Reading list

I've been trying to pull together a list of all the books and magazines I've been reading this year that don't feature in the course reading list, here it be:

Barnard M, (2001), Approaches to understanding visual culture, Hampshire, Palgrave
Barthes R, (2000), Mythologies, Great Britain, Vintage
Berger J. (1972) Ways of seeing, London, Penguin Books
Eagleton T, (2000), The idea of culture, USA, Blackwell Publishers Inc
Eco U, (1976), A theory of semiotics, Bloomington, Indiana University Press
Hartley J, (2002), Communication, Cultural and Media studies, New York, Routledge
Lyotard J, (1991), The inhuman, Oxford, Polity Press
Materson, J.F, Klein, R., (1995) Disorders of the self, USA, Brunner/Mazel
Robinson J, (1999), The manipulators, Great Britain, Pocket Books
Sahlins M (1976), Culture and practical reason, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
Said E W. (1994), Representations of the intellectual, Reading, Vintage
Sorlin P, (1994), Mass media – key ideas, London, Routledge
Sturken M & Cartwright L, (2001), Practices of looking, USA, Oxford University Press
Thomas J, (2001), Reading images, Hampshire, Palgrave
Evans J and Hall S, (2003), Visual culture: the reader, London, Sage Publications
Church Gibson P and Gibson R, (1993), Dirty looks: women, pornography, power, London, British Film Institute
Fletcher A, (2001), The art of looking sideways, London, Phaidon Press
Poynor R, (2001), Obey the giant, London, August Media Ltd.
Burns C, (2005), Black Hole, UK, Jonathan Cape
Newark Q, (2002), What is graphic design?, Switzerland, RotoVision
Rhinehart L, (2001), The dice man, USA, The Overlook Press
Golding W, (1954), Lord of the flies, London, Faber and Faber Ltd.
Burgess A, (1962), A clockwork orange, London, Paperview UK
Hislop V, (2005), The Island, Great Britain, Review
Garland A, (1997), The beach, England, Penguin Books
Heller J, (1962), Catch 22, Great Britain, Vintage
Orwell G, (1956), Keep the aspidistra flying, USA, Harvest books

George Shaw [writings]
Adbusters [magazine]
Graffik [magazine]
Eye [magazine]

Phiadon

I've recently been considering what it is that I would want to do in the future and as I enjoy creating books I would like to look into the publishing industry...

I've got many design books created by Phaidon, they are the publishers of one of my favourite books of all time - The Art of Looking Sideways. They also create many good reference books for art students such as: The photo book, The art book, The art of the 20th century and The American art book - all of which come in both large 'coffee table' books and smaller 'pocket books'.

They've recently released a new book called 'Ice Cream' which contains:

-An exhibition-in-a-book that presents 100 contemporary artists
-Selected by 10 internationally renowned curators, these artists will be the stars of tomorrow
-Each artist is featured over four pages with a selection of their most interesting work together with a commentary by the curator who selected them, an exhibition history, and a bibliography
-Each curator has also selected a source artist who has inspired or influenced the younger generation, providing readers with a broader historical perspective

and is said to be "A must-have for art-world insiders, an essential source book for students and all those who follow the contemporary art scene."

I'm intrigued.

Maybe one day I'll have a company that creates some amazing books to help all those art students and other along in the world or just show them something a little bit different...

Books - My Creations

This first book is from my Collections project in which I collected my emotions every hour on the hour for 24 hours. It's called "24 Hours" and is bound in black buckram with a double layered card slip cover. The pages contain the emotions which are relative in size to the amount they are felt, the pages are embossed with numbers to signify the hour the pages represent.


This is the first book I created for the Reportage project in which we had to report the city of Leeds in some format. I decided to base my first book on the city scape of Leeds, the pages run together creating a total 360 degree view from the top of multistory car park.


This and the image below are photos of the second book I created for Reportage. For this book I focused on the people of Leeds.


I asked them to complete a questionnaire and have their photo taken, the photo was then printed on to the reverse of the hand written questionnaire, folded and bound into this book.


This is the book I created for my Storytelling brief. It was a story of a stick boy called Sam who lived on the edge of a haunted forest. The forest is surrounded by red ribbon to stop people from entering it and becoming lost, until one day Sam ventures into and meets Bird, learns to fly and solves the mystery of the not to haunted forest.

