Customer Reviews

Syd Mead's Sentury

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

 

 

You can tell this book is self-published as there is an obvious lack of editorial oversight. Mead is a glorious industrial designer, but as a wordsmith he is woefully lacking. It is like listening to a teenager try to explain his art projects.

I believe that a book with a $50.00 price tag owes it to its readers to be copy-edited and proofread professionally. This was obviously not done by the Oblagon corporation as there are glaring errors on many pages.

But most of all what is lacking is a narrative coherence to the work. It is very disorganized, as are the thoughts, and does not weave in any sense of narrative. It is little more than a catalogue of images....but what amazing images they are. My advice is to look into some of his other books first.

This is a great book showcasing just a snippet of Syd Mead's life works - concept art and sketches cover a range of areas like town planning, architecture, industrial design and movie and game artifacts. A fair balance of industry applicable industrial design and science fiction design in a big 175 page large format book with at least one sketch or artwork on every page, with always an interesting and insightful caption by Mead. Be warned: this book doesn't showcase any of Mead's more notable works like Aliens and Bladerunner - most of the movies covered were either not released or not blockbusters (e.g Johnny Mnemonic, Mission to Mars), but nonetheless they all present unique and intriguing concepts. If you're a designer and futurist, this is a must have.

Syd Mead carried the torch of defining American Industrial / Engineering Design passed down to him from such greats as Raymond Loewy and Norman Bel Geddes, and his style is now a standard approach in many designers tool kits. Sentury is a collection of many of his relatively recent works; they are all of high quality and most are visually interesting, as can be expected. While he sets a high standard in all of his works, the specific examples in Sentury were not quite as impressive as those in Oblagon, and if you had to buy only one Syd Mead book I would recommend that one first. But this is not to disparage Sentury, which can provide hours of visual stimulation and fantasizing about how possible futures could look. Some of the most interesting pieces from this book include his VIP aircraft interiors, yacht designs, and a fantasy of urban planning for Kobe Harbor in Japan. The bulk of the work is sci-fi entertainment oriented, most of it for projects that never came to fruition. Also included are some museum and exhibition pieces and some of his own drawings for non-contract work.

An interesting and beautiful addition for any designer's library.

I could not sleep after read,watch and feel this "New Bible". I have never seen before such colorfull visons in Syd Mead any Art Books.Even United States Steel Book: Perspective,Innovations, Concepts,Sentinel,Oblagon,RGB Studio Image series,Future Car at Laforet,Techno Fantasy,Sentinel 2,Kronolog(Kronovecta/Kronoteco),Kronolog 2 Future Concpts,MEAD GUNDAM........I feel his "Origin" at last chapter : Fantasy Drawing section. This art book must be our "New Text" to the next "Sentury". MUST BUY !!!

Thankfully, I bought copies of Syd Mead's books when they were fairly priced. Unfortunately, the greed of current owners of some of the copies of Syd's books - who probably don't care less for his work - are now on the prowl to make bank on Syd's talents. Will Syd get any royalties from these costs? Probably not. Keep your eyes peeled at your local bookstore. Any bookstore worth its reputation will have these books, but without the absurd costs.

I think that Syd Mead is one of, if not the most influential technical illustrator/artist/creative minds alive today. He's influenced 2 generations of movie art directors, game designers and illustrators.

This book shows a broad spectrum of his works thru the years, in movies, product design, ship and aircraft interiors, vehicles, etc. I would strongly suggest that Mr. Mead is as close to a modern day Da Vinci as there is. His skill lies not only in the quality of his art but in the 'realness' of his work: the ability to make all the things he does seem buildable. It isn't beyond reality like some SciFi illustrators.

It's a shame that none of his books are still in print, with no plans to reprint them. All of them (Sentinel, Sentinel 2, Oblagon, the Studio Image 3 book set, & especially Kronolog) are amazing. If you have the chance to aquire this book, take it! They'll only continue to go up in value.

I had the chance to hear him lecture at a function in LA years ago, sponsered by the Gnomon Workshop,an entertainment institute. The place was packed not only by students but by teachers and pros from the industry. He recieved a standing ovation when he was done.

Continuing the themes flowing from two previous Mead books, Sentinel and Sentinel 2, Sentury showcases concepts from the Nineties and I thought it was a real mixed bag of ideas. The reason I love his work is basically for the stunning rendering style, a mixture of curves and angles finished off with bits of typography (using variations of Microgramma and Zurich typeface, both of which originated in the fifties)

I think it is the product concepts that visually work best. On page eighty-one is a beautiful rendering of a playback deck for recording brain waves as used in the movie Strange Days. For a non-existing product it just looks so convincing. On page ninety-nine is a typical beautiful Mead rendering, from the movie Belittled, of a military looking tracked vehicle, with convincing bits of technology included in the windscreen area.

Much of the book though is taken up with large illustrations of commercial vistas depicting contemporary futures where a tightness of rendering style is not so essential and it is these illustrations where his style is very changeable with several color ones which I thought rather casual. Another thing I noticed is that where people are shown in social situations the fashions and hairstyles rather date the work. In his earlier Sentinel book males and females wear a mixture of Greek/Roman mythological chic with Sixties couture.

The book is almost square and the large size is the ideal format for presenting detailed art but as another reviewer has commented editorially it is rather weak. Particularly the text on each page, which is always one long paragraph rather than several it should have been for ease of reading. There is also a bit too much white space and very generous wide margins and for a change of pace some of the images rally should have been enlarged to run off the edge of the page.

Sentury has some wonderful concepts rendered in Mead's unique style and despite a rather flawed editorial format if you like his work you'll enjoy the book. It is worth searching around the net for copies, I did and got the book at a very reasonable price.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This book is showing recent Mead's works. Almost picture is draft level or concept level, though there may be problem of business contract. Undoubtedly, level of his work is high. But I do not feel spirit or enthusiasm from pictures of this book. His best is Sentinel2, I think. Did he get old?