will done exploration of the most overrated designers of our time
345010
Charming and famous, these rule-bound, unimaginative, formulaic designers (I know, I'm just as repetitive as they are) baffle me with their success. A coffee cup that spills coffee? A map that you have to call a diagram because it doesn't work? This is good design? Please. And what's with Lella chuckling after every single statement? This is the trademark of disingenuousness, hiding who you really are. Can't wait to give this film away.
3182767
I was really looking forward to this book as it covers three outstanding jewelry and accessory manufacturers of the mid 20th century. But unfortunately most of my hopes were disappointed. On 69 pages you get little information on the three companies, but lots of pictures in poor quality. Some of the pages are comprised of reprints of old Florenza catalogs which would be one of the bonuses if the reproductions were better. Regarding the jewelry of Florenza, I've searched in vain for many key styles that made that name famous. The coverage of the exceptional designs that Hollycraft made is also peripheral at best. I'm sorry to say that this book is not worth its rather high price.
1985306
I got this book to study up before getting a job at a modern furniture business but what is discussed turned out to have little in common with what I'll be working with. The company I work for makes mostly comfortable, versatile, modern furniture for American homes. This book is written by people who work in cutting-edge European design forums & trade shows. Their interest is in novelty & technology, so it's an interesting read concerning design in general, and to learn about manufacturing & sculpting techniques. But about 10% of what is in this book will ever appear in mainstream American homes. Some of it is actually one-off custom pieces made just for design competitions & exhibitions, to be shown & talked about in galleries, but never actually used. One of the essays frankly says that the chair the author is gushing over is uncomfortable, & most of the essayists have a horror of upholstery as unbearably "bourgeois". It's a fun book for what it is, but it's focus is definitely more narrow than "Modern Furniture". A more useful title may be something like, "Furniture as Sculpture: Experimental Modernism in European Design".
4954224
Surely one of the most overrated books of the 20th century.  A paen to Louis Mountbatten as a white savior,
while making sure to denigrate Gandhi, Nehru, and especially Jinnah by telling salacious anecdotes about them, and studiously ignoring Mountbatten's bizarre personal life.  A literal "whitewashing" of history, bordering on racism.
1034849
If you need to witness intellectual Onanism by a group of graphic designers, many of whom seem to have unhealthily high opinions of themselves, this anthology is for you.  Some of the charts, such as those by Hamid Rashi, are completely incomprehensible to the point of self-parody, albeit probably intended to be trendy.  Others, such as those by Ramano Rao, might convey useful information, but are printed on colored backgrounds and hence unreadable.
3533145
Old questions that do not reflect the redesign.  I was really put off by this. Usually Cliffs AP is a great resource.
3108976
I know this book is 21 years old now, but I picked it up the other day (thankfully for only $5) and was so disappointed in several ways  aesthetically and in the content  that I had to vent.

First...what was the book designer thinking by not having paragraphs?!  The book is way too large with way too much text to run it all together with only tiny paragraph indicators. My eyes just glazed over.

The pages introducing each section are done in a weird sort of pointillist type that not only makes the words hard to read - you don't even care after awhile.

For a book on the Arts & Craft Movement, one of the most visually interesting and varied eras of the last century, one would think this would be brimming with photos, but no.  Again, just endless, dense text and pretty meaningless lists (of makers NOT included in the book, for example.)

The illustrations and photos that were included are fine, but this brings me to the most glaring problem:  why were the captions so pathetic??

Describing a beautiful piece of jewelry by Margaret Rogers as Necklace with repeating cabochon design is both supremely unhelpful and ridiculously lazy:
Is it Gold? Silver? Brass?  Colored tin foil?!?!?
What is the motif?
What ARE the cabochons? Chrysoprase? Glass? Dyed onyx?
And the alternating white stones?  Are they diamonds? Glass? White sapphires? Rhinestones?

Similarly, the caption on the Edward Everett Oakes pin described as rectangular with an oak leaf design  inexplicably leaves out any mention of the biggest part of the brooch: the large centerpiece citrine.

Theyre all that sparse.  Truly baffling.  I could say more, but again, the book is 21 years old so hardly worth the effort.  Just wanted to point out a few things in case you cant find it for $5 or less.
1993934
I have better Sutton stuff in my own, meager collection.  The selection could have been way better. I must recommend against.
1893541
The good news is FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE (1981) is a quick and easy read; the bad news is it is over a quarter-century out-of-date. Wolfe gives a good overview of modern architecture which developed between the wars in Germany and the Netherlands (mostly), by men [sic] who fancied themselves champions of the worker, scoffed at bourgoisie cravings for ornament and comfort, migrated to the United States, and isolated themselves in academic compounds where they spent more time issuing manifestoes and striking poses than actually designing and building buildings. These academic architects, for all their Marxist ideology, seemed to care little for what the common worker wanted or needed. And they never embraced authentic modernist American architects, such as Frank Lloyd Wright [who broke two of the compound architects' sacred rules by (a) listening to his clients, and (b) actually having clients]. Wolfe's presentation is swift and impactful and his opinions will be gratifying to anyone who is baffled or bored with modern arctitecture. I'm not sure I am ready to dismiss all 20th century architecture so completely (I love the Seagrams Building, for instance).

