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Resources - Book Bytes |
| by Stephen M.H. Braitman - NBMA Director of Communications Book Bytes announces new publications of interest to our members and community in multimedia, technology, business, and culture. First appearance of each Book Bytes column is in the NBMA email events newsletter. To subscribe, send a blank email message to: nbmaevents-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. If you have a recommendation for review — and, especially, if you have published a book — send the information to . |
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February 2003 IMPROVISATIONAL DESIGN: Continuous Responsive Digital Communication Suguru Ishizaki 167 pages, $35 MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu As interactive communications through the Internet grew in the '90s, design was more likely just a byproduct of the need for a functionally efficient user experience. Some overactive (or even hyperactive) designers, however, became either gurus or pariahs as the Web's fortunes waxed and waned, and fancy, flashy, kinetic experiences confronted the realities of actual communication (and business) needs. Now we're in an era where design is more precisely wedded to outcome. Sugurua Ishizaki takes a deep look at how designers create interactive design solutions in IMPROVISATIONAL DESIGN, an outgrowth and expansion of his MIT Media Laboratory doctoral work. He attempts to develop a model of interactive design that can provide designers with a communication solution scheme that is "as active and dynamic as an improvised dance performance." The continuous updating of information, the streaming of content, and highly specific user-based actions, all make it necessary to look beyond solutions cobbled from models based on static print media. By asking questions such as "How can a designer describe a design that contains an undetermined number of changing design elements?" one can begin to understand how new methods to arrive at solutions can be an overall better tool than a mere discrete answer to one unique problem. This is a sharp, focused analysis that bases itself on a new foundation of how temporal forms and interactive functionality merges with design needs. Numerous case studies illuminate the theoretical underpinnings, and his summarizing "Reflections" look beyond to truly transformative processes that are already in place but can now be better understood and guided more accurately. THE BRAND GAP Marty Neumeier 171 pages, $14.95 New Riders www.newriders.com www.aiga.org With a design reminiscent of Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium Is The Massage," marketing and brand guru Marty Neumeier sketches out a "whiteboard overview" in bold and provocative challenge to business leaders and business creatives. The "brand gap" is what he terms the distance between business strategy and design. "It's design, not strategy, that ignites passion in people," he writes, and people's passions are what brands are all about. This book is like having Neumeier in your office giving an expensive consultation to executives about how they should position their company, products, and marketing. That is, base it all on how well customers respond. Encourage that response. Massage that response. The love or hate (or love and hate) of customers is the brand. Gratefully, Neumeier is honest about this 30,000-foot view and he includes an annotated bibliography of key marketing and branding books that take off from his sharp, startling bits of declamation to more detailed, comprehensive discussions. DSDM: Business Focused Development, 2nd edition Jennifer Stapleton, editor 239 pages, $39.99 Addison-Wesley www.awprofessional.com DSDM stands for Dynamic Systems Development Model and is described as "a user-centered project delivery framework, that focuses on ensuring on-time delivery of projects that meet business needs." In other words, project managers can use DSDM as a method for tracking, monitoring, and maintaining project milestones and benchmarks. However, this book is also a highly sophisticated marketing device that guides IT managers to a realization that they need to implement DSDM for their own software and other projects management. The book's progress through the framework with real-world examples and case studies of DSDM in action leads one to taking the next big step in joining the DSDM Consortium. Only members can use DSDM commercially. This may not be a bad thing, given that a relationship with the membership base can be quite advantageous to one's business goals. More information can be found at www.dsdm.org. THE ART AND BUSINESS OF SPEECH RECOGNITION: Creating The Noble Voice Blade Kotelly 184 pages, $29.99 Addison-Wesley www.awprofessional.com You may never be involved in designing an automated speech-recognition system, but you've certainly had enough experiences with good and bad - probably mostly bad - automated voices on the