Showing posts with label handmade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handmade. Show all posts

Fingerprint: The Art of Using Hand-Made Elements in Graphic Design Review

Fingerprint: The Art of Using Hand-Made Elements in Graphic Design
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Fingerprint: The Art of Using Hand-Made Elements in Graphic Design ReviewSimply put, this book is an inspirational visual feast. If you're longing to incorporate the handmade in your work or are simply looking for something to kickstart your creative juices, FINGERPRINT is the perfect addition to your design library. Forget the slick and the mass-produced and dive headfirst into pages full of beautiful photography, innovative design, and an accessible layout.
Put together by Chen Design Associates, an award-winning San Francisco firm, and published under the HOW Books label, FINGERPRINT makes a good first impression with a simple but tactile cover that invites you to pick the book up and turn it over in your hands before cracking it open. The book has a good weight, as do the pages, though the paper finish seems to be prone to marking against hard edges. Inside, the text is divided into an Introduction, Foreword, seven chapters (Lettering, Illustration, Mixed Messages, Grand Finale, Objet D'Art, Indelible Impressions, and (a very brief) Gallery), and a Directory of Contributors which includes the contact information for the designers and firms featured within. Scattered throughout the text are five essays from a variety of designers including Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Print and Martin Venezky. Some of these are more interesting than others (Ross MacDonald's "Hollywood Handmade" provides insight into the business of creating authentic design-related props for television and film), but all are worth reading.
The design of the book itself is excellent and conveys FINGERPRINT's concept without going overboard. The type is restrained and there is a clear hierarchy within the descriptions on each page, but don't think for a moment that it's boring. On the contrary, due to interesting typefaces and structure, the descriptions in FINGERPRINT are some of the most readable of any design book save for one failing: on some pages where the displayed works are vertical, the descriptions rotate 90 degrees counter-clockwise, necessitating a rotation of the book as well if you want to read the text. However, this is a small qualm when weighed against the book's many well-executed details.
The work itself - the real meat of FINGERPRINT - is generally outstanding. One might think that a majority of "handmade" design would feel the same, but the pieces showcased in the book display a range of aesthetics and execution, and there's something to be learned from almost every one. Almost all of the descriptions include the materials used for the designs, so it's possible to get an idea of the effort that goes into each piece and perhaps even provides a jumping-off point for those interested in exploring a similar style. (And in some cases the design transcends the media so much so that you'll be left scratching your head, saying "They did that with WHAT?")
There's a good representation of formats within FINGERPRINT. Featured designs range from stationery suites to posters to promotional mailers to packaging and beyond, so there's something for everyone. And the nature of the work is such that you'll find yourself thumbing through the pages again and again just to notice a plethora of new details to digest.
FINGERPRINT is more than just eye candy, though - it's motivation. Inspiration. If you don't like getting your hands dirty, then maybe this book isn't for you. But if you love the hands-on approach, your fingers will be itching to pick up a pen or a pencil and just draw (or paint, or collage, or...) after you've skimmed through the book. See, absorb, and incorporate. Go create some fresh design.
Prior to picking FINGERPRINT up at the store, I'd neither heard nor seen anything about it and figured it was simply an overlooked design gem. But it won't be a secret much longer because the newest issue of HOW (naturally, given the book's publisher) has a feature on it and includes some of the pieces from the book. Handmade is back, and it's beautiful. Do yourself and your brain a favor and pick this book up!Fingerprint: The Art of Using Hand-Made Elements in Graphic Design OverviewA new approach to design is gaining momentum as more and more designers seek to combine the power of the computer with the personal qualities of handmade elements. "Fingerprint" offers insight into this fusion of the digital and the hand-wrought, with dozens of examples of some of the best work in the industry, including design that includes hand-lettering elements and design that incorporates collage. Featuring essays from some of the design community's leading thinkers, this book is an indispensable look at the future of design.

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Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, Revised Review

Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, Revised
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Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, Revised ReviewI bought this book to give me some guidance on making my first knife. I think that I am the intended audience for this book which stresses starting out and the $50 investement that making a knife can take. However, Wanye is too distracted by his 40+ years of knife making to be able to break down knife making for a newbie. He wants to tell you all sorts of little details that will not help you make your first knife. Like he gives you a history of what quench solutions he has used without telling you the proportions of the different ingredents in his current perfected mixture. So even if you wanted to duplicate his solution you couldn't. Also Wayne likes to scrounge yard sales and create grinders from old washing machines. So he spends a huge amount of time talking about all the gismos he has made and special jigs. Unfortunately he wants you to create all the stuff he has made over 40 years without any sort of details or dimensions. He just shows pictures and gives a few general comments about having found the parts at various yard sales and salvage yards.
He makes assumptions that you know things. Like he glossed over pinning a handle onto a knife by just saying to "pin it". I was left wondering, what is the pin for, what is it made of, how do you do it, ...
What I was really hoping for was a set of clear instructions to make "this" sample knife do 1, 2, 3, 4, ... but he does not give you that. I have been more helped by doing a google search and finding a few web sites that in just several pages tell you what to do step by step with enough detail that you can follow it.
I do not recommend this as your first book on knife making.Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, Revised Overview-Reveals secrets to crafting durable knives without spending a lot of money -Speaks to a ready audience: BLADE Show -- largest custom cutlery show in the U.S. draws 10,000 people each year -Presents simple, expert instruction in full color photos Knife-makers, veteran and novice, know and trust Wayne Goddard's techniques and teaching, and it shows in the level of craftsmanship featured at the nation's knife shows. The very book that changed the face of bladesmithing is revamped, with full color photo instructions and the tried-and-true format knife-makers will refer to for years to come. This page-turner covers: -Tools needed to make knives, and outfitting a personal workshop without breaking the bank. -Forging and heat-treating techniques, to help improve existing bladesmithing skills -200+ color photos demonstrate basic knife making techniques The easiest guide to making knives is Wayne Goddard's $50 Knife Shop, Revised.

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