Up till 2006 a British Ambassador leaving his post was encouraged to write what was known as a valedictory despatch, to be circulated to a small number of influential people in government. This was the parting shot, an opportunity to offer a personal and frank view of the host country, the manners and morals of its people, their institutions, the state of their cooking and their drains. But it was also a chance to let rip at the Foreign Office itself and to look back on a career spent in the service of a sometimes ungrateful nation. Combining gems from the archives with more recent despatches obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Parting Shots sheds light on Britain's place in the world, revealing the curious cocktail of privilege and privation that makes up the life of an ambassador. 'Wonderful ... a glimpse of that lost world of private eloquence and erudite candour' Matthew d'Ancona, Evening Standard 'Unbuttoned, indiscreet and very funny' Yorkshire Post Matthew Parris had a short career in the Foreign Office where one of his tasks was to distribute incoming valedictory despatches. He was a Conservative MP from 1979 to 1986, since when he has worked as a journalist. He is the author of A Castle in Spain, Parting Shots, and A Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase. He divides his time between Derbyshire (where his old constituency was situated) and east London.

    It could forever change how you experience and interact with your physical surroundings, open your eyes to the perversity of bad design and the desirability of good design, and raise your expectations about how things should be designed.B & W photographs and illustrations throughout.

    If you want to succeed in life or business, this book is a must.

    We need a brand new way to take it all in. 'Information is Beautiful' transforms the ideas surrounding and swamping us into graphs and maps that anyone can follow at a single glance.

    In this 148-page hardback they reveal the places that they have got to know and love and show you why Tokyo is the friendliest big city in the world. It’s a guide book that will lead you to the best in culture and new architecture – and a few fun nights out too.The Monocle Travel Guide series reveals our favourite places in each city we cover, from the ideal route for an early-morning run to the best spots for independent retail. Full of surprises and quirks, they also feature detailed design and architecture pages, neighbourhood walks to get you away from the crowds and our favourite places to eat everything be it tasty fast food or something truly celebratory.

    Nathan decided to draw his favorite tips and etiquette lessons and post them on the internet, where his 12 original panels went viral immediately and became the basis for this hilarious illustrated book (check out the fully animated ebook, too!).In NYC Basic Tips and Etiquette, Pyle reveals the secrets and unwritten rules for living in and visiting New York including the answers to such burning questions as, which cabs should I try to hail? What is a bodega? Which way is Uptown? Why are there so many doors in the sidewalk? How do I walk on an escalator? Do we need to be touching right now? Where should I inhale or exhale while passing sidewalk garbage? How long should I honk my horn? If New York were a game show, how would I win? What happens when I stand in the bike lane? Who should get the empty subway seats? How do I stay safe during a trash tornado? Each tip is a little story illustrated in simple black and white drawings.Visitors and newcomers to New York will love it because the advice is smart, funny, and not condescending. New Yorkers will love it for its strategic and humorous approach to mastering the daily chaos of the city.

    Mile-by-mile road logs document every approach to the park and every interior road. Through charts and explanations, readers learn of Yellowstone's campgrounds and facilities, geyser basins and the frequency of the geyser eruptions, and out-of-the-way hikes. Updates include descriptions of new lodgings, scientific information reflecting recent research, 65 new color photos, and revised maps. A field guide to the animals and plants, a selected reading list, and a 21-page index round out this comprehensive guidebook.

    For those looking to challenge the cut-and-paste mentality thereare few resources that are both informative and inspirational. In Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton, best-selling author of such books as Thinking with Type and Design It Yourself, and design educator Jennifer Cole Phillips refocus design instruction on the study of the fundamentals of form in a critical, rigorous way informed by contemporary media, theory, and software systems. Through visual demonstrations and concise commentary, The New Basics shows students and professionals how to build interest and complexity around simple relationships between formal elements of two-dimensional design such as point, line, plane, scale, hierarchy, layers, and transparency. The New Basics explains the key concepts of visual language that inform any work of designfrom a logo or letterhead to a complex web site. It takes a fresh approach to design instruction by emphasizing visually intensive, form-based thinking in a manner that is in tune with the latest developments in contemporary media, theory, art, and technology. Colorful, compact, and clearly written, The New Basics is the new indispensable resource for anyone seeking a smart, inspiring introduction to graphic design and destined to become the standard reference work in design education.

    Describes the principles of wabi-sabi, a Japanese aesthetic associated with Japanese tea ceremonies and based on the belief that true beauty comes from imperfection and incompletion, through text and photographs.