phone. If you're inclined to peer behind the computer-created voice, Blade Kotelly's book is the perfect place to start. Businesses automate their phone response to customers for many reasons; efficiency in volume, principally. But Kotelly offers a great cautionary study of what makes effective and ineffective use of a human-like voices with a savvy business acumen. "The art" here is knowing how to craft computer-generated responses that feel natural and welcoming to the caller. The "business" is the technical and economic uses of such systems to enhance the customer relationship. As computer voices become better and better at reacting as a human would to individual responses, it's interesting to consider how we got from Pong to Myst (or Grand Theft Auto III) in the speech-recognition arena. Kotelly takes us through that journey in a concise but thorough manner. ABSOLUTE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO MICROSOFT EXCEL 2002 Joe Kraynak 308 pages, $18.95 Que www.quepublishing.com Using any new version of Excel - like many Microsoft products - is often a test of hubris. No one reads whatever documentation may be available, and certainly an owner's manual rarely helps navigate upgraded functions and operations. One just drives in to using the damn thing and figures out what's going on, usually after a mistake is made. While learning on the job is certainly a common way new software facility is achieved, there's no shame in picking up one of the Absolute Beginner's Guides to get a head start avoiding headaches, roadblocks, and glassy eye. Some readers may react querulously to the Que style of large-headed infopuppets who offer tips and cautions, but there's no quarrel with the clean wit and style of teaching the, uh, absolute necessities of the program. DESIGNING WEB GRAPHICS.4: The Definitive Guide to Web Design And Development Lynda Weinman 512 pages, $55 New Riders www.newriders.com www.lynda.com The "diva of Web design" is back with a bigger and brighter "definitive" guide to graphic design for the Web. Volume 4 is a beauty of a production, with many added sections spurred by the growth and changes in the industry since the last edition four years ago. Given the state of the industry, a new realistic approach to project planning and business goals was necessary to cover, as well as comprehensive discussion of community planning, site usability, Web hosting, and other topics. The usual hands-on graphic work such as tables, frames, CSS, and animation all are renovated with crisp illustrations and photos. In short, if you work in Web design, this will be your trusted companion. Weinman hasn't lost any of her charm or innocence either. She's still enthusiastic about this thing called the Web. That infectious joy is communicated throughout her latest book. MACROMEDIA FLASH MX PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES MD Dundon 327 pages, $39.99 Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com Macromedia Press www.macromedia.com Flash guru MD Dundon's latest book can also be used as a general Flash primer, but it's real purpose is to take the basic Flash developer/user skills and turn them up a notch regarding efficiency, speed of completion, and shortcut techniques. As she says in her Introduction, "speed equates to money in your pocket." The path to scalable, functional animations is laid out in cleanly designed chapters that take your hand in dealing with timeline elements, motion tweaking, and other essential constructions like buttons and other user controls. You'll have to determine your level of proficiency and background knowledge before entering several sections, such as on JavaScript and embedded HTML documents, but generally her explanations are understandable for those less technically proficient. The CD-ROM includes contains a trial version of Flash MX and tutorial projects. ADOBE MASTER CLASS: ILLUSTRATOR ILLUMINATED Barbara Obermeier and Ted Padova 326 pages, $45 Adobe Press/ Peachpit Press /www.peachpit.com Learn from the best. That's the premise of this Illustrator primer where the authors profile fifteen designers and artists who use this venerable illustration tool. If you're proficient already in Illustrator, you'll be inspired by many of the works, such as those of Sarajo Frieden (just one example) who creates fantasy landscapes and populations based on a whimsical 1950s style. Generous full-color illustrations abound, with portfolios followed by step-by-step details on how the effects were created. (Examples of these stages are "Getting shapes just right," "Creating the final layer," "Adding fills to type outlines," "Creating the animated GIF," and, very important, "Sending it to the client.") The artists chosen represent a good range of categories, including children's illustration, trade show displays, cartoons, editorial, even cartography. This is a coffee-table book for the working graphic designer. |
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