The book ends with a preliminary sketch and discussion of Philip Johnson's AT&T building in New York City. This building with a top that is said to emulate that of a Chippendale highboy has since been built (long enough for its original tenant to have moved out) and New Yorkers have ceased to comment on it (indicating, I suppose, either acceptance or boredom). Michael Graves, whom Wolfe criticizes for doing lots of drawing and little building, has actually taken on commissions and produced buildings that are defining post-modernism (for more about these, the reader must resort to Google). I suspect Wolfe has continued to write articles on architecture; it would be nice if he could bring these together with a Second edition of FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE.
4567830
Projects have a very home-made look to most of them without that being charming. Lack of style and good design. Not much in here most women would actually wear, and I would guess most savvy teens would pass as well. Too bad. It's an interesting idea that needs better treatment.
3109979
I take it from other people's reviews that this book is considered by some to be a classic in the design field.  However, I found it unreadable and gave up after a little over a hundred pages.  The book failed me on a number of levels, which is particularly surprising considering that the subject of the book is designing things that conveiently and elegantly meet the needs of the user.

Although I was a young adult when the book was first published in the late 1980's, the examples in the book (telphones, sewing machines, typewriters, film projectors, etc.) are so dated, the typesetting so badly done and the pictures of such poor quality, that I felt at times that I was looking at a book from the Eisenhower administration.

His points about good design are valid but are obvious and well known(in his defense, perhaps when he wrote the book they were novel).  Devices like single serve coffee machines, ipods and blackberries have brought good design principles into the general consciousness.

He also spends very little time providing interesting examples of good and bad designs and how they came about and their consequences and instead spends too much time rambling.  There's an Andy Rooney-ish quality to his musings that was usually annoying but occasionally quaint (his musings that in a decade there would be a good pocket sized computer device that would track his meetings and other information had me checking the book's copyright date).  His grumpy complaints about having to remember phone numbers, phone card codes, zip codes and the codes for those new fangled ATM machines brought to my mind images of Homer Simpson's dad, not a man with cutting edge ideas on design.

By the time I gave up halfway through the book, I wasn't sure why the book had been written.  Norman seems particularly obsessed with door handles and I just couldn't share his passion on the subject.  I would have been more interested in important examples of design failure (e.g., if memory serves, the Audi 100 series' placement of the brake and accelerator pedals that resulted in "sudden acceleration" problems at the time he wrote this book) rather than an obsession with the layout of knobs and burners on stove tops.

I threw my copy in the trash.
3318826
The publisher's blurb claims that this "Regency fashion colouring book will delight your senses and inspire your creativity." It will certainly inspire your creativity--because the drawings are so poorly executed that you will to feel compelled to improve them. I am sorry to be so snarky, but what were the publishers thinking??
148198
How ironic considering Steve Jobs was such a perfectionist. He would be appalled at such shoddy workmanship. Isaacson should be ashamed.
1953766
Overrated and outdated.  The overdone satire may have worked in the 1950s and 60s but is lost in this generation.
3543445
"New Small Homes" by Aurora Cuito really should have been titled "Minimalist Houses That Showcase Architects Who Go For Show Over Substance".  Once you get that everything that can go should go on rollers, tabletops should be glass if at all possible, skylights should be added wherever possitble, complicated and/or expensive ways of doing things are the way to go, AND OTHER THAN THE CLOTHES ON YOUR BACK, DON'T MOVE IN WITH ANYTHING, you've got the book.  And don't go for maximum use of space, either.

  For example, the first design, a dwelling converted from a former water tower,  features funiture that "slides in a small metal volume when not in use", "retains the sloping wall on its lower part", and a small refrigerator that hangs from the ceiling.  Well, if one has such a small space, and has the right to the footprint of "a small metal volume", why not extend that volume to the height of the main unit?  In any case, there is considerable WASTED space above the bed as designed.  Why not at least make the bed a loft bed and convert the considerable space that's wasted above the bed into something useful below it?  And who the heck wants to reach above their heads to get, sight unseen, food stored in the refrigerator?  And why leave the sloping wall on the lower part of the unit?  Are there stairs there?  And do you REAlLY want to shower above a plate in the floor in the living room -- in front of a glass wall?

  In another design, the kitchen and bathroom are put on either end of a modular design.  That means there have to be two sources of water, and two means of eliminating waste.  How efficient is that?

  Lastly, the photographs are curiously uninformative.  One in particular demonstrates how light bounces off surfaces.  How about showcasing the design of the house?  In some cases, the photographs of a particular home seem redundant, while in others, it's not clear what is going on.  I'm glad I borrowed this book from the library.
3446333
This book could have been much more, it could have given the customers requirement, the methods used or even the thought process of the designer. What you have is a coffee table book, not even brain food, as most of the designs went out in the nineties. The book is too full of itself and makes no attempt to help the reader. Next time I know to avoid Cheryl Cullens books
3044651
Chicago's worst critic, Jim DeRogatis, is a terrible writer as well as a malevolent reviewer. This book proves that for a national audience. Critics are a valuable resource, but they lose their importance when they take more pleasure in gunning down art that was made sincerely than they do in honestly evaluating it, for better or for worse. I think it's pretty funny that a guy who hates on U2, Rolling Stones, Madonna and more earns only an average score of 2 stars from Amazon reviewers and hasn't cracked the Top 200,000 in (rock of) ages.