A recent post on BoingBoing, (Everyone’s favorite blog other than this one.), introduced me to a new magazine called ILLO. I guess I’m a little late to the party, as issue #1 debuted months ago and issue #2 is already in the works. Still, I’m sure glad I discovered this new magazine. ILLO is all about illustrators and modern...
Art supply stores are both inspiring and intimidating. Within every brush and tube of paint lies great potential, and yet, unless you’re able to skillfully wield these tools, you may quickly be discouraged. Margaret Krug’s An Artist’s Handbook: Materials and Techniques wants to make the art supply store an exciting and encouraging place to be. It’s a surprisingly comprehensive...
I knew I was going to love this book when I read this line in the introduction: “Why does the world need another Photoshop book?” You don’t have to read the author’s answer to understand why the world needs this Photoshop book; a quick look at the imagery shows you that the title Creative Photoshop is no joke. Derek...
Just about everyone can remember painting with watercolors as a child. Little tin trays with a small rainbow of colors. Just add water, and brush the mixture onto the paper. The simple materials made watercolor a sensible choice for children’s paintings—no dangerous turpentine, no expensive canvases. The simplicity of watercolor appeals to experienced artists as well. Elizabeth Groves, author...
Some time ago, I wrote about Communication Arts—an ultra-professional graphic design magazine that’s a great source of inspiration. Computer Arts, the topic of today’s post, is often confused with Communication Arts, probably because the two magazines have very similar names. Computer Arts is however something very different, though no less inspiring. UK-based Computer Arts produces several monthly magazines: Computer...
I have a feeling that a lot of people, especially those unfamiliar with Mark Frauenfelder’s work (BoingBoing, “Make” magazine, and lots more), will look at this publication and think that they’re above it. The subtitle, “How to do everything on the Internet—better, faster, easier”, describes exactly what this book does. But those of us who have worked on the...
If there is a utopic, sun dappled wonderland for nerds—the kind of place abundant with old circuit boards and sympathy for anachronistic societies—it would probably feature lots of free copies of Make magazine. Make: technology on your time, published quarterly by O’Reilly Media (of Tim O’Reilly, champion of the open source movement and all forms of tech related publishing),...
If you’re a design writer, it’s hard not to let your cowering awe of Steven Heller impede your ability to write an unbiased review of this book. But what’s not to love about Stylepedia? It surpasses its genre as a quirky coffee table showpiece, and delivers a compendium of over 100 truly informative short essays on alphabetized topics that...
‘Design is art people use’. So begins the essential 2006 manual D-I-Y: Design it Yourself, edited by Ellen Lupton, curator of Contemporary Design at the Cooper Hewitt, in collaboration with the graduate students she teaches as Director of the Graphic Arts MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. It’s a phrase worth remembering at a time when...
