The Elements of Typographic Style


Robert Bringhurst - 1992
    Combining practical, theoretical, and historical, this book is a must for graphic artists, editors, or anyone working with the printed page using digital or traditional methods.Having established itself as a standard in its field The Elements of Typographic Style is house manual at most American university presses, a standard university text, and a reference work in studios of designers around the world. It has been translated into italian and greek, and dutch.

Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air


Philip Jodidio - 2012
     Childhood fantasy meets grown-up savoir faire   The idea of climbing a tree for shelter, or just to see the earth from another perspective, is surely as old as humanity. Tree houses are chronicled in ancient civilizations and their lore crosses through the history of every part of the world where trees grow. This stunningly-illustrated study offers a tour of the best tree houses in the world, some designed by architects, others the work of unknown craftsmen. A teahouse, a restaurant, a hotel, a playhouse for children, or a perch from which to contemplate life—the tree house can take as many forms as the imagination can offer. In times of concern for sustainability and ecological responsibility, the tree house may also be the ultimate symbol of life in symbiosis with nature. Whether rustic or contemporary in style, tree houses make the most of space. Climb into this trove of tree houses and enjoy a new perspective on the world.   50 tree houses from around the world Covers all different styles, from romantic to modern Every house is depicted in several photos as well as one illustration byartist Patrick Hruby from Los Angeles (who also created the book’s cover artwork) Helpful short biographies of all architects

The Urban Sketching Handbook Architecture and Cityscapes: Tips and Techniques for Drawing on Location


Gabriel Campanario - 2014
    Now, he drills down into specific challenges of making sketches on location, rain or shine, quickly or slowly, and the most suitable techniques for every situation, in The Urban Sketching Handbook series. It's easy to overlook that ample variety of buildings and spaces and the differences from city to city, country to country. From houses, apartments and shopping malls to public buildings and places of worship, the structures humans have created over the centuries, for shelter, commerce, industry, transportation or recreation, are fascinating subjects to study and sketch.In The Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapes, Gabriel lays out keys to help make the experience of drawing architecture and cityscapes fun and rewarding. Using composition, depth, scale, contrast, line and creativity, sketching out buildings and structure has never been more inspirational. This guide will help you to develop your own creative approach, no matter what your skill level may be today. As much as The Urban Sketching Handbook: Architecture and Cityscapes may inspire you to draw more urban spaces, it can also help to increase your appreciation of the built environment. Drawing the places where we live, work and play, is a great way to show appreciation and creativity.

The Poetics of Space


Gaston Bachelard - 1957
    Bachelard takes us on a journey, from cellar to attic, to show how our perceptions of houses and other shelters shape our thoughts, memories, and dreams."A magical book. . . . The Poetics of Space is a prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced-and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard." -from the new foreword by John R. Stilgoe

101 Things I Learned in Engineering School


John Kuprenas - 2013
    Far from a dry, nuts-and-bolts exposition, however, 101 THINGS I LEARNED® IN ENGINEERING SCHOOL probes real-world examples to show how the engineer's way of thinking can-and sometimes cannot-inform our understanding of how things work. Questions from the simple to the profound are illuminated throughout: Why shouldn't soldiers march across a bridge? Why do buildings want to float and cars want to fly? What is the difference between thinking systemically and thinking systematically? How can engineering solutions sympathize with the natural environment? Presented in the familiar, illustrated format of the popular 101 THINGS I LEARNED® series, 101 THINGS I LEARNED® IN ENGINEERING SCHOOL offers an informative resource for students, general readers, and even experienced engineers, who will discover within many provocative new insights into familiar principles.

The Art of Gothic: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting


Rolf Toman - 1999
    Gothic monuments bear witness to a dynamic age, when old values were being redefined, often with great drama and debate. Here is a richly-illustrated overview of the period's architecture, sculpture, painting, stained glass, and jewelry, from its 12th-century French origins to its early 16th-century conclusion.

The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings


Marc Kushner - 2014
    A building that eats smog. An inflatable concert hall. A research lab that can walk through snow. We’re entering a new age in architecture—one where we expect our buildings to deliver far more than just shelter. We want buildings that inspire us while helping the environment; buildings that delight our senses while serving the needs of a community; buildings made possible both by new technology and repurposed materials.Like an architectural cabinet of wonders, this book collects the most innovative buildings of today and tomorrow. The buildings hail from all seven continents (to say nothing of other planets), offering a truly global perspective on what lies ahead. Each page captures the soaring confidence, the thoughtful intelligence, the space-age wonder, and at times the sheer whimsy of the world’s most inspired buildings—and the questions they provoke: Can a building breathe? Can a skyscraper be built in a day? Can we 3D-print a house? Can we live on the moon?Filled with gorgeous imagery and witty insight, this book is an essential and delightful guide to the future being built around us—a future that matters more, and to more of us, than ever.

Creative Walls: How to display and enjoy your treasured collections


Geraldine James - 2011
    In this inspirational guide, Geraldine James, veteran collector of all things beautiful, shows you ways to organize and display your treasured collections to celebrate their uniqueness and your creativity. Collections of quirky items can illuminate a little corner, whereas a teenager’s bedroom will transform instantly when hoarded sports memorabilia makes the leap from the floor to the wall in a bold, clever arrangement. Look for unusual spaces and items: line up a series of themed prints above a picture rail, set heaps of floral china plates in grand style above the fireplace or simply add a mirror into a display to instantly create another in its image. Chapter by chapter, discover how to arrange virtually anything from scratch, rearrange the collections you treasure to best effect and begin a journey into colour, texture and themes to create elegant displays that give a home character and charm. From a memory wall of sepia family photographs to witty collections of kitsch art, this clever guide shows how to create a look that will bring any space to life.

