Art Forms in Nature


Ernst Haeckel - 1974
    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.

MTIV Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer


Hillman Curtis - 2002
    Divided into three parts, this book offers a methodology for artistic and professional work and also offers technical advice for translating this to the web.

Designers Don't Read


Austin Howe - 2009
    He believes “in the wonder and exuberance of someone who gets paid-by clients to do what he loves.” Howe places immense value on curiosity and passion to help designers develop a point of view, a strong voice. He explores the creative process and conceptualization, and delves into what to do when inspiration is lacking. If there’s a villain in these elegant, incisive, amusing, and inspiring essays, it’s ad agencies and marketing directors, but even villains serve a purpose and illustrate the strength of graphic design “as a system, as a way of thinking, as almost a life style.” Howe believes that advertising and design must merge, but merge with design in the leadership role. He says that designers should create for clients and not in the hope of winning awards. He believes designers should swear “a 10-year commitment to make everything we do for every client a gift.” If this sounds like the designer is the client’s factotum, not so. Howe also argues in favor of offering clients a single solution and being willing to defend a great design. Organized not only by topic, but also by how long it will take the average reader to complete each chapter, Designers Don’t Read is intended to function like a “daily devotional” for designers and busy professionals involved in branded communications at all levels. Begun as a series of weekly essays sent every Monday morning to top graphic designers, Designers Don’t Read quickly developed a passionate and widespread following. With the approximate time each chapter might take to read, Designers Don’t Read’s delight and provocation can be fit into the niches in the life of a time-challenged designer. Or it may be hard to resist reading the entire book in one sitting!

The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios


Steve Wexler - 2017
    It's great to have theory and evidenced-based research at your disposal, but what will you do when somebody asks you to make your dashboard 'cooler' by adding packed bubbles and donut charts?The expert authors have a combined 30-plus years of hands-on experience helping people in hundreds of organizations build effective visualizations. They have fought many 'best practices' battles and having endured bring an uncommon empathy to help you, the reader of this book, survive and thrive in the data visualization world.A well-designed dashboard can point out risks, opportunities, and more; but common challenges and misconceptions can make your dashboard useless at best, and misleading at worst. The Big Book of Dashboards gives you the tools, guidance, and models you need to produce great dashboards that inform, enlighten, and engage.

Force: Character Design from Life Drawing


Michael D. Mattesi - 2008
    Let Mike Mattesi show you how to use life drawing to discover the poses, features and personalities which form the basis of character and then build, develop and 'PUSH' your drawings to new heights of dramatic and visual impact for believable characters audiences can relate to.Packed with color illustrations and photographs of the models who inspired them. With step-by-step explanation of how the characters were developed and exercises for you to sharpen your skills this is everything you need to bring your characters to life.

Vargic's Miscellany of Curious Maps


Martin Vargic - 2015
    See the world mapped out by stereotypes; discover the internet in cartographical form; marvel at the maps of global technology and culture; and explore the world through infographics and statistics. This wonderful and strange atlas is a treasure trove of interesting, unexpected and bizarre facts, a glorious celebration of our big beautiful diverse world.

This Book Is a Planetarium: And Other Extraordinary Pop-Up Contraptions (Popup Book for Kids and Adults, Interactive Planetarium Book, Cool Books for Adults)


Kelli Anderson - 2015
    Defying every expectation of what a book can be, this pop-up extravaganza transforms into six fully functional tools: a real working planetarium projecting the constellations, a musical instrument complete with strings for strumming, a geometric drawing generator, an infinite calendar, a message decoder, and even a speaker that amplifies sound. Artist Kelli Anderson contributes enlightening text alongside each pop-up, explaining the scientific principles at play in her constructions and creating an interactive experience that's as educational as it is extraordinary. Inspiring awe that lasts long after the initial pop, This Book Is a Planetarium leaves readers of all ages with a renewed appreciation for the way things work—and for the enduring magic of books.

Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts


Joshua C. Taylor - 1957
    Taylor, in a book that has sold more than 300,000 copies since its original publication in 1957, has helped two generations of art students "learn to look." This handy guide to the visual arts is designed to provide a comprehensive view of art, moving from the analytic study of specific works to a consideration of broad principles and technical matters. Forty-four carefully selected illustrations afford an excellent sampling of the wide range of experience awaiting the explorer. The second edition of Learning to Look includes a new chapter on twentieth-century art. Taylor's thoughtful discussion of pure forms and our responses to them gives the reader a few useful starting points for looking at art that does not reproduce nature and for understanding the distance between contemporary figurative art and reality.

Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers


Marcos Mateu-Mestre - 2010
    Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos introduces the reader to a step-by-step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication.After a brief discussion on narrative art, Marcos introduces us to drawing and composing a single image, to composing steady shots to drawing to compose for continuity between all the shots. These lessons are then applied to three diverse story lines – a train accident, a cowboy tale and bikers approaching a mysterious house.In addition to setting up the shots, he also explains and illustrates visual character development, emotive stances and expressions along with development of the environmental setting to fully develop the visual narrative.

Presentation Patterns: Techniques for Crafting Better Presentations


Neal Ford - 2011
    Patterns are like the lower-level steps found inside recipes; they are the techniques you must master to be considered a master chef or master presenter. You can use the patterns in this book to construct your own recipes for different contexts, such as business meetings, technical demonstrations, scientific expositions, and keynotes, just to name a few. Although there are no such things as antirecipes, this book shows you lots of antipatterns--things you should avoid doing in presentations. Modern presentation tools often encourage ineffective presentation techniques, but this book shows you how to avoid them. Each pattern is introduced with a memorable name, a definition, and a brief explanation of motivation. Readers learn where the pattern applies, the consequences of applying it, and how to apply it. The authors also identify critical antipatterns: cliches, fallacies, and design mistakes that cause presentations to disappoint. These problems are easy to avoid--once you know how. Presentation Patterns will help youPlan what you'll say, who you'll say it to, how long you'll talk, and where you'll present Perfectly calibrate your presentation to your audience Use the storyteller's "narrative arc" to full advantage Strengthen your credibility--and avoid mistakes that hurt it Hone your message before you ever touch presentation software Incorporate visuals that support your message instead of hindering it Create highly effective "infodecks" that work when you're not able to deliver a talk in person Construct slides that really communicate and avoid "Ant Fonts," "Floodmarks," "Alienating Artifacts," and other errors Master 13 powerful techniques for delivering your presentation with power, authority, and clarity Whether you use this book as a handy reference or read it from start to finish, it will be a revelation: an entirely new language for systematically planning, creating, and delivering more powerful presentations. You'll quickly find it indispensable--no matter what you're presenting, who your audiences are, or what message you're driving home.

Mechanical Vibrations (S. I. Units)


G.K. Grover - 1996
    

Underground


David Macaulay - 1976
    We see a network of walls, columns, cables, pipes and tunnels required to satisfy the basic needs of a city's inhabitants.

Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature


Andy Goldsworthy - 1990
    Illustrates outdoor sculptures created with a range of natural materials, including snow, ice, leaves, rock, clay, stones, feathers, and twigs.

Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City


Eric W. Sanderson - 2009
    It's difficult for us to imagine what he saw, but for more than a decade, landscape ecologist Eric Sanderson has been working to do just that. Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City is the astounding result of those efforts, reconstructing, in words and images, the wild island that millions of New Yorkers now call home.By geographically matching an 18th-century map of Manhattan's landscape to the modern cityscape, combing through historical and archaeological records, and applying modern principles of ecology and computer modeling, Sanderson is able to re-create the forests of Times Square, the meadows of Harlem, and the wetlands of downtown. Filled with breathtaking illustrations that show what Manhattan looked like 400 years ago, Mannahatta is a groundbreaking work that gives readers not only a window into the past, but inspiration for green cities and wild places of the future

The Sense of Beauty


George Santayana - 1896
    It is not a dry metaphysical treatise, as works on aesthetics so often are, but is itself a fascinating document: as much a revelation of the beauty of language as of the concept of beauty.This unabridged reproduction of the 1896 edition of lectures delivered at Harvard College is a study of "why, when, and how beauty appears, what conditions an object must fulfill to be beautiful, what elements of our nature make us sensible of beauty, and what the relation is between the constitution of the object and the excitement of our susceptibility."Santayana first analyzes the nature of beauty, finding it irrational, "pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing." He then proceeds to the materials of beauty, showing what all human functions can contribute: love, social instincts, senses, etc. Beauty of form is then analyzed, and finally the author discusses the expression of beauty. Literature, religion, values, evil, wit, humor, and the possibility of finite perfection are all examined. Presentation throughout the work is concrete and easy to follow, with examples drawn from art, history, anthropology, psychology, and similar areas.