Customer Reviews

Crisp: Design Yourself

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My first book before learning how to sketch and starting my studies in Industrial Design. The book provides TONS of insights, ways of creatively analyse situations. It presents brief natural phenomena that replicate in design. It does the important job of showing the reader/designer why you should be able to laugh at your own work. It does a great job of showing why/how the best is simply: SIMPLE. The book is best read with it's cousin: Rapid Viz. It turns on some lights in the mind of the student designer.... and therefore it was great for me to watch my copy get distributed from year to year and student to student until it was but a tangle of paper. But if you are into collecting read material: then the book (and Rapid VIz) can remain personal reference material because it is always refreshing to look in them once in a while. There is practically no text.. mostly sketchwork. It (once read) becomes pleasant/light coffee table material.

I have always enjoyed reading - and playing around with the ideas from - Kurt Hank's books. I have all his books, which include Rapid Viz, Draw!, The Change Navigator, Wake Up Your Creative Genius, Up Your Productivity.

Like his other books, this book is very well-illustrated, conceptually & graphically, with the following key chapters:

- Introduction: What is Design?
- Drawing;
- Design;
- Thinking;
- Problem Solving;
- Ideation;

It is packed with ideas, games, puzzles & exercises.

Although it is written for the novice designer, it nevertheless provides step by step approach to the practical strategies of seeing, thinking, drawing an designing your ideas - and concepts - visually and in 3D.

It is not a book just for reading. You have to work with it.

I must say: This book is really great stuff!

I don't really like this book so far. I had to get it for a intro to design class, and even the instructor stated that 50% of all students that she taught, didn't like this book. But, it's the only book that has a simple introduction to design.

I don't like the black and white only illustrations. For a design book, it's lacking what other books consider part of the design process: color. The examples are somewhat outdated and jaded heavily toward a "status quo" or even "conservative" design. The author states that design is subjective, yet consistently states what is wrong or right about the design process.

To be fair, though, this book is designed for beginners, and as such it seems to do its job. But, it is geared for the "conservative" designer, so if you feel that you are even "moderate", and definately if you considure yourself "avant-garde", this book is not for you.

I gave it a two star rating because because it severely lacked color as illustration. Some of the graphics would have been more appealing, or even a better example, if color was involved.