Found

I recently bought the Found book which is a further more indepth publication of the Found magazine and website. It reminds me a little of post secret . I have always liked being given the opportunity to see into other worlds, to create a story around the insight you have found. It seems I'm not alone with this... I am glad.

Buy it here.

Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes is a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, following the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic—albeit stuffed—tiger. The strip was printed daily in newspapers from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes was carried by over 2,400 newspapers worldwide.



The strips can deal with many political and social issues that try to show the worlds views through the eyes of a small child. Other strips focus on Calvins life and on going themes like his and Hobbes club called G.R.O.S.S [Get Rid Of Slimy girlS], their made up game of Calvinball in which you can't have the same rule twice and the regular sled and wagon rides in which Calvin and Hobbes hold their most philosophical of conversations.


And sometimes it's just pure genius... nothing like the truth to make you laugh out loud

Buy, review and find out more about Calvin and Hobbes here

Hand to Eye

Hand to Eye is a book that has continued to inspire me throughout my design education. I first came into contact with it in my first year of my National Diploma in 2003. The book contains 144 pages of 45 contemporary illustrators from around the world.



It is one of those books that I tend to flick through from time to time to inspire me when I'm feeling at a bit of a loss. It is something I come back to on a regular basis when I'm searching for specific styles because it contains such a large wealth of styles and imagery that I usually find something to cater for my needs.



It contains many styles of illustration and graphic design including styles using pen, pencil, paint, embroidary and designers that merge digital art with hand rendered styles to create some highly original pieces.



The above image is one of my favourite in the book, I love the use of colours and patterns to evoke such feeling in a 2D piece.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

I recently read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the first time in my life. There are a series of books I mean to read throughout my life - the cult classics, the old time favourites and the must reads. Some of these include: 1984 (read), The Bell Jar (read), Catch 22 (just bought and reading), Animal Farm (not read yet), A Brave New World (read), Of Mice and Men (Not yet read), The Colour Purple (read) etc. etc. etc. The list goes on and slowly but surely I will read them all.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's blurb reads: "Chief Bromden, half American-Indian, whom the authorities believe is deaf and dumb, tells the story of a mental institutions ruled by Big Nurse on behalf of the all-powerful Combine.

Into this terrifying grey world comes McMurphy, a brawling gambling man, who wages total war on behalf of his cowed fellow-inmates. What follows is at once hilarious and heroic, tragic and ultimately liberating."

Anyway, the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... it's a novel one, that's for sure (excuse the pun). It's odd how so many of these supposed classics are so strangely written. I found when reading this book that I was often focusing so much on the style of the writing that I would loose my way with what was happening with the plot and have to re-read whole sections again. When conversations ensued it became a battle to understand who was saying what as Kesey often stated it once and left you to figure out the rest through punctuations and the back and forth style of writing.

Chief Bromden is the narrator of the story which flickers between present day ward reality, Bromden's childhood and the unreality of his own mental thoughts and illness. I've heard much about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest before I came to read the book and expected a deep heart wrenching tale of life in a mental institution that led to liberation for the inmates through the arrival of the lively McMurphy. While reading the book I found it not to be the case, it was interesting and readable but the style of writing made me come to dislike reading the book and wished to reach the end. It felt slow moving and too details in areas I didn't care about but at times skimmed over things I wanted to know more about.

I can see how the style of writing is adapted to fit in with the mental state of the patient narrating the story but it was extremely tiresome in the beginning and especially when he talked about the Columbine/Machines in the walls of the ward. When more interesting things start to happen in the ward with McMurphy and Bromden such as when they're sent for Electro Shock Therapy I began to become more engrossed in the story and it is possible to see the strength inside McMurphy and the way in which he can help the other inmates realise their own strength.

For such a dramatic ending of the story it appears to occur extremely quickly and without much tension, one minute McMurphy's alive the next he isn't and you've reached the last page... I can see there is an extremely good story hiding in the mixed up words of this book but reading it didn't seem to bring it out too well. When looking back at the story of the book I can see it is a very good story with lots of ins and outs that would enthral the viewer it's just the style of writing I did not like that marked the book down in my opinion. I have recently bought the DVD of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and hope that it is better than the book and shows the story for what it is without tripping itself up on the language used in the book.

Read reviews and/or buy the book

Read reviews and/or buy the DVD

I will do a DVD review once I have watched it.