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The Artful Garden: Creative Inspiration for Landscape Design

“I want to put the mystery back into the heart of garden design, where it needs to be. It’s what lures you in through the gate, keeps you moving through the landscape, and fills you with excitement along the way. The sense of mystery is what turns a mere display of plants, paths, and ornaments into an adventure.”                          
—James van Sweden
 
Guided by world-renowned landscape architect James van Sweden and horticulture expert Tom Christopher, any gardener can learn the secrets of the gardener’s art and absorb the essence of inspired garden design. In their gifted hands, creating your own perfect garden, with its own alluring mysteries, turns out to be not only easy but a delight.

Whether it’s a ten-foot-square city terrace or a ten-acre expanse, the same principles apply: the intelligent use of positive and negative space, of form and scale, of light and shadow, of rough and smooth textures. Do you want a garden you can immerse yourself in? A garden you can smell and listen to as well as observe? An exuberant garden or a contemplative garden?

In this elegantly written and visually stunning book, van Sweden reveals the secrets of famous gardens around the world and encourages you to find inspiration in the arts—in painting (from America’s classic regional artists to the abstract expressionists), music (from classical to jazz), sculpture, even dance. He introduces you to famous artists who share how their art has influenced the design of their own gardens, and teaches you to think not in terms of borders and beds or even paths and meadows but of a tapestry woven from sky, trees, rocks, vines, flowers, grasses, and space.

Richly illustrated throughout with magnificent photographs, The Artful Garden both tells and shows, sharing with beginning and experienced gardeners a wealth of inspiration and practical help. “What’s my message?” van Sweden asks in conclusion. The wise answer: “Don’t squander the potential for surprise and wonder.” This beautiful book guarantees everyone who reads it a priceless store of gardening wisdom.

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Information Design Workbook: Graphic approaches, solutions, and inspiration + 30 case studies

New in paperback, this workbook is a methodical yet comprehensive approach to conveying the fundamentals of avant-garde, innovative, information design by examining history, theory, criticism, technology and media, process, method, and practice.

 

Opening with a very brief history followed by an instructive breakdown of the discipline, readers get an intimate understanding of the complexities of crafting information design to effectively improve communication both functionally and aesthetically. The back half of the book contains a wide range of case studies from design firms around the world so designers can see the techniques previously outlined in the first half of the book. The author also critiques and explains why the design is successful in terms of formal quality (Aesthetics) and function (How does it improve communication?).

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The Web Designer’s Idea Book, Volume 3: Inspiration from Today’s Best Web Design Trends, Themes and Styles

Quick Inspiration for Web Designers

Featuring more than 650 examples, this third volume of The Web Designer’s Idea Book is packed with visual inspiration for creating top-notch web design. Web design expert Patrick McNeil, author of the popular Web Designer’s Idea Book series, is back with the latest examples of the best design on the web today.

Arranged thematically, this guide puts important topics like technology, design styles, elements, site types and site structure at your fingertips. This new volume also includes a detailed discussion of the various content management systems available to help you find the best platform for your project.

An indispensable reference, this book provides you with the latest in themes, styles and trends you need to keep your projects relevant in the fast-paced and every-changing world of web design.

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Inspiration: Contemporary Design Methods in Architecture

Inspiration provides a comprehensive overview of new design methods and techniques that are emerging in the field of architecture. Many of these design methods make use of digital media and computer algorithms. Some already existed for a long time, but are reinvented in new ways, like design by folding paper materials. These new methodologies have changed the way architects and students design.

The book showcases hundreds of examples, models, sketches, and renderings of architectural designs within dozens of different methodologies, including:

Designing with basic elements (lines, circles, squares, planes, dots)Pattern development (texture, axes, grids, symmetry)Spacial patterns (structure, matrix, modules)Typography as a design tool (psychological phenomena, composition theory, color design)Nonspatial and spatial transformations (figure ground relations, additive spatial design, spatial effects)Basic spatial design, complex spatial design, and parametric design