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mothteeff's review
1.0
Full disclosure, this was a textbook for my history of design class.
The writing was repetitive and formulaic, repeating slightly tweaked versions of the same information multiple times through each chapter. It’s far from concise with multiple paragraphs per chapter saying “this movement revolutionized graphic design because designers considered the relationship between visual and written information.” It likes to introduce a million different artists at once, leaving you with no real impression of any of them but the barest of facts about their personal lives.
The information is extremely focused on the western world and emphasizes written history as the only reliable source, completely dismissing oral histories.
Some antiquated language is also used, calling an artist an “invalid” and calling historical lower class people “illiterates.”
To top it all off the copy I purchased was misprinted with sone misaligned printing and the black pages showed every speck of oil from your fingers.
The writing was repetitive and formulaic, repeating slightly tweaked versions of the same information multiple times through each chapter. It’s far from concise with multiple paragraphs per chapter saying “this movement revolutionized graphic design because designers considered the relationship between visual and written information.” It likes to introduce a million different artists at once, leaving you with no real impression of any of them but the barest of facts about their personal lives.
The information is extremely focused on the western world and emphasizes written history as the only reliable source, completely dismissing oral histories.
Some antiquated language is also used, calling an artist an “invalid” and calling historical lower class people “illiterates.”
To top it all off the copy I purchased was misprinted with sone misaligned printing and the black pages showed every speck of oil from your fingers.
jakeyjake's review
Jan 2020 - enjoyed chapter on Arts & Crafts movement. Made a small vector library ripping off William Pickering's Elements of Euclid shapes and colors.
codexmendoza's review
4.0
Honestly this is more of an encyclopedia than a history and has quite a few blind-spots (it is rarely critical or even intellectual in any way) but is quite useful as a reference for movements and images.
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