There is a lot of good to be said for this book. But the thing that jumps out and slaps me in the face, right off, maybe because I have dealt with new design students and new professionals for the past several years, is a few dumb comments such as "If you are going to be a good designer, fine. If you aren't don't bother. The field is full of mediocre talents as it is."

And how, pray tell, does one know whether one is going to "be good" during the first year of ones study? --Or even during the first few years of ones professional practice, when sweeping out the place may be included in your job description, and hands-on real world work may come your way slowly and in small discreet bits? And doesn't every creative person at one point or another question the worth and validity of what he or she is doing, EVEN after recognition has started rolling in and they understand that their work is generally perceived by their peers as good? Further, I would ask whether everyone HAS to be a Saul Bass or a Neville Brody. Isn't design a broad enough field to encompass the work of those with less Olympian ambition? Comments such as the one above are relatively few and far between, to be certain. But where on earth was the editor when pompous uninsightful stuff like this flew in under the radar? Although the sheer snideness of the comment may make many jaded pros cheer, I have to wonder what useable information this kind of comment contains for the neophyte at whom the book is supposedly aimed? --To show that a lot of jaded pros have a really bad attitude?

I do not favor the Pollyanna view whether we are talking art or careers. But I believe it is impossible to know how you will fare at something before you have been doing it a while. Thinking otherwise --for example, that a teacher in a design 101 class can tell you whether you are "any good" (and I have seen or heard about many students asking this very question)-- just intimidates and discourages people from being brave enough to give the life that they would see for themselves a try. To me, that is way too limiting.

This book is a good overview of what it means to be a graphic designer. It goes through the different areas of design, and different job positions.
Everything you need to know about the design world is in this book.

I am a recent college graduate looking to get into a graphic design career and I found this guide to be excellent. At first I was a bit skeptical because it is heavy on interviews from practitioners but the later sections really delve into the business climate, how design companies grow and develop, and what career trajectories are like. Really, I do recommend this one.

.... ...to tell the truth - when I picked it up, that's what I thoughtit was [just another book on him.] The pictures in this book make it much more than that. After reading it, I can say that the pictures are wonderful, and the text compliments them well. It is not a heavy-reading book - more of a coffee-table book, but wonderful none the less. Anyone who has visited an Aikido dojo has probably seen pictures of a serious O'Sensei staring out at them from the shrine. This book has wonderful pictures of O'Sensei late in his life, "at the summit of his career as a spiritual seeker." as the book describes him. The pictures showed me a side of O'Sensei's spirit that I hadn't experienced before in other books. In these pictures, O'Sensei seems to glow, looking at time like a Taoist sage, and at other times like a playful imp (this written with the utmost respect for O'Sensei). The pictures of him smiling are a delight to see. I would encourage anyone interested in Aikido to look at this book.

As a new student to Aikido I espically enjoyed the many pictures of the master. Since I cannot meet the master, this is a beautiful collection of photos of which to know him by. One can't help but love his warm and genuine smile. There are many inspirational sayings at the end of this book, which lead the reader to aspire to leading a peaceful and constructive life.

Straight from the master. It doesn't get better than this. An outstanding book that gives you the background for learning Aikido. This book can save you many hours of dojo time in your advancement through Aikido.

I'm not much of a book reader but when I delivered this book to the publisher had the chance to read this book and toatally enjoyed reading it , I had a hard time putting it down untill I was finished with it thanks steve for leting me read your book it was really good . the cfwy driver

A perfect 6.0 on technical merit and artistic interpretation! 'Set Phasers on Stun' is a fascinating series of 20 true stories about human factors, user interface design, and design-induced human error. Like a well-told fable used to enforce a useful truth, each story cleverly teaches you something interesting and instructive about the importance of the user interface in modern technology. Casey tells each story from the perspective of the user of the thing or system, so you can really see how people get sucked into a particular situation and understand the unfortunate consequences of the designer's decisions. There is a good blending of technical detail, emotion, and great writing. Addressed are, among other things, a crash in the Airbus computerized cockpit, a Soviet space fatality, assorted medical errors ('Set Phasers on Stun' - - the title story about a patient being zapped during a radiation treatment), the launching of a rocket inside a building in Sweden, a diving accident, the Bhopal disaster, and the supertanker Torrey Canyon. I was originally introduced to this book in an engineering class, and it really "turned on the light" as the saying goes.

Steve Casey has provided a valuable service to engineers, designers, and human factors professionals with his true tales of design-induced human error. These engaging stories range from disasters at sea and failures of space systems, to casualties caused by inappropriate procedures and the packaging of consumer items. The lesson from each story is different, but there is a single theme: the incidents could have been avoided if proper attention had been paid to the user during the design of the item or system. I have given copies of Set Phasers on Stun to several people to illustrate the importance of considering human limitations, as well as capabilities, when designing systems for human use. The book is an entertaining read for anyone. I highly recommend Set Phasers on Stun.

