Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways is an absolutely extraordinary and inexhaustible "guide to visual awareness", a virtually indescribable concoction of anecdotes, quotes, images and bizarre facts that offers a wonderfully twisted vision of the chaos of modern life. Fletcher is a renowned designer and art director and the joy of The Art of Looking Sideways lies in its beautiful design. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters with titles like "Colour", "Noise", "Chance", "Camouflage" and "Handedness", Fletcher's book, which he describes as "a journey without a destination", is "a collection of shards" that captures the sensory overload of a world that simply contains too much information. In one typical section, entitled "Civilization", the reader encounters six Polish flags designed to represent the world, a photograph of an anthropomorphic hand bag, Buzz Aldrin's bootprint on the moon, drawings of Stone Age pebbles, a painting of "Ireland--as seen from Wales" and a dizzying array of quotations and snippets of information, including the wise words of Marcus Aurelius, Stephen Jay and Gandhi's comment, "Western civilization? I think it would be a good idea". Fletcher's mastery of design mixes type, space, fonts, alphabets, colour and layout combined with a "jackdaw" eye for the strange and profound to produce a stunning book that cannot be read, but only experienced. --Jerry Brotton

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

Very over valued, 29 Jun 2008
I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this. Everyone at college has said you have just got to buy this book, its amazing. Is it?? No it isn't. Sagmeister is nowhere near being the design genius that he has been tagged with. When you compare it to Alan Fletcher, there is just no competition. I have seen far better work being displayed at the various university degree shows this year to be honest. Especially at Stoke, Birmingham and the fantastic illustration work at Bristol which was truly fantastic.
So whatever you do, keep hold of your money and buy something else. He is very over rated and has been built up on a pedestal when he clearly doesn't deserve to be.

Can graphic design touch someone's heart?, 16 May 2008
There are countless books on design and many of them are good, even brilliant. And yet one looks for something that is more than a design book with lots of designers' work. One always searches for a book that would act as a trigger, as a spark than can light a million ideas in one's own brain.
A book to do that was Alan Fletcher's Art of Looking Sideways.
And a book which surpasses everything that I have ever seen is Stefan Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far.
Why? Because it is brutally honest.
It is what design was meant to be.
Sagmeister uses his own learnings and converts them into magic. You turn the pages and you are mesmerised by the immensity, the sheer scale of ideas there.
Your mind begins to fill up with images and words and ideas you never thought existed.
You turn the pages and it hits you: Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
And `now' to me started with the book. This book truly changed my life.
I have read the critics say many things like this book being self indulgent. Well, a man who take pains to go around the world to encourage design and design students cannot be self indulgent. He is honest. And every page of this book is a primer for honesty.
And of course, brilliant design.
Sagmeister's design and typography are stuff legends are made of. I am a mere mortal to comment upon those. But I can say this, I have never seen an explosion of so many brilliant ideas in one place ever before.
Stefan Sagmeister has always asked the question: Can design touch someone's heart?
This book will touch millions.
A priceless book.


Emperor's New Clothes or Design Genius?, 12 Mar 2008
Is Stefan Sagmeister the Emperor's new clothes of the design world, or does he really deserve the genius tag he's so often given?

After reading Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, I firmly believe the latter. Sagmeister doesn't disappoint; he makes design fun and accessible, without dumbing down or losing effect - this book illustrates perfectly, both in content and format, that good design works.

The featured projects are fascinating; my reactions ranged from `oh that's sooo gorgeous,' to `how on earth....?' to `what HAPPENED to him to make him think like that?!'

It's beautifully put together - a design book that's not just for designers, with essays and Sagmeister's explanations of the projects, along with fantastic images.

As Sagmeister says, via the help of giant monkeys, "Everybody always thinks they are right," and I think I am in this case - buy it, swap around the covers to your heart's content, and enjoy your very own piece of Sagmeister!

A True Chameleon, 24 Feb 2008
There are lots of design books that are about design. Design books for designers. This isn't one of them - it's much more than that. The sheer richness of this book takes a while to take in - you will find new things every time you dip into it. This book is inventive, poignant, informative and unusual - but above all it is beautiful. There's such a wealth of ideas executed with style and an individual confidence that it is hard to say which is best, but I would say it's worth buying the book for the Singapore 'Keeping A Diary' section alone. Also there are a lot of monkeys, and that can never be a bad thing. Full marks.