    The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses shows that the same basic principles of psychology that work for board games, card games and athletic games also are the keys to making top-quality video games. Good game design happens when you view your game from many different perspectives, or lenses. While touring through the unusual territory that is game design, this book gives the reader one hundred of these lenses—one hundred sets of insightful questions to ask yourself that will help make your game better. These lenses are gathered from fields as diverse as psychology, architecture, music, visual design, film, software engineering, theme park design, mathematics, writing, puzzle design, and anthropology. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to become a better game designer—and will understand how to do it.

    Ariel, Aurora, Belle, Jasmine, Snow White, and Cinderella are newly incarnated in water color, pastel, oil paint, colored pencil, mixed media, and computer graphics pieces that range from the traditional to the unconventional. This artwork has been created especially for this museum-quality book, which is sure to delight art lovers, Disney collectors, and any prince or princess who ever believed that fairytales do come true.

    Yet perhaps as a reflection of the transparent canvas they created on, the contributions and history of these animation artists have remained virtually invisible and largely undocumented, until now. Walt Disney's pioneering efforts in animation transformed novelty cartoons into visual masterpieces, establishing many "firsts" for women within the entertainment industry along the way. Focusing on talent, Disney sought female story specialists and concept artists to expand the scope and sensibility of his storytelling. Upon establishing the first animation-training program for women, ink pens were traded for pencils as ladies made their way into the male-laden halls of animation. World War II further opened roles traditionally held by men, and women quickly progressed into virtually every discipline within animation production. Disney's later development of the Xerox process and eventual digital evolution once again placed women at the forefront of technological advancements applied to animated storytelling. In her landmark book, Ink & Paint, author Mindy Johnson pulls back the celluloid curtain on the nearly vanished world of ink pens, paintbrushes, pigments, and tea. From the earliest black-and-white Alice Comedies to the advent of CAPS and digital animation, meet the pioneering women who brought hand-rendered animated stories to vibrant, multicolored life at Walt Disney Studios and beyond. Extensively researched with the full support of the entire Walt Disney Studios archival resources, plus a multitude of private collections, firsthand accounts, newly discovered materials, and production documentation, as well as never-before-seen photography and artwork, this essential volume redefines the collective history of animation.Searching for that perfect gift for the animation fan in your life? Explore more behind-the-scenes stories from Disney Editions:The Art of Mulan: A Disney Editions ClassicWalt Disney's Ultimate Inventor: The Genius of Ub IwerksOne Day at Disney: Meet the People Who Make the Magic Across the GlobeThe Walt Disney Studios: A Lot to RememberFrom All of Us to All of You: The Disney Christmas CardOswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons, Revised Special EditionDisney Villains: Delightfully Evil - The Creation, The Inspiration, The FascinationThe Art and Flair of Mary Blair: An Appreciation, Updated Edition Illusion of Life: Disney Animation (By Disney Legends Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston)

    Horne makes plain that while Paris may be many things, it is never boring.From the rise of Philippe Auguste through the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIV (who abandoned Paris for Versailles); Napoleon’s rise and fall; Baron Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris (at the cost of much of the medieval city); the Belle Epoque and the Great War that brought it to an end; the Nazi Occupation, the Liberation, and the postwar period dominated by de Gaulle--Horne brings the city’s highs and lows, savagery and sophistication, and heroes and villains splendidly to life. With a keen eye for the telling anecdote and pivotal moment, he portrays an array of vivid incidents to show us how Paris endures through each age, is altered but always emerges more brilliant and beautiful than ever. The Seven Ages of Paris is a great historian’s tribute to a city he loves and has spent a lifetime learning to know.

    Lonely Planet Belize Spy on the rare red-footed booby before diving into the Blue HoleBuzz across treetops on a zip-line at Jaguar Paw Jungle ResortHear howler monkeys stake their territory as dawn breaks in the Spanish Creek Wildlife SanctuaryTake a riverboat through the jungle to the magnificent Maya ruins of Lamanai In This Guide Two authors, 60 days of in-country research, 50 more pages of coverage and reviewsThe best snorkel and dive sites of the second-longest coral reef system in the worldVisit lonelyplanet.com for up-to-the-minute reviews, updates and traveler insights

    It is an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes and memories, all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters, all this material is presented in a wonderfully inventive series of pages that are themselves masterly demonstrations of the expressive use of type, space, color and imagery.This book does not set out to teach lessons, but it is full of wisdom and insight collected from all over the world. Describing himself as a visual jackdaw, master designer Alan Fletcher has distilled a lifetime of experience and reflection into a brilliantly witty and inimitable exploration of such subjects as perception, color, pattern, proportion, paradox, illusion, language, alphabets, words, letters, ideas, creativity, culture, style, aesthetics and value.The Art of Looking Sideways is the ultimate guide to visual awareness, a magical compilation that will entertain and inspire all those who enjoy the interplay between word and image, and who relish the odd and the unexpected.