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From Russia With Doubt
by Adam LernerIn 2010 the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver director Adam Lerner did something unheard of in the museum world: he mounted a large exhibition of paintings without first knowing whether they were real or fakes. Painted in the Suprematist and Constructivist style of early twentieth-century Russian avant-garde masters, the 181 canvases had been acquired by amateur collectors Ron and Roger Pollard from a mysterious seller in Germany they met on eBay who claimed the paintings were found in an abandoned shipping container held in German customs since the 1980s. In From Russia with Doubt, Lerner skillfully weaves together the tale--from the initial eBay find to his controversial decision to exhibit the collection--guiding readers through the looking glass into the Byzantine corridors of the art world and beyond, describing the owners' quest to authenticate and appraise the would-be masterpieces. What he finds raises powerful questions about our own relationship to art.
Farming Cuba
by Carey ClouseFollowing the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Cuba found itself solely responsible for feeding a nation that had grown dependent on imports and trade subsidies. With fuel, fertilizers, and pesticides disappearing overnight, citizens began growing their own organic produce anywhere they could find space-- on rooftops, balconies, vacant lots, and even school playgrounds. By 1998 there were more than 8,000 urban farms in Havana producing nearly half of the country's vegetables. What began as a grassroots initiative had, in less than a decade, grown into the largest sustainable agriculture initiative ever undertaken, making Cuba the world leader in urban farming. Featuring a wealth of rarely seen material and intimate portraits of the environment, Farming Cuba details the innovative design strategies and explores the social, political, and environmental factors that helped shape this pioneering urban farming program.
The Public Library: A Photographic Essay
by Robert Dawson Bill Moyers Ann PatchettA gorgeous visual celebration of America's public libraries including 150 photos, plus essays by Bill Moyers, Ann Patchett, Anne Lamott, Amy Tan, Barbara Kingsolver, and many more.Many of us have vivid recollections of childhood visits to a public library: the unmistakable musty scent, the excitement of checking out a stack of newly discovered books. Today, the more than 17,000 libraries in America also function as de facto community centers offering free access to the internet, job-hunting assistance, or a warm place to take shelter. And yet, across the country, cities large and small are closing public libraries or curtailing their hours of operation. Over the last eighteen years, photographer Robert Dawson has crisscrossed the country documenting hundreds of these endangered institutions. The Public Library presents a wide selection of Dawson's photographs— from the majestic reading room at the New York Public Library to Allensworth, California's one-room Tulare County Free Library built by former slaves. Accompanying Dawson's revealing photographs are essays, letters, and poetry by some of America's most celebrated writers. A foreword by Bill Moyers and an afterword by Ann Patchett bookend this important survey of a treasured American institution.
Southern Makers: Food, Design, Craft, and Other Scenes from the Tactile Life
by Jennifer CauseyIn this follow-up to our bestselling Brooklyn Makers, photographer Jennifer Causey returns to her Southern roots to introduce us to a group of artisans with a long tradition of craftsmanship and a wonderfully vibrant cultural history. In communities across the South, amidst breathtaking country landscapes and bustling city neighborhoods, a thriving creative revival is underway. In Southern Makers, Causey captures the spirit of this movement by documenting twenty-five of the area's most celebrated craftspeople. This eclectic mix of established and up-and-coming makers includes bakers, textile artists, denim designers, jewelers, woodworkers, brewers, farmers, and more. Causey's photographs are suffused with Southern charm as she explores the artisans' spaces, from restored homes and old factories to repurposed gas stations, general stores, and flowering fields. These lively interviews reveal personal inspirations and motivations, along with heartfelt reflections on the place where they live and work.
A Love Letter to the City
by Stephen Powers Peter EleeyStretched across city walls and along rooftops, Stephen Powers's colorful large-scale murals sneak up on you. "Open your eyes / I see the sunrise," "If you were here I'd be home," "Forever begins when you say yes." What at first looks like nothing as much as an advertisement suddenly becomes something grander and more mysterious—a hand-painted love letter at billboard size. Combining community activism and public art, Powers and his team of sign mechanics collaborate with a neighborhood's residents to create visual jingles— sincere and often poignant affirmations and confessions that reflect the collective hopes and dreams of the host community. A Love Letter to the City gathers the artist's powerful public art project for the first time, including murals on the walls and rooftops of Brooklyn and Syracuse, New York; Philadelphia; Dublin and Belfast, Ireland; São Paolo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Type on Screen: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Developers, and Students (Design Briefs Ser.)
by Ellen Lupton Maryland Institute College of ArtThe long awaited follow-up to our all-time bestseller Thinking with Type is here. Type on Screen is the definitive guide to using classic typographic concepts of form and structure to make dynamic compositions for screen-based applications. Covering a broad range of technologies—from electronic publications and websites to videos and mobile devices—this hands-on primer presents the latest information available to help designers make critical creative decisions, including how to choose typefaces for the screen, how to style beautiful, functional text and navigation, how to apply principles of animation to text, and how to generate new forms and experiences with code-based operations. Type on Screen is an essential design tool for anyone seeking clear and focused guidance about typography for the digital age.
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type
by Kimberly ElamAlthough grid systems are the foundation for almost all typographic design, they are often associated with rigid, formulaic solutions. However, the belief that all great design is nonetheless based on grid systems (even if only subverted ones) suggests that few designers truly understand the complexities and potential riches of grid composition.
A Love Letter to the City
by Stephen PowersStretched across city walls and along rooftops, Stephen Powers's colorful large-scale murals sneak up on you. "Open your eyes / I see the sunrise," "If you were here I'd be home," "Forever begins when you say yes." What at first looks like nothing as much as an advertisement suddenly becomes something grander and more mysterious--a hand-painted love letter at billboard size. Combining community activism and public art, Powers and his team of sign mechanics collaborate with a neighborhood's residents to create visual jingles-- sincere and often poignant affirmations and confessions that reflect the collective hopes and dreams of the host community. A Love Letter to the City gathers the artist's powerful public art project for the first time, including murals on the walls and rooftops of Brooklyn and Syracuse, New York; Philadelphia; Dublin and Belfast, Ireland; São Paolo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students
by Ellen Lupton"Thinking with Type is to typography what Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time is to physics."—I Love TypographyThe best-selling Thinking with Type in a revised and expanded second edition: Thinking with Type is the definitive guide to using typography in visual communication. Ellen Lupton provides clear and focused guidance on how letters, words, and paragraphs should be aligned, spaced, ordered, and shaped. The book covers all typography essentials, from typefaces and type families, to kerning and tracking, to using a grid. Visual examples show how to be inventive within systems of typographic form, including what the rules are, and how to break them.This revised edition includes forty-eight pages of new content with the latest information on:• style sheets for print and the web• the use of ornaments and captions• lining and non-lining numerals• the use of small caps and enlarged capitals• mixing typefaces• font formats and font licensingPlus, new eye-opening demonstrations of basic typography design with letters, helpful exercises, and dozens of additional illustrations.Thinking with Type is the typography book for everyone: designers, writers, editors, students, and anyone else who works with words. If you love font and lettering books, Ellen Lupton's guide reveals the way typefaces are constructed and how to use them most effectively.Fans of Thinking with Type will love Ellen Lupton's new book Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers.
Petcam
by Chris KeeneyAs close as we are to our beloved pets, we often wonder how they spend their days when we aren't watching. What do they explore? How does the world look from the point of view of our dogs and cats--or our chickens and goats? PetCam, by photographer Chris Keeney, author of Pinhole Cameras, presents a collection of striking and amusing images created by an international roster of four-legged photographers. With small, lightweight cameras attached to their collars and cowbells, they document what they see as they go about their daily routines--lounging under parked cars, scaling rooftops, jumping fences, relaxing in a neighbor's tall grass. You'll see the world through the eyes of more than twenty intrepid pets, including Coulee, a Border Collie-Golden Retriever mix from Alberta, Canada; Fritz, a tabby cat living in the Ore Mountains of Germany; Walter and Hamlet, brother and sister miniature pot belly pigs from San Diego; and Sofie, a Galloway cow, who spends her days roaming the hills of the Swiss Alps. This unique and whimsical collection offers a peek into the wanderings of our animal friends, and reveals how they experience the world we all share.
Nocturne
by Traer ScottWhether fierce, cuddly, startling, mysterious, or some indefinable combination of all of the above, nocturnal animals never fail to fascinate. In Nocturne: Creatures of the Night, celebrated animal photographer Traer Scott takes the viewer on a journey through nighttime in the animal kingdom, revealing some of nature's most elusive creatures. Bats, big cats, flying squirrels, tarantula, owls, kangaroo mice, giant moths, sloth, several species of snakes, and a Madagascar hissing cockroach are only a few of the animals illuminated in these lushly detailed portraits. Seventy-five full-color photographs of forty different species are accompanied by informed but accessible descriptions of each animal's habits and habitats, and an introduction provides personal insight into how Scott captures her astonishing images. Nocturne is a compelling view of the rarely seen darkness dwellers who populate the night.
The Public Library: A Photographic Essay
by Ann Patchett Bill Moyers Robert DawsonA gorgeous visual celebration of America's public libraries including 150 photos, plus essays by Bill Moyers, Ann Patchett, Anne Lamott, Amy Tan, Barbara Kingsolver, and many more.Many of us have vivid recollections of childhood visits to a public library: the unmistakable musty scent, the excitement of checking out a stack of newly discovered books. Today, the more than 17,000 libraries in America also function as de facto community centers offering free access to the internet, job-hunting assistance, or a warm place to take shelter. And yet, across the country, cities large and small are closing public libraries or curtailing their hours of operation. Over the last eighteen years, photographer Robert Dawson has crisscrossed the country documenting hundreds of these endangered institutions. The Public Library presents a wide selection of Dawson's photographs-- from the majestic reading room at the New York Public Library to Allensworth, California's one-room Tulare County Free Library built by former slaves. Accompanying Dawson's revealing photographs are essays, letters, and poetry by some of America's most celebrated writers. A foreword by Bill Moyers and an afterword by Ann Patchett bookend this important survey of a treasured American institution.
Grafica della Strada
by Louise FiliFor more than three decades, renowned graphic designer and self-described Italophile Louise Fili has traveled the cities and countryside of Italy cataloging the work of sign craftsmen in whose hands type takes on new life with a tantalizing menu of styles. Classical, eclectic, or Futurist; in gold leaf, marble, brass, wood, wrought iron, enamel, ceramic, or neon; painted, carved, inlaid, etched, tiled, or stenciled-- the creative possibilities are endless. Grafica della Strada is Fili's photographic diary of hundreds of Italy's most inventive restaurant, shop, hotel, street, and advertising signs. A major influence on Fili's own work, many of these marvels of vernacular design live on solely in this book, a typographic love letter to Italy that will be an inspiration to designers and Italophiles everywhere.
Worn Stories
by Emily SpivackEveryone has a memoir in miniature in at least one piece of clothing. In Worn Stories, Emily Spivack has collected over sixty of these clothing-inspired narratives from cultural figures and talented storytellers. First-person accounts range from the everyday to the extraordinary, such as artist Marina Abramovic on the boots she wore to walk the Great Wall of China; musician Rosanne Cash on the purple shirt that belonged to her father; and fashion designer Cynthia Rowley on the Girl Scout sash that informed her business acumen. Other contributors include Greta Gerwig, Heidi Julavits, John Hodgman, Brandi Chastain, Marcus Samuelsson, Piper Kerman, Maira Kalman, Sasha Frere-Jones, Simon Doonan, Albert Maysles, Susan Orlean, Andy Spade, Paola Antonelli, David Carr, Andrew Kuo, and more. By turns funny, tragic, poignant, and celebratory, Worn Stories offers a revealing look at the clothes that protect us, serve as a uniform, assert our identity, or bring back the past--clothes that are encoded with the stories of our lives.
Grafica della Strada: The Signs of Italy
by Louise FiliFor more than three decades, renowned graphic designer and self-described Italophile Louise Fili has traveled the cities and countryside of Italy cataloging the work of sign craftsmen in whose hands type takes on new life with a tantalizing menu of styles. Classical, eclectic, or Futurist; in gold leaf, marble, brass, wood, wrought iron, enamel, ceramic, or neon; painted, carved, inlaid, etched, tiled, or stenciled— the creative possibilities are endless. Grafica della Strada is Fili's photographic diary of hundreds of Italy's most inventive restaurant, shop, hotel, street, and advertising signs. A major influence on Fili's own work, many of these marvels of vernacular design live on solely in this book, a typographic love letter to Italy that will be an inspiration to designers and Italophiles everywhere.
San Francisco, Portrait of a City: 1940-1960
by Fred LyonWith a landmark around every corner and a picture perfect view atop every hill, San Francisco might be the world's most picturesque city. And yet, the Golden City is so much more than postcard vistas. It's a town alive with history, culture, and a palpable sense of grandeur best captured by a man known as San Francisco's Brassai. Walking the city's foggy streets, the fourth-generation San Franciscan captures the local's view in dramatic black-and-white photos-- from fog-drenched mornings in North Beach and cable cars on Market Street to moody night shots of Coit Tower and the twists and turns of Lombard Street. In San Francisco, Portrait of a City 1940-1960, Fred Lyon captures the iconic landscapes and one-of-a-kind personalities that transformed the city by the bay into a legend. Lyon's anecdotes and personal remembrances, including sly portraits of San Francisco characters such as writer Herb Caen, painters Richard Diebenkorn and Jean Varda, and madame and former mayor of Sausalito Sally Stanford add an artist's first-hand view to this portrait of a classic American city.
Terminal Bar
by Sheldon Nadelman Stefan NadelmanIn 1972 Shelly Nadelman began a ten-year run bartending at one of New York City's most notorious dives: the Terminal Bar, located across the street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal near Times Square. For ten years, right up until the bar closed for good in 1982, he shot thousands of black-and-white photographs, mostly portraits of his customers-- neighborhood regulars, drag queens, thrill-seeking tourists, pimps and prostitutes, midtown office workers dropping by before catching a bus home to the suburbs--all of whom found welcome and respite at the Terminal Bar. This extraordinary archive remained unseen for twenty years until his son Stefan rescued the collection, using parts of it in a documentary short. Featuring nine hundred photographs accompanied by reminiscences in Shelly Nadelman's inimitable voice, Terminal Bar brings back to life the 1970s presanitized Times Square, a raucous chapter of the city that never sleeps.
Melting Away
by Camille SeamanFor ten years Camille Seaman has documented the rapidly changing landscapes of Earth's polar regions. As an expedition photographer aboard small ships in the Arctic and Antarctic, she has chronicled the accelerating effects of global warming on the jagged face of nearly fifty thousand icebergs. Seaman's unique perspective of the landscape is entwined with her Native American upbringing: she sees no two icebergs as alike; each responds to its environment uniquely, almost as if they were living beings. Through Seaman's lens, each towering chunk of ice--breathtakingly beautiful in layers of smoky gray and turquoise blue--takes on a distinct personality, giving her work the feel of majestic portraiture. Melting Away collects seventy-five of Seaman's most captivating photographs, lifeaffirming images that reveal not only what we have already lost, but more importantly what we still have that is worth fighting to save.
Beautiful Users: Designing for People
by Ellen LuptonIn the mid-twentieth century, Henry Dreyfuss--widely considered the father of industrial design--pioneered a user-centered approach to design that focuses on studying people's behaviors and attitudes as a key first step in developing successful products. In the intervening years, user-centered design has expanded to undertake the needs of differently abled users and global populations as well as the design of complex systems and services. Beautiful Users explores the changing relationship between designers and users and considers a range of design methodologies and practices, from user research to hacking, open source, and the maker culture.
Come Together
by Francesco SpampinatoThe past twenty years have seen a new generation of artists working together in small groups and large collectives to explore new avenues of art, design, performance, and commerce. In Come Together, author and visual artist Francesco Spampinato assembles an international roster of forty of today's most exciting and influential collectives, from design studios like Project Projects and political performance artists The Yes Men to flash mob provocateurs Improv Everywhere and the multimedia artists Assume Vivid Astro Focus. Alongside visual portfolios of their best work are in-depth interviews addressing each group's unique motivations, processes, and objectives. What emerges is a shared desire to turn viewers into producers and to use commercial mass-media strategies to challenge prevailing social, political, and cultural power structures. Come Together is an essential resource and inspiration for students, art lovers, and anyone interested in the cutting edge of visual culture.
Mellon Square
by Susan Rademacher Charles BirnbaumThe second volume in our Modern Landscapes series examines the evolution of Pittsburgh's first modern garden plaza. Completed in 1955 from a design by the acclaimed landscape design firm Simonds & Simonds and architects Mitchell & Ritchey, Mellon Square functioned as an urban oasis that provided downtown office workers a much-needed respite from the city's infamous smoke pollution. Now, more than six decades later, Mellon Square is undergoing a major restoration by Patricia O'Donnell of Heritage Landscapes that aims to restore this urban garden and help revitalize downtown Pittsburgh. Featuring new photography and archival material, Mellon Square is the only book to showcase the development of this iconic urban landscape.
Local Architecture
by Brian Mackay-Lyons Robert MccarterIn architecture, as in food, local is an idea whose time has come. Of course, the idea of an architecture that responds to site; draws on local building traditions, materials, and crafts; and strives to create a sense of community is not recent. Yet, the way it has evolved in the past few years in the hands of some of the world's most accomplished architects is indeed defining a new movement. From the rammed-earth houses of Rick Joy and Pacific Northwest timber houses of Tom Kundig, to the community-built structures of Rural Studio and Francis Kéré, designers everywhere are championing an architecture that exists from, in, and for a specific place. The stunning projects, presented here in the first book to examine this global shift, were featured at the thirteenth and final Ghost conference held in 2011, organized by Nova Scotia architect, educator, and local practitioner Brian MacKay-Lyons. The result is the most complete collection of contemporary regionalist architecture available, with essays by early proponents of the movement, including Kenneth Frampton, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Glenn Murcutt.
Mark Mothersbaugh
by Adam Lerner Wes AndersonMark Mothersbaugh is a legendary figure for fans of both street art and music culture. Cofounder of the seminal New Wave band DEVO, he was a prolific visual artist before the band's inception moving seamlessly between multiple mediums creating bold, cartoonish, strangely disturbed works of pop surrealism that playfully explore the relationship between technology and individuality. In the most comprehensive presentation of his work to date, Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia features a lifetime of his creative inventions from the beginning of his artistic career in the 1970s to his most recent work, including early postcards, screen prints, decals, and DEVO ephemera as well as later paintings, photographs (such as the celebrated Beautiful Mutants series), sculpture, and rugs. Accompanied by a major six city traveling exhibition, this richly illustrated catalog positions Mothersbaugh as a pivitol figure in the history of both contemporary art and indie culture.
Keep the Change
by Harley J. SpillerHarley J. Spiller began collecting money at the age of five when, home sick from school, his father tossed him a sack of pennies and a Whitman coin folder. In the five decades since, author Spiller has amassed one of America's most extensive collections of unusual financial artifacts as well as a wealth of anecdotes and quirky historical details about U.S. currency. In Keep the Change, Spiller takes an irreverent look at our most uncommon coins and bills.Readers learn why greenbacks are green; what happens to worn-out bills (compost is involved); how artists navigate the fine line between art and mutilation; whether it's ever acceptable to burn money (short answer: maybe); and how coin clippers and counterfeiters through the ages have profited by manipulating money. This highly selective tour through currency legends and lore will inspire readers to look with a new sense of wonder at the bills that pass through our hands every day.
Designed for the Future
by Jared GreenIn Designed for the Future, author Jared Green asks eighty of today's most innovative architects, urban planners, landscape architects, journalists, artists, and environmental leaders the same question: what gives you the hope that a sustainable future is possible? Their imaginative answers--covering everything from the cooling strategies employed at Cambodia's ancient temple city of Angkor Wat to the use of cutting-edge eco-friendly mushroom board as a replacement for Styrofoam--show the way to our future success on earth and begin a much-needed dialogue about what we can realistically accomplish in the decades ahead. Featuring an international roster of leading design thinkers including:* Biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus* Curator Barry Bergdoll* Educator and author Alan Berger* Environmentalist and author Lester Brown* Architect Rick Cook* Urban Planner Paul Farmer* Critic Christopher Hume* Architect Bjarke Ingels* Landscape designer Mia Lehrer* Architect Rob Rogers* Critic Inga Saffron* Artist Janet Echelman