I've probably read every book on Walt Disney. Most are carefully vetted by the studio and manage to tell exactly the same story. There's nothing wrong with that--there are no lies, just spin. Some of the books that are less "controlled" are more fun, however, like Jack Kinney's memoir "Walt Disney and Other Assorted Characters." Some that shake off the Disney thought police do so out of malice--Marc Eliot's "biography" of Walt Disney was deliberately mean-spirited and inaccurate, in my opinion.

In the last 20 years, we've seen a new breed of Disney book emerge that puts Walt Disney in context of the larger cultural picture. These volumes are dense and uninviting, but their view in general is that Walt was an uneducated slug and the people who bought his schlock were no better than he. "Disney Discourse," for example, or "Vinyl Leaves." Well, this book appears to be the Disney people's answer: An imposing academic look at the cultural history of the Walt Disney machine by a bona fide academic who has been lavished with information from the studio's archives.

Personally, I think the truth is inbetween. If all you read are this book and Bob Thomas' excellent biography, you'll have the facts and the current Disney Company spin, but you'll be missing the healthy cynic's view. Leonard Mosley's biography, "Disney's World" or Richard Schickel's "The Disney Version" supply that, while still admiring their subject. Or, for an academic view of the creation of Disneyland that's less Disneyized than Watts, try Karal Ann Marling's "As Seen on TV."

I have read 4 biographies about this man ("An American Original," "The Disney Version," Mosley's "Disney's World: A biography," Eliot's "Hollywood's Dark Prince") and now I realize that I should have acquired this book before, so I wouldn't need to read all of the above stated books.
This book provides Walt's personal story, studio development, good and bad critics, Disney's place in history and his shaping of American culture. It is not biased, but gives a balanced view on a man and his company. It made me believe in this book, since I was very sceptical towards "truths" written in other Walt Disney biographies. In those, Walt was portrayed as either a perfect person, or a villain of the 20th century.
The Magic Kingdom is the balanced truth and the best biography of a man that shaped American culture without a doubt.

far and away the most in-depth biography ever written about a truly great great man. While reading it, you get the sense that you are there, shoulder to shoulder with Walt Disney while he and his brother, and his employees build an amazing company. Also provides the context wherein the company was being formed, and the trials and trevails that preceded building this great company. Any Disney fan would NOT be disappointed.

i am arash afrasiabi and i had red this book before i think it is really a good guide for specially industrial designers who want to start their job in this fild so and it can help you to manage your self and your project very well.

I have used this book extensively to teach undergraduate industrial design students, and graduate marketing, and engineering students who take small product development courses. It's focused, down to earth, practical, and students find they can grasp design issues better than in a more theoretical-philosophical way. I use it myself to guide my design consulting work, has helped me understand other product development (not design) issues that are relevant to me, and I have read it over and over.. great handbook. Production/design of the book is also very nice. It's a pitty McGraw Hill doesn't want to translate it to spanish (so the author told me once).

Product Design and Development is a very practical, tools-based book. It is written in a way that each chapter can be used on its own (e.g., identifying customer needs, generating product concepts). We require all of our new engineers and designers to read the book and ask them to adhere to the methods associated with several of our "stage/gate processes." This is not a high-level strategy book; it tells you how to do product design and development in the trenches. Excellent book and worth every penny.

This book has been very helpful to me. Unfortunately there have been a few words I tried to look up that weren't in there. Maybe their next edition will be more complete.

This friendly volume is crisp, concise (tens of thousands of entries in just under 500 pages), and attractive. It is not only inexpensive, but possibly one of the best culinary dictionaries available for the home cook who simply wants a decent resource for occasional questions.

My basic test for a culinary reference book is to look up "falernum" (a by-product of rum distillation which is used as a flavoring in fruit desserts--sort of along the lines of grenadine). Well, "falernum" isn't in here, but so much other stuff is that I'm not complaining.

The pronunciations are a little iffy on foreign language terms, and the definition brevity is sometimes confusing (kiu is listed as "an ancient Chinese beer." OK. Does that make it a beer from ancient times, or a really old fermented brew that's currently available?). Still, these are minor quibbles for an admirably complete book.

The first edition of this dictionary may be gone...but the SECOND edition is readily available and it's bigger and better! Now with almost 25,000 entries and 200 more illustrations, this is still THE must have dictionary of culinary arts.