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

Very over valued, 29 Jun 2008
I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this. Everyone at college has said you have just got to buy this book, its amazing. Is it?? No it isn't. Sagmeister is nowhere near being the design genius that he has been tagged with. When you compare it to Alan Fletcher, there is just no competition. I have seen far better work being displayed at the various university degree shows this year to be honest. Especially at Stoke, Birmingham and the fantastic illustration work at Bristol which was truly fantastic.
So whatever you do, keep hold of your money and buy something else. He is very over rated and has been built up on a pedestal when he clearly doesn't deserve to be.

Can graphic design touch someone's heart?, 16 May 2008
There are countless books on design and many of them are good, even brilliant. And yet one looks for something that is more than a design book with lots of designers' work. One always searches for a book that would act as a trigger, as a spark than can light a million ideas in one's own brain.
A book to do that was Alan Fletcher's Art of Looking Sideways.
And a book which surpasses everything that I have ever seen is Stefan Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far.
Why? Because it is brutally honest.
It is what design was meant to be.
Sagmeister uses his own learnings and converts them into magic. You turn the pages and you are mesmerised by the immensity, the sheer scale of ideas there.
Your mind begins to fill up with images and words and ideas you never thought existed.
You turn the pages and it hits you: Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
And `now' to me started with the book. This book truly changed my life.
I have read the critics say many things like this book being self indulgent. Well, a man who take pains to go around the world to encourage design and design students cannot be self indulgent. He is honest. And every page of this book is a primer for honesty.
And of course, brilliant design.
Sagmeister's design and typography are stuff legends are made of. I am a mere mortal to comment upon those. But I can say this, I have never seen an explosion of so many brilliant ideas in one place ever before.
Stefan Sagmeister has always asked the question: Can design touch someone's heart?
This book will touch millions.
A priceless book.


Emperor's New Clothes or Design Genius?, 12 Mar 2008
Is Stefan Sagmeister the Emperor's new clothes of the design world, or does he really deserve the genius tag he's so often given?

After reading Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, I firmly believe the latter. Sagmeister doesn't disappoint; he makes design fun and accessible, without dumbing down or losing effect - this book illustrates perfectly, both in content and format, that good design works.

The featured projects are fascinating; my reactions ranged from `oh that's sooo gorgeous,' to `how on earth....?' to `what HAPPENED to him to make him think like that?!'

It's beautifully put together - a design book that's not just for designers, with essays and Sagmeister's explanations of the projects, along with fantastic images.

As Sagmeister says, via the help of giant monkeys, "Everybody always thinks they are right," and I think I am in this case - buy it, swap around the covers to your heart's content, and enjoy your very own piece of Sagmeister!

A True Chameleon, 24 Feb 2008
There are lots of design books that are about design. Design books for designers. This isn't one of them - it's much more than that. The sheer richness of this book takes a while to take in - you will find new things every time you dip into it. This book is inventive, poignant, informative and unusual - but above all it is beautiful. There's such a wealth of ideas executed with style and an individual confidence that it is hard to say which is best, but I would say it's worth buying the book for the Singapore 'Keeping A Diary' section alone. Also there are a lot of monkeys, and that can never be a bad thing. Full marks.

big book of greatness, 02 Nov 2008
A great sourcebook for illustrators, fashion designers and students. It features a vast range of styles and subjects with some hidden gem illustrators that won't be featured in any other books

THE best ever, 14 Dec 2007
This is of the the most packed books so great value ...such a range of modern illustration...very inspiring.Lots of computer aided illustrations. In my top 5 fashion Ill books!

A superb resource which features a huge and inspirational variation of styles., 16 Jul 2007
Illustration sourcebooks don't come much better than this. An excellent mixed bag of all sorts of illustrative techniques than really does impress. Contact details are given for all artists included which makes this perfect for art buyers/directors.

