Customer Reviews

Textile Designs Digital, Volume III: Conversational, Ethnic, Art Movements & Period Styles

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This resource of patterns has a clear organization. The reproduction is very nice and the diversity of images is a rich resource. The information is brief, but a visual reference of this kind with supporting context is helpful no matter how brief.

This is in response to "Betty Blue's" comments about the FLORAL CD-ROM. All of the images on the CD's were professionally scanned by one of the top commercial labs in New York City. The scans were made directly from the original negatives that were used to print the book, TEXTILE DESIGNS. Any "dirt and dust" that may appear is NOT a result of the scanning, but age marks that can show up on documentary textiles - after all, most of these designs are between 60 and 150 years old! The vast majority of the images are clean, but when imperfections did appear, they were deliberately not erased. This was explained in the introduction to the CD.

While the images in the book were often cropped for layout reasons, the CD-ROM always shows the original uncropped design. Therefore, many more of the digital images are in full repeat. This in itself is well worth the money - but there is more. Unlike the book, ALL the TEXTILE DESIGNS DIGITAL images are ROYALTY FREE. "Betty Blue" got the use of 494 well-chosen documentary floral designs for less than 60 cents each. Now that is well worth the money!

This CD collection of excerpts from the illustrated book has become a vital resource for me and my staff of textile designers. It saves a great deal of time and effort in scanning and cleaning artwork, and allows us to combine elements from many different pieces into entirely new patterns.

Every design studio I know of owns at least one copy of the book, and to have quick CD access to this wealth of inspiration is terrific. I look forward to the next volumes!

This book is crammed with designs in every conceivable category. It is a must for anyone studying textile or surface design.

I designed and printed my own engagement announcements and wedding invitations using patterns from TEXTILE DESIGNS DIGITAL: FLORAL. They came out beautifully!! Not only did it save printing costs, but it was a lot of fun for my fiance and I to create them together. We have also used the CD-ROM designs to make note cards, birthday greetings, post cards, and gift wrap paper, resulting in many compliments. I highly recommend this product. It contains many beautiful patterns.

TEXTILE DESIGNS delighted my eyes and mind. Not only are most of the 1800 photos of designs breath-taking in their beauty; the book is organized so that each page tells a lively story about the category of textile displayed. I discovered technical, historical, cultural, and even political aspects of the designs. The writing itself is engaging, elegant and can be unexpectedly humourous. All in all, a treat for oneself, or gift for another that I would highly recommend.

Very disappointed with this book. I'm doing a huge project based on textiles from around the world, and needed a book with European textiles. Unfortunately, after going thru the book from front to back, I found it to be almost entirely textiles made in FRANCE, with a few from America and that's about it. Most of the textiles are also generic and modern, and don't have many traditional motifs. For me, it felt like if I went to any fabric store today and walked past a shelf of patterned cottons. I can see how this would be useful for someone making their own fabrics, but for someone looking for history, tradition, and anything other than France, I would advise you to look for something else.

I am a Web page designer and three years ago was thrilled to discover the book Textile Designs. The repeating nature of the patterns lend themselves beautifully to backgrounds, buttons and borders in web page development. There are thousands of possibilities that are head and shoulders above almost all other available graphics. The book has become a constant source of inspiration to me.

Now I have made an even greater discovery - the CD-ROM of the book! The entire FLORAL section is available in a very user-friendly format. I can now download images easily without having to go through time-consuming scanning and use them directly in the creation of various web pages. Best of all, everything is ROYALTY FREE. I can't wait until the other CD's are available, in particular the CD's specifically made for web-page developers.

So, if you do any creative designing - Web sites, desktop publishing, etc. - I would really recommend that you buy the book. Look through it; if you find even one or two designs that you can use then it pays to get the CD, it's cheaper than repro fees - and great fun!

I find books of this nature to be invaluable - both in dating articles of extant clothing in my research and becoming more knowledgeable of fabrics in certain time periods, to make the right fabric choices for the reproduction clothing I design and produce. This book does not disappoint!

A must for any textile designer.

This beautiful book is divided into textile themes and offers an amazing range of style, colour and subject.
A great source of inspiration for any surface designer or illustrator.