We all love parts of Star Wars, but why settle? For example, he could take a novel like Defenders of the Holy Grail and make it as magical as Lord of the Rings. His fantasies miss connections with the modern world His studio could be making real statements about the human condition instead of lightweight _______.

Wonderful book about the great filmaker who gave us such masterpieces as THX 1138,Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars. . . .very rich and well done with beatiful colored pages, and comments from other filmaker on the movies of George Lucas. . . . a wonderful edition that would look great on anyone cofee table,so go out and buy it today.

This book gives you a sequence of events in Lucas' creative empire. It also contains interesting quotes from the man himself as well as other significant contributors to his work. It may come as a surprise to some of us that Lucas' goals are quite similar to our own; the only difference is that he has a very strong will to make it all come true.

Contained in this book are his projects that touched many who will never imagine the same way again.

A bulky reference book. Its useful if you want to refer something - but definitely not a cover-to-cover read as I thot it would be. To be fair, it has detailed info about all artists' materials, hardware etc - but just didn't suit my needs.

This is the Artist's classic, and the Artist's Bible of not only what materials are but when they came into use, how they are formulated and why. Want to learn how to make your own gesso for silverpoint? Want to cut a quill pen? Want to make your own pastels? Can't remember how to make your own sizing or gesso? Want to try your hand at encaustic or egg tempera painting? Want to know which colors in the spectrum are likely to fade (are fugitive colors) in watercolor and which are not? It's here.

it was a required book at a county college. once i got it i realized it was very informative. it has very good information and i refer to it all the time. the professor said it would be our "bible for art" and he was right. it has techniques such as how to do egg tempra, suggestions on types of paints, etc. i would highly recommend it.

Just watch that racist Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to see that this man is deathly afraid of India and Indians in general. Too bad - he seems to love the Communist Chinese a lot though.

I want to give this book 4 stars, but I just can't bring myself to do it. This book is certainly an impressive scholarly work - well researched, reasonably well referenced, and when there is analysis offered, it is thorough and insightful.

Unfortunately, the analysis is also my major complaint with the book. McBride seems to haphazardly pick pictures to analyse, while ignoring others. What possessed him to give devote more pages to 1941 than all the Indiana Jones movies combined? Further, he has a tendency to focus too much on the story of the movie - I submit that most people reading this book have seen these movies and can draw their own conclusions about the significance of the story. We'd rather hear about how they were made, etc. That is, more facts and less analysis would would make this a better book.

The first half of the book is very good, because the author takes his time explaining family connections, his amateur films, etc. It is a little repetitive (how often does McBride feel he has to tell us that Spielberg felt like an outsider growing up?), but the detail and narrative flow are very good, telling us a lot about the man behind the movies. Especially interesting is the information on S's TV work.

The second half of the book rapidly degenerates into a shallow overview of things we already know about Spielberg, and is very disappointing. It's almost like McBride had a page limit, and after spending so much time on S's childhood, he had to rush through the remaining material, save for sections on Schindler's List and Colour Purple (both deserving movies, of course). Even Jurassic Park is little more than a sideshow, wherein McBride denegrates Crichton's novel (a fate that Peter Benchley's Jaws seems to avoid, even though in my opinion JP is a work far superior to Jaws) and comments on how Spielberg worked on the effects in Poland while shooting Schindler's List. Even his fine analytical powers seem to break down. What else could possess him to comment that Raider of the Lost ark is racist and "a soulless and impersonal film", while praising Last Crusade as "a graceful piece of popular filmaking...gratifyingly free of racist overtones that blighted the two previous films." Huh? Has McBride actually watched these three movies together? Or does he really think it's okay to portray stereotyped Arabs, but not stereotyped Indians or Nepalese?

At any rate, this is an important work, recommended for anyone that wants to learn more about the early life and works of Spielberg. But I would suggest putting it down without reading the last 5 chapters.

I've now read about five or six biographies of Steven Spielberg and all vary in depth and quality. However Joseph McBride book can only be described as THE most in-depth account of Spielberg's fascinating life. You simply won't read a more well-researched account of Spielberg's life unless the great man writes his autobiography. Don't be put off by the fact that Spielberg didn't co-operate with this book, virtually everyone else did including, most surprisingly, his father. A terrific read from start to finish.

A nice collection of artists, with some great examples of what they can do. But....
Paper stock is poor and some prints are a bit blurry.

This is a great artbook, featuring many famous furry artists. I love the art, and look at it regularly. If you're a fan of Michele Light, I recommend it.

This book started my physical collection of furry publishings, and still remains the best singal pice I have. Not only is it perfectaly published, but contains excellent examples of anthropomorphic artwork. Its my personal bible.