They dictate whether something stands out, how we engage with it, whether we buy it, and how we feel. In Judge This, renowned designer Chip Kidd takes us through his day as he takes in first impressions of all kinds. We follow this visual journey as Kidd encounters and engages with everyday design, breaking down the good, the bad, the absurd, and the brilliant as only someone with a critical, trained eye can. From the design of your morning paper to the subway ticket machine to the books you browse to the smartphone you use to the packaging for the chocolate bar you buy as an afternoon treat, Kidd reveals the hidden secrets behind each of the design choices, with a healthy dose of humor, expertise, and of course, judgment as he goes. Judge This is a design love story, exposing the often invisible beauty and betrayal in simple design choices—ones most of us never even think to notice. And with each object, Kidd proves that first impressions, whether we realize it or not, have a huge impact on the way we perceive the world.

    We live in a time when only a few gifted and dedicated teams of designers can produce buildings that approach the beauty of these that eighteenth-century carpenters created all by themselves. What went wrong? In this fascinating tour of our buildings and our social history, Jonathan Hale examines the historical moment in the 1830s when builders and architects began to lose their sense of surety about what they were doing. He explores the societal pressures that turned buildings from pure efforts at expression into structures laden with symbols. Most important, he uncovers - in terms the lay reader can easily understand - the principles that animate great architecture, no matter what its style or period. In The

    Think again. Tokyo: A Certain Style, the mini-sized decor book with a difference, shows how, for those living in one of the worlds most expensive and densely packed metropolises, closet-sized apartments stacked to the ceiling with gadgetry and CDs are the norm. Photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki rode his scooter all over Tokyo snapping shots of how urban Japanese really live. Hundreds of photographs reveal the real Tokyo style: microapartments, mini and modular everything, rooms filled to the rafters with electronics, piles of books and clothes, clans of remote controls, collections of sundry objects all crammed into a space where every inch counts. Tsuzuki introduces each tiny crash pad with a brief text about who lives there, from artists and students to professionals and couples with children. His captions to the hundreds of photographs capture the spirit and ingenuity required to live in such small quarters. This fascinating, voyeuristic look at modern life comes in a chunky, pocket-sized format-the perfect coffee table book for people with really small apartments.

    Focusing on a popular art medium that has been around for over 50 years, The New Acrylics illustrates how artists can create lush textures, color, and luster with the modern acrylics readily available in any art supply store. These are nontoxic, environmentally sound, and exist in the most dazzling array of chemical formats—from the most fluid to the highly viscous. Not only do artists paint with acrylics these days, they can create rich metallic effects, or even 3-dimensional sculptures. Traditional technique based books on acrylics cover traditional methods of painting. However, The New Acrylics is geared toward more nonconventional ways in which to manipulate modern-day acrylics, and demonstrates new applications such as glazing, textured effects, soft sculpture effects, or staining, thus reinventing the old way of handling acrylics, and revealing a fabulous new artistic medium. The underlying theme of this dazzling and sophisticated book is to encourage artists to interpret and handle acrylic paints in a vibrant, fresh, and above all, individualistic style.

    This movement stems not only from the realization that sprawl is ecologically and economically unsustainable but also from a growing awareness of sprawl's many victims: children, utterly dependent on parental transportation if they wish to escape the cul-de-sac; the elderly, warehoused in institutions once they lose their driver's licenses; the middle class, stuck in traffic for two or more hours each day.Founders of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are at the forefront of this movement, and in Suburban Nation they assess sprawl's costs to society, be they ecological, economic, aesthetic, or social. It is a lively, thorough, critical lament, and an entertaining lesson on the distinctions between postwar suburbia-characterized by housing clusters, strip shopping centers, office parks, and parking lots-and the traditional neighborhoods that were built as a matter of course until mid-century. It is an indictment of the entire development community, including governments, for the fact that America no longer builds towns. Most important, though, it is that rare book that also offers solutions.

    His iconic logo designs for IBM, UPS, and the ABC television network distilled the essences of modernity for his corporate patrons. His body of work includes advertising, poster, magazine, and book designscharacterized by simplicity and a wit uniquely his own. His ability to discuss design with insight and humor made him one of the most revered design educators of our time. This latest volume of the popular Conversations with Students series presents Rand's last interview, recorded at Arizona State University one year before his death in 1996. Beginners and seasoned design professionals alike will be informed by Rand's words and thoughts on varied topics ranging from design philosophy to design education.

    Already at the beginning of the century, we became 50% urban as a global population, and by 2050 we're going to be up to 70% urban. So cities could either be our coffin or our ark.Leo Hollis presents evidence that cities can deliver a better life and a better world in the future. From exploring what slime mold can tell us about traffic flow, to looking at how traditional civic power structures are being overturned by Twitter, to investigating how cities all over the world are tackling climate change, population growth, poverty, shifting work patterns and the maintenance of the fragile trust of their citizens, Cities Are Good for You offers a new perspective on the city.Combining anecdote, scientific studies, historical portraits, first-hand interviews and observations of some of the most exciting world cities, Hollis upends long-held assumptions with new questions: Where do cities come from? Can we build a city from scratch? Does living in the city make you happier or fitter? Is the metropolis of the future female? What is the relationship between cities and creativity? And are slums really all that bad?Cities Are Good for You introduces us to dreamers, planners, revolutionaries, writers, scientists, architects, slum-dwellers and kings. Ranging globally and through time in search of answers--from the archive to the laboratory, from City Hall to the architect's desk--it is above all driven by the idea that cities are for people and by people.

    Arranged thematically from industrial to military sites, from ghosts towns to recreational sites, the book explains through extended captions the story of how each place came to be abandoned - natural or chemical disaster, war, economic collapse, changing attitudes and tastes. Often it's because the world has moved on and these places are no longer of use or interest in the march of progress. Throughout, though, emerges a picture not of what has been lost, but of what remains. Left to the elements but also ignored by humanity, the photographs of these ghost towns, crumbling structures and vessels illuminate worlds for us that we thought were lost. Through these, we gain a glimpse into the past. With more than 150 outstanding colour photographs exploring hauntingly beautiful places over one or two spreads, Abandoned Places is an excellent pictorial examination of worlds that we've left behind.