Customer Reviews

Principles of Form and Design

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This book compiles Wucius Wong's earlier works "Principles of Two-Dimensional Design", "Principles of Two-Dimensional Form", and "Principles of Three-Dimensional Design". It's a good reference for design conventions (similarity, anomoly, gradation, radiation) with examples. Three-d section uses geometric constructions and doesn't use plastic examples. Strong 2-d resource. Less useful for 3-d.

This book is actually a compilation of two old books from the same writer. As he stated in the intro - it covers essential principles of form and design in very basic, formal, scientific way. This may be a bit dry for some, and the illustrations are very different from popular design books. It's nothing arty but it does mention crucial points for designing.

The content is not about mind-blowing inspiration, ongoing fashion/trend of design, or stupid sensational gimmick... it's just simple and pure - it describes principles of form!
These principles can be applied anywhere, anytime... any purpose... no limitation.

I read these books long ago and still I go back and see it again. I am a 3D/CGI animator now and I believe this book will be useful for either DTP and CGI users alike.
This book uses same terminology as in computer graphic:

What is Grid? Unit? Superunits? Grouping?
Vertex, Faces, Polygons, Normals...
Transforming - scale, position, rotation...

They were old books in one now(bundled), but there's nothing seems outdated here!

This is a combination of two books by the author, covering the essential principles of form and design in a textbook style. It won't inspire the artist, but does provide technical information that can be useful, especially for computer graphics artists.

The 3-D content of the book is less complete than the 2-D, and the pictures are primarily black and white. Visually and text-wise, this book is boring, but it may provide valuable technical information for those that are delving into the principles of design on computer. It's helpful for visalizing typical design usages like similarity, anomoly, gradation, radiation and rotation--with black and white shaded illustrations showing progression of design.

Principles of Form and Design (Purchased on 08/06/2010)
by Wucius Wong------I LOVE MY BOOK. THANKS AMAZON. ENJOY YOUR DAY. I WILL TOO. LAUREL

If you've ever read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" this book is an example of how not to teach something. Much like Aristotle categorized philosophy, Wong goes through the exercise of categorizing, splitting, and defining design in tremendous detail, but misses something fundamental in the design process.

That being said, if you just want a book of rational analysis and definitions, that will teach you the basics of the vocabulary of design, this is an excellent book. It's a good reference, with a lot of examples, but next-to-impossible to read straight through.

I purchased this textbook as a course requirement, and the teacher never even referred to it. Opening it on my own, I found the layout incomprehensible, and much of the discussion inside it obtuse. I think this book would only be of interest to those who are already extremely familiar with the subject of graphic design.

I was frankly disappointed in this book. I'm not a graphic designer, although I am fairly artistic. I got all I needed from this book in the first chapter or 2.
Seems like most of it is the author playing with shapes in Photoshop.
It's pretty much just shapes and manipulating them and repeating them, reversing them, alternating them, and on and on.
The writing is very pedagogic.
Maybe that's what graphic designers like. But if you're looking for a design book so you can layout a website better, this is not it.

Wucius wong's Principles of form and design is just the essential book for all designer.