In Praise of Shadows


Jun'ichirō Tanizaki - 1933
    The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight, and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure.

Creating a New Old House: Yesterday's Character for Today's Home


Russell Versaci - 2003
    In Creating a New Old House, architect Russell Versaci shows you that it is possible to design and create a new house that looks and feels like it has always been there. Versaci explores how architects, builders, and craftsmen are reinterpreting the traditional American house. Through photographs and engaging text, discussions of history and craftsmanship, and sidelong glances at the workings of real old houses, Versaci explains how traditional houses go together and what gives them their unique design appeal. Features 17 new, old-style houses -- from colonials to farmhouses -- from all over the country Versaci identifies Eight Pillars of Traditional Design that create a solid foundation for combining authentic, traditional design with livability to create homes that feel old yet work for the demands of modern family living.

A World History of Art


Hugh Honour - 1982
    This book offers a fresh perspective on various developments shaping our cultural history.

The Works: Anatomy of a City


Kate Ascher - 2005
    When you flick on your light switch the light goes on--how? When you put out your garbage, where does it go? When you flush your toilet, what happens to the waste? How does water get from a reservoir in the mountains to your city faucet? How do flowers get to your corner store from Holland, or bananas get there from Ecuador? Who is operating the traffic lights all over the city? And what in the world is that steam coming out from underneath the potholes on the street? Across the city lies a series of extraordinarily complex and interconnected systems. Often invisible, and wholly taken for granted, these are the systems that make urban life possible. The Works: Anatomy of a City offers a cross section of this hidden infrastructure, using beautiful, innovative graphic images combined with short, clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city. It describes the technologies that keep the city functioning, as well as the people who support them-the pilots that bring the ships in over the Narrows sandbar, the sandhogs who are currently digging the third water tunnel under Manhattan, the television engineer who scales the Empire State Building's antenna for routine maintenance, the electrical wizards who maintain the century-old system that delivers power to subways. Did you know that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is so long, and its towers are so high, that the builders had to take the curvature of the earth's surface into account when designing it? Did you know that the George Washington Bridge takes in approximately $1 million per day in tolls? Did you know that retired subway cars travel by barge to the mid-Atlantic, where they are dumped overboard to form natural reefs for fish? Or that if the telecom cables under New York were strung end to end, they would reach from the earth to the sun? While the book uses New York as its example, it has relevance well beyond that city's boundaries as the systems that make New York a functioning metropolis are similar to those that keep the bright lights burning in big cities everywhere. The Works is for anyone who has ever stopped midcrosswalk, looked at the rapidly moving metropolis around them, and wondered, how does this all work?

The First Apartment Book: Cool Design for Small Spaces


Kyle Schuneman - 2012
    Luckily, twenty-seven-year-old decorating prodigy Kyle Schuneman knows that a paper-thin wallet and four plain walls don’t have to stand in your way, and the ten amazing, real apartments in this book show it.From coast to coast, these fabulous first homes are the perfect balance between cool design and comfort, and they offer plenty of practical ideas for making your apartment feel open, organized, and inviting. Examples include:■ Multifunctional studios■ A loft that was sectioned into livable areas■ Cookie-cutter apartments with one-of-a-kind personality■ Shared spaces that accommodate different decorating tastes■ Fantastic examples of how to display collections, hide unsightly stuff, and manage picky landlordsKyle’s creative solutions reveal how you can make your space feel much larger than it really is—and how it can reflect your passions, your travels, and your location. He will inspire you to use your surroundings for decorating ideas (think taxi-cab-yellow accents in New York or graffiti-like dip-dye curtains in Seattle). Short on time and long on style, the thirty DIY projects here include no-sew pillows and a dresser update using a little glue and decorative paper. Full of bold, vibrant photos, an extensive resource section, and hundreds of big ideas for small spaces, this book proves that there are no limits on how spacious and how cool your first apartment can feel.

Lettering & Type: Creating Letters and Designing Typefaces


Bruce Willen - 2009
    These fundamentals of design, once the exclusive domain of professional typographers, have become an essential starting point for anyone looking for a fresh way to communicate. Practical information about creating letters and type often amounts to a series of guidelines for executing a particular process, font program, or style. But what makes lettering and type endlessly fascinating is the flexibility to interpret and sometimes even break these rules. Lettering & Type is a smart-but- not-dense guide to creating and bending letters to one's will. More than just another pretty survey, it is a powerful how-to book full of relevant theory, history, explanatory diagrams, and exercises. While other type design books get hung up on the technical and technological issues of type design and lettering, Lettering & Type features the context and creativity that shape letters and make them interesting. Authors and designers Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals examine classic design examples as well as exciting contemporary lettering of all stripes—from editorial illustrations to concert posters to radical conceptual alphabets. Lettering & Type is ideal for anyone looking to move beyond existing typography and fonts to create, explore, and use original or customized letterforms. This latest addition to our best-selling Design Briefs seriesfeatures a foreword by Ellen Lupton and hundreds of images and examples of work by historical and contemporary designers, artists, and illustrators, including Marian Bantjes, Stefan Sagmeister, Matthew Carter, Christoph Niemann, Steve Powers (ESPO), House Industries, Christian Schwartz, Margaret Kilgallen, James Victore, Abbott Miller, Sibylle Hagmann, Ed Fella, and many more. Throughout the book interviews with type designers, artists, and graphic designers provide real-world perspective from contemporary practitioners.

The Elements of Color


Johannes Itten - 1961
    The Art of Color, this book covers subjective feeling and objective color principles in detail. It presents the key to understanding color in ltten's color circle and color contrasts.