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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 2004 BEFORE AND AFTER PAGE DESIGN John McWade 195 pages, $24.99 Peachpit Press www.peachpit.com Many graphic artists and designers have a library of dog-eared back issues of the magazine Before & After. Now these folks can recycle that pile and reference most of the valuable features that appeared in this leading design magazine. You'll find, as expected, a clear beautiful design approach to print and packaging solutions, ranging from major topic areas including newsletters, brochures, fliers, business documents, and advertising. There is a lot of use of the words "magic" and "surprise" in their approach, since they have a firm belief in the print medium's power to convey emotion in unexpected ways. This book leverages many of the better, perhaps obvious but never-too-often repeated suggestions for creating impact and response power out of words, pictures, color, and arrangement. It's a fun book to browse, and can offer even non-graphics persons a fresh perspective on the possibilities of improving their presentations. PHOTOSHOP CS ARTISTRY: Mastering The Digital Image Barry Haynes and Wendy Crumpler 478 pages, $55.00 New Riders www.newriders.com The latest version of Photoshop is given the deluxe, comprehensive treatment only a "master class" format can give from Haynes and Crumpler (or Barry and Wendy, as they prefer). This is a sumptuous, thick tome that will be invaluable for mid-level and expert Photoshoppers who want the kind of in-depth knowledge and experience that is necessary to produce world-class images from the robust Photoshop toolset. New or less committed users of the software need to be prepared to sit down and actually read this book, which has a very large copy-to-image percentage. That's not a bad idea, since there are many concepts and details that are necessary to master to ensure satisfactory results. Fortunately, the writing is personable and clear, with logical progressions that give one plenty of time to absorb information. It's a beautiful book, too, with quite a few breathtaking images. MAC OS X PANTHER HANDS-ON TRAINING Garrick Chow with Lynda Weinman 939 pages, $35 lynda.com Books/Peachpit Press www.lynda.com www.peachpit.com SAMS Teach Yourself Mac OS X Panther Robyn Ness and John Ray 737 pages, $29.99 SAMS www.samspublishing.com RUNNING MAC OS X PANTHER James Duncan Davidson 306 pages, $39.95 O'Reilly www.oreilly.com One reason that Macintosh system books have gotten so large in recent history is because of the new software bundled into the OS. All those "i" products are marvelous consumer products but take their own sweet time getting to learn to use beyond the most basic level of operation. Both the SAMS and lynda.com books are but two of the flurry of new Mac OS Panther manuals, and roughly half of each book is devoted to instruction in the iLife suite. That's fine, but the instructions on basic operations are what make a book an essential partner in helping you with you computer. The SAMS Teach Yourself series is a swift yet thorough passage through the heart of the OS with one of the clearest explanations I've seen yet about the separate components within OS X and how they relate to each other (Aqua, Cocoa, Quartz, Darwin, et al). The little "By The Way" tips and background info spread throughout make thoughtful additions to the tutorials. Garrick Chow and Lynda Weinman spread deep knowledge of the system with a comprehensive approach that offers more and bigger graphics. They have an efficient, neutral personality in moving you through the steps of any process they're describing. And they spend more time. For instance, their chapter on Printing, Fonts, and Faxing is 61 pages; in SAMS it's 11 pages. They also include a CD-ROM with exercises and training films. Beyond the basics, however, is Davidson's O'Reilly book directed to "readers who are inquisitive and confident enough to dig into their Macintosh system." Here are the details that will let one customize the OS experience in new and more powerful ways. Many of his suggestions have to do with taking control of the Unix-based command line, for directly impacting the OS operation. For example, here's more than you realize about printer configuration here, and what you can do with it. IP addressing is similarly written about in depth. So is the topic of Users and Groups, with and without networking. I'm guessing this will be a far more valuable book to keep in the bathroom to find fascinating things every time it's opened. NEW PHILOSOPHY FOR NEW MEDIA Mark B.N. Hansen 333 pages, $34.95 The MIT Press mitpress.mit.edu Compelling ruminations on the structural changes to human perception and consciousness from the digital revolution. Specifically, Hansen looks at artists as diverse as Bill Viola, Ken Feingold, and the "Blade Runner" weltanschauung to frame a discussion on how our body defines through filtering the visual field of what constitutes digital imagery. The result is a subjective world view that can not possibly be objective reality. One of the quotes from the promotional material states that this book "brilliantly theorizes the co-evolution of the human body and the digital technosphere through the radical aesthetic interface provided by new media artworks." Couldn't have said it better myself. |
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