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

Very over valued, 29 Jun 2008
I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this. Everyone at college has said you have just got to buy this book, its amazing. Is it?? No it isn't. Sagmeister is nowhere near being the design genius that he has been tagged with. When you compare it to Alan Fletcher, there is just no competition. I have seen far better work being displayed at the various university degree shows this year to be honest. Especially at Stoke, Birmingham and the fantastic illustration work at Bristol which was truly fantastic.
So whatever you do, keep hold of your money and buy something else. He is very over rated and has been built up on a pedestal when he clearly doesn't deserve to be.

Can graphic design touch someone's heart?, 16 May 2008
There are countless books on design and many of them are good, even brilliant. And yet one looks for something that is more than a design book with lots of designers' work. One always searches for a book that would act as a trigger, as a spark than can light a million ideas in one's own brain.
A book to do that was Alan Fletcher's Art of Looking Sideways.
And a book which surpasses everything that I have ever seen is Stefan Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far.
Why? Because it is brutally honest.
It is what design was meant to be.
Sagmeister uses his own learnings and converts them into magic. You turn the pages and you are mesmerised by the immensity, the sheer scale of ideas there.
Your mind begins to fill up with images and words and ideas you never thought existed.
You turn the pages and it hits you: Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
And `now' to me started with the book. This book truly changed my life.
I have read the critics say many things like this book being self indulgent. Well, a man who take pains to go around the world to encourage design and design students cannot be self indulgent. He is honest. And every page of this book is a primer for honesty.
And of course, brilliant design.
Sagmeister's design and typography are stuff legends are made of. I am a mere mortal to comment upon those. But I can say this, I have never seen an explosion of so many brilliant ideas in one place ever before.
Stefan Sagmeister has always asked the question: Can design touch someone's heart?
This book will touch millions.
A priceless book.


Emperor's New Clothes or Design Genius?, 12 Mar 2008
Is Stefan Sagmeister the Emperor's new clothes of the design world, or does he really deserve the genius tag he's so often given?

After reading Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, I firmly believe the latter. Sagmeister doesn't disappoint; he makes design fun and accessible, without dumbing down or losing effect - this book illustrates perfectly, both in content and format, that good design works.

The featured projects are fascinating; my reactions ranged from `oh that's sooo gorgeous,' to `how on earth....?' to `what HAPPENED to him to make him think like that?!'

It's beautifully put together - a design book that's not just for designers, with essays and Sagmeister's explanations of the projects, along with fantastic images.

As Sagmeister says, via the help of giant monkeys, "Everybody always thinks they are right," and I think I am in this case - buy it, swap around the covers to your heart's content, and enjoy your very own piece of Sagmeister!

A True Chameleon, 24 Feb 2008
There are lots of design books that are about design. Design books for designers. This isn't one of them - it's much more than that. The sheer richness of this book takes a while to take in - you will find new things every time you dip into it. This book is inventive, poignant, informative and unusual - but above all it is beautiful. There's such a wealth of ideas executed with style and an individual confidence that it is hard to say which is best, but I would say it's worth buying the book for the Singapore 'Keeping A Diary' section alone. Also there are a lot of monkeys, and that can never be a bad thing. Full marks.

big book of greatness, 02 Nov 2008
A great sourcebook for illustrators, fashion designers and students. It features a vast range of styles and subjects with some hidden gem illustrators that won't be featured in any other books

THE best ever, 14 Dec 2007
This is of the the most packed books so great value ...such a range of modern illustration...very inspiring.Lots of computer aided illustrations. In my top 5 fashion Ill books!

A superb resource which features a huge and inspirational variation of styles., 16 Jul 2007
Illustration sourcebooks don't come much better than this. An excellent mixed bag of all sorts of illustrative techniques than really does impress. Contact details are given for all artists included which makes this perfect for art buyers/directors.

One of the Best Books I've Ever Looked At, 16 Mar 2008
Looking at this book is so thought provoking and inpsiring. I could look at it for hours.

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

Very over valued, 29 Jun 2008
I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this. Everyone at college has said you have just got to buy this book, its amazing. Is it?? No it isn't. Sagmeister is nowhere near being the design genius that he has been tagged with. When you compare it to Alan Fletcher, there is just no competition. I have seen far better work being displayed at the various university degree shows this year to be honest. Especially at Stoke, Birmingham and the fantastic illustration work at Bristol which was truly fantastic.
So whatever you do, keep hold of your money and buy something else. He is very over rated and has been built up on a pedestal when he clearly doesn't deserve to be.

