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Title:
Owen Jones : design, ornament, architecture, and theory in an age in transition

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$105.00
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Summary:
Owen Jones was, and still remains, an influential force in the world of architecture and design. His prolific work is captured here in its various stages through drawings, architectural plans, and photographs. "Owen Jones: Design, Ornament, Architecture & Theory in an Age in Transition" fills a gap in the history of Victorian design. In his early career Jones was recognized as an authority on Oriental design. In the 1850s he was commissioned to decorate the interior of Joseph Paxton's World's Fair Crystal Palace in London. Other projects include St. James' Hall, the Crystal Palace Bazaar, Osler's Glass Shop, and Eynsham Hall at Oxford. In 1856 he completed his "Grammar of Ornament", which remains one of the most influential works on design published and is a source for many artists and designers today. More than just an architect, Jones' skills were applied to designing interiors, books, textiles, furniture, and carpet.

Title:
The V book of western ornament

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$38.95
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Ornament has been central to western culture for thousands of years and surrounds us every day, whether on buildings, clothes and accessories, cars or even computers. Behind this desire to decorate lies a need to give meaning to the things we make and live with: to make them distinctive and give them added value. "The V book of western ornament" tells the story of European ornament from 1450 to the present, from its decorative origins to its relevance in the consumer culture of today.

Title:
The business of holidays

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$47.50
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Holiday celebrations in the United States are a surprisingly strong force behind the country's $3 trillion retail economy. From New Year's diets to Festivus-flavoured ice cream, Presidents' Day car sales to Independence Day barbecues, Hanukkah cards to Kwanzaa candles, the social and material culture of holidays has been transformed into a finely tuned marketing extravaganza. Contemporary holiday rites showcase a particularly American obsession with celebration - and the shopping, decorating, card sending, feasting, drinking, and advertising that goes along with it. This witty and satirical look at thirty-three of our most loved (and hated) holidays explores the history and the traditions, the kitsch and the colour of the business of holidays.

Title:
Patterns 2: design, art and architecture

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$95.00
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Summary:
Since the first volume was published, the subject of patterns has continued to evolve: colorful patterned wallpapers have returned to private homes; patterns have become a determining factor in graphic design and architecture; and designers are asked to design an ever-increasing variety of new ornaments and pattern repeats. Patterns 2 provides the necessary inspiration. It describes current trends, presents contemporary experiments, and situates the development within the cultural-historical context. For this follow-up volume the editors have broadened the focus. In addition to architecture, design, and art, Patterns 2 now contains patterns from fashion and the sciences. These include graphic representations of whale songs and genetic codes and the latest creations of fashion designers like Paul Smith and Eley Kishimoto.

Title:
Wallpaper

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$10.50
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Summary:
The revival of ornament has seen a resurgence of interest in wallpaper design. Wallpaper is back, but this time it is different. No longer used 360 degrees to cover cracks and imperfections in crumbling plasterwork, wallcoverings are now a means of expressing individuality. The new wallpaper is blurring the division between art and interior decoration. Graphic designers and illustrators are playing with scale and using walls as their canvases while fashion and textile designers are transferring their fabric prints to paper. This book is a showcase of fresh and innovative wallpaper designs from 50 artists.

Title:
Patterns in design, art and architecture

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$63.95
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Summary:
Is less really more? At long last, designers, artists, and architects have rediscovered the evocative effect of patterns and are paying homage to décors once rejected as superfluous, by covering lamps, chairs, rooms or entire façades with stripes, polka dots and camouflage designs. Indispensable for anyone interested in contemporary trends in design, art and architecture, this softcover edition of a classic is quite simply opulent and dazzling – a lavishly illustrated overview composed by experts. This book presents the various multidisciplinary approaches to patterns, showing the many functions and fields of application. Using examples of contemporary work by internationally renowned designers such as Fabio Novembre, Claesson Koivisto Rune and Karim Rashid, by architects such as Herzog & de Meuron, Steven Holl and Sauerbruch Hutton, and artists such as Bridget Riley and Gerhard Richter, a kaleidoscope of colours and forms are laid out before the reader. New interpretations of traditional motifs are illustrated, as well as the impact and influence of technical innovations such as laser engraving and digital milling on the creation and realization of patterns today.

Title:
Masterpieces of eighteenth-century french ironwork

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$25.95
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The photographs in this volume, compiled from a quartet of rare French portfolios, display the spectacular elegance of eighteenth-century French ironwork. More than 300 photographs, presented on 166 plates depict gates, balustrades, balcony railings, window grilles, church screens, lantern holders and other decorative elements.

Title:
Designart

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$37.50
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For well over 100 years artists have blurred the distinction between "art" and "design," creating works for which Alex Coles has coined the term "Designart." In a pioneering study of this dynamic area of art-making, he traces its course from the early 20th century to the present, when such works have become a dominant feature of the contemporary art scene. From Matisse's plush interior for Nelson Rockefeller's New York City townhouse to the playful environments created by Jorge Pardo; from the handprinted fabrics and tapestries of Sonia Delaunay in the 1920s to the fabric designs Takashi Murakami recently conceived with Marc Jacobs, Coles has identified a major and previously uncharted strand in art history.

Title:
Pattern: ornament, structure, and behavior

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$34.95
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Summary:
As models and paradigms, patterns have been helping to orient architects since the Middle Ages. But patterns are also the basis of the history of ornament, an aesthetic phenomenon that links all times and cultures at a fundamental level. Ornament – and hence pattern as well – was abolished by the avant-garde in the first half of the twentieth century, but the notion of pattern has taken on new meaning and importance since the 1960s. Today the use of generative computerized methods is opening up new ways of talking about an idea that is becoming increasingly abstract and dynamic. Pattern explores the question: what are the notions of pattern that must be discussed in the context of contemporary architecture?

Title:
Over & over: a catalog of hand-drawn patterns

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$45.50
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Pattern can be derived from many sources, if we remember to look closely. While patterns have been around forever, there's a recent movement, a tendency among designers, to allow patterns to animate their work with colorful and exuberant complexity. "Over and Over: A Catalog of Hand-Drawn Patterns" collects groundbreaking work from fifty of today's most talented designers who create patterns by hand and use them in their work in inventive and innovative ways. From Deanne Chenk's patterns that adorn current fashion to those of Robin Cameron that explore her interest in art to Garret Morin's patterns that arose from an exercise for a character called Eloie, the examples in this book are pushing the boundaries of the traditional concept of what a pattern is. The selected works are often not an end result but the beginning of something else, of something bigger and broader. While the computer is sometimes involved in the production of patterns, the hand-drawn element is always evident in the uniqueness of these works. Featuring more than 250 vibrant and exciting patterns, "Over and Over" explores this magic on every single page and will inspire designers everywhere.