Art Design

Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We’re rebelling against technology that’s too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte “read me” manuals. The iPod’s clean gadgetry has made simplicity hip. But sometimes we find ourselves caught up in the simplicity paradox: we want something that’s simple and easy to use, but also does all the complex things we might ever want it to do.

Once upon a time, a no-frills J.Crew rollneck sweater held an almost mystical power—or at least it felt that way. The story of J.Crew is the story of the original “lifestyle brand,” whose evolution charts a sea change in the way we dress, the way we shop, and who we aspire to be over the past four decades—all told through iconic clothes and the most riveting characters imaginable.

This audiobook is a culmination of nearly 50 years of art sales and marketing experience. It is jam-packed with useful information, ideas, and advice that any artist can use to become more successful, particularly by selling their work to interior-design professionals.

Renowned designer and professional hell-raiser James Victore wants to drag you off your couch and throw you headfirst into a life of bold creativity. He'll guide you through all the twists, trials, and triumphs of starting your creative career, from finding your voice to picking the right moment to start a project (hint: It's now).

What we wear matters. It matters because looking and therefore feeling like yourself is essential. Clothes can make the difference between a good day and a bad day. Clothes have the power to make your mood ten times worse or one hundred times better.

The Art of Writing for TTRPGs is an essential guide for anyone interested in crafting engaging and immersive tabletop roleplaying experiences. Written by veteran TTRPG designer and game master, David J. Morand, this book covers everything from developing compelling player characters and NPCs, to building dynamic encounters and creating a captivating narrative.

In this ambitious global project, 200 women share their inspiring stories of success and courage, love and pain, redemption and generosity. This updated, abridged edition includes powerful new interviews and stirring quotes alongside selections from the original book, all answering the same five questions. This new edition is an illuminating audiobook for the modern woman and a lovely gift for mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends.

Why does fashion hold so much power over us? Most of us care about how we dress and how we present ourselves. Style offers clues about everything from class to which in-group we belong to. Bad Feminist for fashion, Dress Code takes aim at the institutions within the fashion industry while reminding us of the importance of dress and what it means for self-presentation. Everything—from societal changes to the progress (or lack thereof) of women’s rights to the hidden motivations behind what we choose to wear to align ourselves with a particular social group—can be tracked through clothing.

What you need to know to protect your designs and get them built as you envision them; how to get and keep clients and become their trusted advisor and professional—every architect needs the answers in this concise, thorough, and listenable guide.

Second Chances is a unique guide to a one-of-a-kind, circular wardrobe. Eleni’s superpower is sniffing out great finds and here she walks you through the art of in-person discovery at thrift stores and vintage shops, estate sales and flea markets, yard sales and antique stores—and online resale platforms. This book will teach you how to organize your existing wardrobe, evaluate pieces you find, and manifest your dream closet.

"Bird Cloud” is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and 400-foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope

Celebrity stylist and fashion icon Brad Goreski takes readers inside his whirlwind life, from his small-town Canadian roots to his worldwide successes, sharing a wealth of style tips, tricks, and photos along the way to help every reader look and feel their absolute best. Fans of The Rachel Zoe Project and It’s a Brad, Brad World already know that there’s no one on reality TV more fearless or savvy when it comes to style. But Born to Be Brad gives the world its first behind-the-scenes look at how Brad became the stylist he is.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: 21 layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex" - a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

Le Corbusier famously said, "A house is a machine for living in." We now confront the litany of environmental challenges associated with the legacy of the architectural machine: a changing climate, massive species die-off, diminished air and water quality, and resource scarcities. Brook Muller offers an alternative: water-centric urban design that fosters sustainability, equity, and architectural creativity.

Brimming with rich, electrifying tales of the precious dye and its ancient heritage, Indigo is also the story of a personal quest: Catherine McKinley is the descendant of a clan of Scots who wore indigo tartan; Jewish "rag traders"; a Massachusetts textile factory owner; and African slaves - her ancestors were traded along the same Saharan routes as indigo, where a length of blue cotton could purchase human life.

Laura Ballerini, a designer who started much of her creative journey at a big city newspaper and now owns her own digital design boutique, seamlessly weaves together an unlikely array of stories about her inspiring mother, museum visits, online shopping, designing in the dirt, and many other adventures (including a visit to Graceland). Some of these essays are funny, some poignant—all are memorable snippets of universal experiences meant to spark our awareness and awaken us to the rich fields of design all around us.

In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of her life and times. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes. Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Strasdin spent the next six years unravelling the secrets contained within the album's pages. Piece by piece, she charts Anne's journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years.

We may not often think of our clothes as having a function beyond covering our naked bodies and keeping us a little safer from the elements. But to discount the enormous influence of clothing on anything from economic cycles to the future of water scarcity is to ignore the greater meaning of the garments we put on our backs. Disrobed vividly considers the role that clothing plays in everything from natural disasters to climate change to terrorism to geopolitics to agribusiness.

Little black dresses. Fake pearls. Jersey knit. Blazers. Ballet flats. Today - and for nearly the last hundred years - we all see some version of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel every time we pass a woman on the street. But few among us realize that Chanel’s role in the events of the twentieth century was as pervasive as her influence on fashion, or how deeply she absorbed and then brilliantly reimagined the historical currents around her.

We are living in a time when behavioral change is necessary for our health and survival. Yet we find it exceedingly difficult to transform our own habits, let alone those of other people. Enter Naohiro Matsumura, whose powerful new design method is as astonishingly simple in its logic as it is sophisticated in its psychology. It allows any of us to address challenges in our homes, our public spaces, and our social interactions.