Can graphic design touch someone's heart?, 16 May 2008
There are countless books on design and many of them are good, even brilliant. And yet one looks for something that is more than a design book with lots of designers' work. One always searches for a book that would act as a trigger, as a spark than can light a million ideas in one's own brain.
A book to do that was Alan Fletcher's Art of Looking Sideways.
And a book which surpasses everything that I have ever seen is Stefan Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far.
Why? Because it is brutally honest.
It is what design was meant to be.
Sagmeister uses his own learnings and converts them into magic. You turn the pages and you are mesmerised by the immensity, the sheer scale of ideas there.
Your mind begins to fill up with images and words and ideas you never thought existed.
You turn the pages and it hits you: Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
And `now' to me started with the book. This book truly changed my life.
I have read the critics say many things like this book being self indulgent. Well, a man who take pains to go around the world to encourage design and design students cannot be self indulgent. He is honest. And every page of this book is a primer for honesty.
And of course, brilliant design.
Sagmeister's design and typography are stuff legends are made of. I am a mere mortal to comment upon those. But I can say this, I have never seen an explosion of so many brilliant ideas in one place ever before.
Stefan Sagmeister has always asked the question: Can design touch someone's heart?
This book will touch millions.
A priceless book.


Emperor's New Clothes or Design Genius?, 12 Mar 2008
Is Stefan Sagmeister the Emperor's new clothes of the design world, or does he really deserve the genius tag he's so often given?

After reading Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, I firmly believe the latter. Sagmeister doesn't disappoint; he makes design fun and accessible, without dumbing down or losing effect - this book illustrates perfectly, both in content and format, that good design works.

The featured projects are fascinating; my reactions ranged from `oh that's sooo gorgeous,' to `how on earth....?' to `what HAPPENED to him to make him think like that?!'

It's beautifully put together - a design book that's not just for designers, with essays and Sagmeister's explanations of the projects, along with fantastic images.

As Sagmeister says, via the help of giant monkeys, "Everybody always thinks they are right," and I think I am in this case - buy it, swap around the covers to your heart's content, and enjoy your very own piece of Sagmeister!

A True Chameleon, 24 Feb 2008
There are lots of design books that are about design. Design books for designers. This isn't one of them - it's much more than that. The sheer richness of this book takes a while to take in - you will find new things every time you dip into it. This book is inventive, poignant, informative and unusual - but above all it is beautiful. There's such a wealth of ideas executed with style and an individual confidence that it is hard to say which is best, but I would say it's worth buying the book for the Singapore 'Keeping A Diary' section alone. Also there are a lot of monkeys, and that can never be a bad thing. Full marks.

big book of greatness, 02 Nov 2008
A great sourcebook for illustrators, fashion designers and students. It features a vast range of styles and subjects with some hidden gem illustrators that won't be featured in any other books

THE best ever, 14 Dec 2007
This is of the the most packed books so great value ...such a range of modern illustration...very inspiring.Lots of computer aided illustrations. In my top 5 fashion Ill books!

A superb resource which features a huge and inspirational variation of styles., 16 Jul 2007
Illustration sourcebooks don't come much better than this. An excellent mixed bag of all sorts of illustrative techniques than really does impress. Contact details are given for all artists included which makes this perfect for art buyers/directors.

One of the Best Books I've Ever Looked At, 16 Mar 2008
Looking at this book is so thought provoking and inpsiring. I could look at it for hours.

One of the best, 13 Sep 2008
I have been using flash for years and there are still some great tricks that I have learnt from this book. I lecture flash at university to complete beginners and I intend to point them in the direction of this book. The exercises look great and are FUN to complete. Flash is not the easiest program to learn. The beauty of this book is that the content is so engaging, the exercises rewarding, you might not even notice you are learning along the way.

Top book even for beginners!, 22 Feb 2008
You don't really need an advanced knowledge of Flash to use this book. How to cheat in flash is very, very good. It is targetted mostly at cartoon animators rather than users that will want to do Action Scripting, presentation or web development. This book will guide you through from start to finish for a lot of basic animation techniques and provides a good insight into how to implement your own ideas. it also gives instruction on how to perform commands etc on both the Windows and Mac. Again, I would only recommend this book if you are into cartoon animation mainly, otherwise there are probably better books out there.

