Ansel Adams: A Biography


Mary Street Alinder - 1996
    Here, Mary Street Alinder--who collaborated with Adams on his memoir and was his assistant in later life--is not reticent about the major emotional episodes in Adams's life, including his marriage and extramarital affairs, and his not-altogether-successful fatherhood. She explores the major artistic influences on his work and gives in-depth profiles of the significant figures in his circle. She also explains the technique and style Adams developed to obtain his unique vision, as well as his uneasiness at becoming a commodity. Ansel Adams: A Biography is an intimate and provocative portrait of the world's most famous photographer.

Lance Armstrong: Images of a Champion


Lance Armstrong - 2004
    His heroic survival from deadly cancer and his hard-fought triumphs in the bicycle race that is thought to be the most grueling endurance test in sports are a tribute to the strength of the human spirit. Filled with never-before-seen pictures--including photos of his historic seventh Tour win--and revealing insights by the people who know him best, this treasured keepsake celebrates in words and photographs Armstrong's indomitable will and champion's heart. See inside Lance's tour with intimate pictures of Armstrong in competition and off the bike, as well as stunning full-color views capturing the grandeur of the sport, by cycling's top photographer, Graham Watson.

Bookshelf


Alex Johnson - 2012
    They've become experiments in engineering and explorations into modern art, covetable in their own right. Financial analysts at Bloomberg have even used the IKEA Billy bookcase as an index of economic growth.In these pages you will find plenty of inspiration and diversity, from “Juxtaposed,” a shelf capitalizing on limited space to display seven books containing the world’s most influential religions, to Sakura Adachi’s “Trick,” a bookcase that constantly mutates into a table and two chairs. Shelves can even be re-imagined: the way laundry is dried in China informed Dutch designers Studio Ditte as they created their Kwan bookcase.So while we appreciate the efficient book storage of e-readers, let us marvel at physical bookshelves that are shaped like trees, or hold books upside down, or can even walk. This beautifully crafted book will bring joy to book lovers everywhere.

Interaction of Color


Josef Albers - 1971
    Conceived as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students, this timeless book presents Albers’s unique ideas of color experimentation in a way that is valuable to specialists as well as to a larger audience.Originally published by Yale University Press in 1963 as a limited silkscreen edition with 150 color plates, Interaction of Color first appeared in paperback in 1971, featuring ten representative color studies chosen by Albers. The paperback has remained in print ever since and is one of the most influential resources on color for countless readers.This new paperback edition presents a significantly expanded selection of more than thirty color studies alongside Albers’s original unabridged text, demonstrating such principles as color relativity, intensity, and temperature; vibrating and vanishing boundaries; and the illusions of transparency and reversed grounds. Now available in a larger format and with enhanced production values, this expanded edition celebrates the unique authority of Albers’s contribution to color theory and brings the artist’s iconic study to an eager new generation of readers.

Fail Harder: Ridiculous Illustrations of Epic Fails


Failblog.org Community - 2011
    What about a trifecta of beauty parlor, chain saw repair, and nightclub housed inside an all-in-one-stop shop?Classic FAILs like these are presented in more than 15 different categories, including At Home, In A Relationship, On the Job, and With Your Pets.If you must FAIL, FAIL Harder.

The Monster Book of Manga: Draw Like the Experts


Estudio Joso - 2006
    Estudio Joso creates the ultimate guide to illustration—384 pages of manga instruction. The Monster Book of Manga is divided into sections focusing on the most figures and themes—Girls, Boys, Samurais, Monsters, and more. Each illustration is broken down into six stages accompanied by step-by-step instructions, taking the artist from initial back-and-white sketches to the final color piece. They are all accompanied by practical suggestions, hints, and tips.

The History of Sonic the Hedgehog


William Audureau - 2012
    You'll also find character profiles, promotional artwork, rare concept art, and a detailed look at the origins of the "Blue Blur".

The Designer's Dictionary of Color


Sean Adams - 2017
    Organized by spectrum, in color-by-color sections for easy navigation, this book documents each hue with charts showing color range and palette variations. Chapters detail each color’s creative history and cultural associations, with examples of color use that extend from the artistic to the utilitarian—whether the turquoise on a Reid Miles album cover or the avocado paint job on a 1970s Dodge station wagon. A practical and inspirational resource for designers and students alike, The Designer’s Dictionary of Color opens up the world of color for all those who seek to harness its incredible power.

Life In Color: Photographs


Annie Griffiths - 2012
    Each chapter, devoted to a color, begins with a short, inspiring essay that explores the qualities, meaning, and symbolism of that color, written in the same warm and lovely voice that guided the reader through "Visions of Earth." Color chapters include photographs that are predominantly blue, orange, green, yellow, purple and red. Smaller sections present images in silver, brown, black, gold, white, and "unseen color"--not seen with the naked eye, such as laser, the universe, and microscopic images. Throughout, interesting quotes and surprising short insights in the captions give the reader an entirely new look at the color in the world around us. Chock full of beautiful, amazing, fun images, this eye-pleasing volume is sure to appeal to a wide variety of people, most especially to women.

Heaven & Earth: Unseen by the Naked Eye


Katherine Roucoux - 2002
    Atoms, ice crystals, grains of pollen, snowflakes, butterfly wings, cloud formations, searing comets, and showers of stars are born, live and die. The unprecedented scope of Heaven & Earth offers an awe-inspiring voyage of discovery through this infinite world that is science - from the smallest particles on the earth's surface to tiny dots in galaxies that are billions of light years away.Revealing the extensive range of matter contained in the cosmos, this book navigates a fascinating trajectory through an unexplored world, to celebrate the immeasurable beauty and countless mysteries of planet earth and the universe. It charts - chapter by chapter - intricate landscapes of increasing scale and distance, captured by microscope, x-ray, satellite and telescope. Each magnificent photograph is accompanied by an extended caption that explains it in detail, offering a dose of scientific information that enables us to associate with it on a human scale.This volume presents a unique and richly illustrated insight into the momentous relation between aesthetics and nature, in the light of nature's magnitude and its complexity of life. The result is the ultimate fusion of art and science, through a sequence of images that are as subtle as they are stupendous.

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative


Austin Kleon - 2012
    That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.

Creative Block: Get Unstuck, Discover New Ideas. Advice Projects from 50 Successful Artists


Danielle Krysa - 2014
    No longer! This chunky blockbuster of a book is chock-full of solutions for overcoming all manner of artistic impediment. The blogger behind The Jealous Curator interviews 50 successful international artists working in different mediums and mines their insights on how to conquer self-doubt, stay motivated, and get new ideas to flow. Each artist offers a tried-and-true exercise—from road trips to 30-day challenges to cataloging the medicine cabinet— that will kick-start the creative process. Abundantly visual with more than 300 images showcasing these artists' resulting work, Creative Block is a vital ally to students, artists, and creative professionals.

Wisdom: 50 Unique and Original Portraits


Andrew Zuckerman - 2008
    To create profound, honest, and truly revealing portraits of these luminaries, Zuckerman has captured their voices, their physical presence, and the written word. The resulting book and film - included here on a DVD - provide an extraordinary legacy for the generations that follow, and a timeless portrait of the common experiences that unite us all.

Flowers


Robert Mapplethorpe - 1990
    Some of the 50 flower images in this collection, all in colour, date from the early 1980s, but many of them from the months leading to his death in 1989.

The Essential Gombrich


E.H. Gombrich - 1996
    Gombrich is acknowledged as one of the most influential scholars and thinkers of the 20th century. His writings include three major narrative works - The Story of Art, Art and Illusion and The Sense of Order - and ten volumes of collected essays and reviews. This anthology presents a selection from all these books, as well as six pieces which have previously not been published by Phaidon.