Art Design

In February 2011 John Galliano, the lauded head of Christian Dior, imploded with a drunken, anti-Semitic public tirade. Exactly a year earlier, celebrated designer Alexander McQueen took his own life three weeks before his women's wear show. Both were casualties of the war between art and commerce that has raged within fashion for the last two decades.

Christian Dior's career, a veritable fairy tale, is set in a rich tapestry of Paris cultural life before, during, and after the war. Much of Dior's daily inspiration emanated from the world of the intellectual and artistic elite, in which he moved with such people as Erik Satie, Francis Poulenc, Henry Sauguet, Jean Cocteau, and Raoul Dufy.

Inside the Business of Graphic Design casts a precise and realistic light on the risks, requirements, and rewards of running a creative and successful design business. Whether you dream of setting up a small studio, or whether you've been on your own for years, this provocative guide is an important source of success strategies for every graphics professional.

Following up his perennially best-selling writers' guide Story and his inspiring exploration of the art of verbal action in Dialogue, the most sought-after expert in the storytelling brings his insights to the creation of compelling characters and the design of their casts. Character explores the design of a character universe: The dimensionality, complexity and arcing of a protagonist, the invention of orbiting major characters, all encircled by a cast of service and supporting roles.

Design thinking is not just the property of graphic designers. This approach to creating solutions by thinking from the customer perspective can lead to new and innovative ideas that old methods could not approach. Design Thinking for Dummies provides a jump-start to get you and your organization on the path to new creativity. Written by a design thinking thought leader, this book helps you through the design thinking cycle and shows how it can help any industry.

In Fashionopolis, Thomas sees renewal in a host of developments, including printing 3-D clothes, clean denim processing, smart manufacturing, hyperlocalism, fabric recycling - even lab-grown materials. From small-town makers and Silicon Valley whizzes to such household names as Stella McCartney, Levi’s, and Rent the Runway, Thomas highlights the companies big and small that are leading the crusade.

Personal stylist Allison Bornstein has mastered the art of helping people look good and feel good. In Wear It Well, she shares her philosophy and outlines systems that will bring your style into alignment and create a wardrobe that delights your spirit.

During André Leon Talley’s first magazine job, alongside Andy Warhol at Interview, a fateful meeting with Karl Lagerfeld began a decades-long friendship with the enigmatic, often caustic designer. Propelled into the upper echelons by his knowledge and adoration of fashion, André moved to Paris as bureau chief of John Fairchild’s Women’s Wear Daily, befriending fashion's most important designers (Halston, Yves Saint Laurent, Oscar de la Renta). But as André made friends, he also made enemies.

Miss Dior paints a portrait of the enigmatic woman behind the designer Christian Dior: his beloved younger sister, Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie's journey takes her to Occupied Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück.

Look closely at any typically "American" article of clothing these days, and you may be surprised to see a Japanese label inside. From high-end denim to oxford button-downs, Japanese designers have taken the classic American look - known as ametora, or "American traditional" - and turned it into a huge business for companies like Uniqlo, Kamakura Shirts, Evisu, and Kapital. This phenomenon is part of a long dialogue between Japanese and American fashion.

Designers Don’t Read is a love song to graphic design and graphic designers. Austin Howe is a creative director, writer, advocate, and cheerleader for design - but not a designer. He believes in the "wonder and exuberance of someone who gets paid - by clients to do what he loves". Howe places immense value on curiosity and passion to help designers develop a point of view, a strong voice. He explores the creative process and conceptualization, and delves into what to do when inspiration is lacking.

Each chapter of Lessons from Madame Chic reveals a valuable secret Jennifer learned in Paris - tips you can incorporate into your own life, no matter where you live or the size of your budget. Embracing the classically French aesthetic of quality over quantity, aspiring Parisiennes will learn to master the art of eating (deprive yourself not), dressing (the 10-item wardrobe), grooming (le no-makeup look), and living à la française.

We all get dressed. But how often do we pause to think about the place of clothes in our world? What unconscious thoughts do we express when we dress every day? Can a philosophy of living be wrapped up in a winter coat? Can we see a handbag not just as an object, but as an idea? Dressed is the thinking person’s book about clothes. Ranging freely from suits to shoes, from Marx’s coat to Madame X’s gown, philosopher Shahidha Bari unveils the hidden power of what we wear, addressing the deepest questions of who we are and how we choose to face the world.

In this utterly charming volume, Stephen Fry excavates his epic collection of neckties and shares the stories behind them. From the traditional "egg and bacon" colors of the Marylebone Cricket Club to the exuberant Dalmatian pattern of a 1980s Nicole Miller design, each tie tells a story.

As a child, Anna Wintour was a tomboy with no apparent interest in clothing but, seduced by the miniskirts and bob haircuts of swinging 1960s London, she grew into a fashion-obsessed teenager. Her father, an influential newspaper editor, loomed large in her life, and once he decided she should become editor-in-chief of Vogue, she never looked back.

Imagine this: stepping into a room where you instantly felt more at ease, where you felt comfortable and connected to tradition and nature. A room that embraced you with its serene energy, a sanctuary from the noise and chaos of the modern world.

Take a peek inside the heads of some of the world's greatest living graphic designers. How do they think, how do they connect to others, what special skills do they have? In honest and revealing interviews, 19 designers, including Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Beirut, David Carson, and Milton Glaser, share their approaches, processes, opinions, and thoughts about their work with noted brand designer Debbie Millman. The internet radio talk host of Design Matters, Millman persuades the greatest graphic designers of our time to speak frankly and openly about their work.

Product development is a team sport, but most companies don't practice it that way. Designers and engineers should be connecting with marketing, sales, customer support, suppliers, and, most importantly, customers. The Art of Product Design explains the rise of "Open Engineering", a way of breaking down barriers and taking advantage of web-based communities, knowledge, and tools to accelerate the design and manufacturing processes. It explains how to establish open flows of information inside and outside an organization.

Stitched Up delves into the alluring world of fashion to reveal what is behind the clothes we wear. Moving between Karl Lagerfeld and Karl Marx, the book explores consumerism, class, and advertising to reveal the interests which benefit from exploitation. Tansy E. Hoskins dissects fashion’s vampiric relationship with the planet and with our bodies to uncover what makes it so damaging.

The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of present day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid perhaps that they will be laughed at. Now, at last, there is a coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself.