As someone who has worked in a couple of design disciplines, and who has made art all of his life, it's always nice to find something new that will significantly contribute to how I appreciate and execute artistic works. This book did that for me.
Negative space... This isn't the only art/design book that addresses it by far, and you do not need this text to understand it well, but in this day and age of instant and shallow learning, it is refreshing and enlightening to take a deep dive into a subject and spend several hands-on hours engaging with just one aspect of it. This work has given me a better respect for the necessity of cooperation and balance between positive and negative shapes and the designing of each. It's helped me cultivate an educated eye and hand for purposefully creating things with less reliance on luck in order to get it right.
Everyone is going to get their own value (or none) out of this book, but it was 100% worth the cost to me. I very much recommend this book for painters, designers, draftspersons, or creative makers of whatever ilk.
After perusing it as an e-book I bought the print version (because books!). My experience with art and design type books (particularly ones originally published before the prevalence of digital media) is that they translate less well to screens, especially smaller phone/tablet screens. And there is just something about a printed and bound volume that still does it fore me.
As an aside, it might be interesting and worthwhile to pair this with Molly Bang's
Picture This: How Pictures Work
as the tools and materials used are similar, and the works would seem to compliment each other well.
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Art Instruction, Art History and Fine Art Books at www.doverpublications.com
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Reviews with images
I have been a Bauhaus design teacher for 55 years ...
I have been a Bauhaus design teacher for 55 years...Notan was taught at the Bauhaus because Japanese design had heavily influenced graphic design, in the early 20th century, in Europe...I taught at the Chouinard Art Institute, University of Southern California, CalArts, and have given workshops on my work in Japan...I continue to give private classes in my studio and the dark-light principles are paramount...
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