of vivid colors, and color marks our psychological and social existence. But for all color’s inescapability, we don’t know much about it. Now authors David Scott Kastan and Stephen Farthing offer a fresh and imaginative exploration of one of the most intriguing and least understood aspects of everyday experience.Kastan and Farthing, a scholar and a painter, respectively, investigate color from numerous perspectives: literary, historical, cultural, anthropological, philosophical, art historical, political, and scientific. In ten lively and wide-ranging chapters, each devoted to a different color, they examine the various ways colors have shaped and continue to shape our social and moral imaginations. Each individual color becomes the focal point for a consideration of one of the extraordinary ways in which color appears and matters in our lives. Beautifully produced in full color, this book is a remarkably smart, entertaining, and fascinating guide to this elusive topic.

    Fully illustrated and featuring three-dimensional replicas of rare memorabilia, this unprecedented book truly brings Barbie to life in full-color, and fabulous style. With the full support of Mattel, the publication of All Dolled Up is a highlight among nationwide Barbie events and marketing initiatives being staged for the anniversary.In five decades, the influence of Barbie on girls and the world of fashion has never faded. Now devoted collectors, baby boomers reminiscing about the doll's classic beauty, moms still dreaming of the pink Corvette of the '80s, and children just discovering her will relive the magic of Barbie through key eras in her development—her debut in 1959, the Mod Era of the late '60s, the big, bold '80s, the Totally Hair '90s, and up to today. Original doll packaging, Barbie comic books, designer's sketches, and an official fan club membership card and welcome letter are among the rare Barbie ephemera that have been reproduced. The narrative combines historical detail with contributions from moms, daughters, and fashion celebrities including Diane Von Furstenburg, Christian Dior, Versace, Armani, Bob Mackie, and Vera Wang. It's Barbie doll's birthday and no one wants to be left out of the party!

    Find your favourite pop-culture character in this collection of silhouettes from well-known movie, television, comics and video game characters!

    Translated into twenty-three languages, it is one of the world's most widely read books on design. In this edition, Victor Papanek examines the attempts by designers to combat the tawdry, the unsafe, the frivolous, the useless product, once again providing a blueprint for sensible, responsible design in this world which is deficient in resources and energy.

    Delving into the long, extraordinary life of renowned French fashion designer Coco Chanel, Karen Karbo has written a new kind of book, exploring Chanel's philosophy on a range of universal themes - from style to passion, from money and success to femininity and living life on your own terms.For a live viewing of Chesley McLaren's illustrations you can visit The 4th Wall Gallery.Click here for more info.

    This volume highlights the research and findings of this natural scientist. Powerful modern microscopes have confirmed the accuracy of Haeckel's prints, which even in their day, became world famous. Haeckel's portfolio, first published between 1899 and 1904 in separate installments, is described in the opening essays. The plates illustrate Haeckel's fundamental monistic notion of the -unity of all living things- and the wide variety of forms are executed with utmost delicacy. Incipient microscopic organisms are juxtaposed with highly developed plants and animals. The pages, ordered according to geometric and -constructive- aspects, document the oness of the world in its most diversified forms. This collection of plates was not only well-received by scientists, but by artists and architects as well. Rene Binet, a pioneer of glass and iron constructions, Emile Galle, a renowned Art Nouveau designer, and the photographer Karl Blossfeld all make explicit reference to Haeckel in their work.

    In this witty and trenchant social analysis, James Twitchell shows how churches, universities, and museums have learned to embrace Madison Avenue rather than risk losing market share. Branded Nation uncovers a society where megachurches resemble shopping malls (and not by accident); where a university lives or dies on the talents of its image makers -- and its ranking in U.S. News & World Report; and where museums have turned to motorcycle exhibits and fashion shows to bolster revenue, even franchising their own institutions into brands. In short, says Twitchell, high culture is beginning to look more and more like the rest of our culture. But in perhaps his most subversive observation, he doesn't condemn this trend; on the contrary, he believes that branding may be invigorating our high culture, bringing it to new audiences and making it a more integral part of our lives. Savvy, sharply observed, and bitingly funny, Branded Nation is sure to both enlighten and entertain.

    Gestalt theory and the psychology of visual perception form the basis for an analysis of art and its basic elements.

    Now, on YouTube and blogs and Facebook and Twitter, we are media. And while we watch more television than ever before, how we watch it is changing in ways we have barely slowed down to register. No longer content in our traditional role as couch potatoes, we approach television shows, movies, even advertising as invitations to participate—as experiences to immerse ourselves in at will. Wired contributing editor Frank Rose introduces us to the people who are reshaping media for a two-way world—people like Will Wright (The Sims), James Cameron (Avatar), Damon Lindelof (Lost), and dozens of others whose ideas are changing how we play, how we chill, and even how we think. The Art of Immersion is an eye-opening look at the shifting shape of entertainment today.

    PHOTOGRAPHING THE WORLD AROUND YOU, is about learning to see and about using your camera to record and interpret what you see where ever you are.

    It has been translated into every major language on Earth and dozens of minor ones; it has spawned entire genres of animation, and had more books written about it than all but a handful of American Presidents. Even its minor characters have become iconic, and the titular family is recognizable in almost every corner of the planet. It is a definitive and truly global cultural phenomenon, perhaps the biggest of the television age. As of this writing, if you flip on FOX at 8pm on Sundays, you will see a program that bills itself as "The Simpsons". It is not "The Simpsons". That show, the landmark piece of American culture that debuted on 17 December 1989, went off the air more than a decade ago. The replacement is a hopelessly mediocre imitation that bears only a superficial resemblance to the original. It is the unwanted sequel, the stale spinoff, the creative dry hole that is kept pumping in the endless search for more money. It is Zombie Simpsons.