Too technical, 19 Feb 2008
Its a good book, but no good for begginers.
It assumes you already know where things are and how to do some things.
If your just learning how to use flash (as I am) this is not the book for you.


Flashtastic, 10 Dec 2007
Firstly I would like to say that when I reviewed this book a few weeks ago there was a post which thankfully has been removed.
Basically it dismissed this book because it suggested that it helps you 'cheat'
I for one am glad I wasn't put off because this book is fantastic!! It covers everything that you will need to know.
From design styles and basic drawing to using video and audio.
It even tackles action scripting very cool! this book is going to save me so much time only wish I had stumbled across it sooner
there's even a cd with the different graphics so you can play around when your reading this book.

Brilliant pot-pourri of flash, 04 Nov 2007
A great little book that is a pleasure to open and read. Well illustrated and presented - a book with high production values. The title (forget the cheating bit) describes the contents perfectly - The art of design and Animation - the knowledgeable author teaches great Flash techniques.

A great addition to your flash library.

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

Very over valued, 29 Jun 2008
I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this. Everyone at college has said you have just got to buy this book, its amazing. Is it?? No it isn't. Sagmeister is nowhere near being the design genius that he has been tagged with. When you compare it to Alan Fletcher, there is just no competition. I have seen far better work being displayed at the various university degree shows this year to be honest. Especially at Stoke, Birmingham and the fantastic illustration work at Bristol which was truly fantastic.
So whatever you do, keep hold of your money and buy something else. He is very over rated and has been built up on a pedestal when he clearly doesn't deserve to be.

Can graphic design touch someone's heart?, 16 May 2008
There are countless books on design and many of them are good, even brilliant. And yet one looks for something that is more than a design book with lots of designers' work. One always searches for a book that would act as a trigger, as a spark than can light a million ideas in one's own brain.
A book to do that was Alan Fletcher's Art of Looking Sideways.
And a book which surpasses everything that I have ever seen is Stefan Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far.
Why? Because it is brutally honest.
It is what design was meant to be.
Sagmeister uses his own learnings and converts them into magic. You turn the pages and you are mesmerised by the immensity, the sheer scale of ideas there.
Your mind begins to fill up with images and words and ideas you never thought existed.
You turn the pages and it hits you: Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
And `now' to me started with the book. This book truly changed my life.
I have read the critics say many things like this book being self indulgent. Well, a man who take pains to go around the world to encourage design and design students cannot be self indulgent. He is honest. And every page of this book is a primer for honesty.
And of course, brilliant design.
Sagmeister's design and typography are stuff legends are made of. I am a mere mortal to comment upon those. But I can say this, I have never seen an explosion of so many brilliant ideas in one place ever before.
Stefan Sagmeister has always asked the question: Can design touch someone's heart?
This book will touch millions.
A priceless book.


Emperor's New Clothes or Design Genius?, 12 Mar 2008
Is Stefan Sagmeister the Emperor's new clothes of the design world, or does he really deserve the genius tag he's so often given?

After reading Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, I firmly believe the latter. Sagmeister doesn't disappoint; he makes design fun and accessible, without dumbing down or losing effect - this book illustrates perfectly, both in content and format, that good design works.

The featured projects are fascinating; my reactions ranged from `oh that's sooo gorgeous,' to `how on earth....?' to `what HAPPENED to him to make him think like that?!'

It's beautifully put together - a design book that's not just for designers, with essays and Sagmeister's explanations of the projects, along with fantastic images.

As Sagmeister says, via the help of giant monkeys, "Everybody always thinks they are right," and I think I am in this case - buy it, swap around the covers to your heart's content, and enjoy your very own piece of Sagmeister!

A True Chameleon, 24 Feb 2008
There are lots of design books that are about design. Design books for designers. This isn't one of them - it's much more than that. The sheer richness of this book takes a while to take in - you will find new things every time you dip into it. This book is inventive, poignant, informative and unusual - but above all it is beautiful. There's such a wealth of ideas executed with style and an individual confidence that it is hard to say which is best, but I would say it's worth buying the book for the Singapore 'Keeping A Diary' section alone. Also there are a lot of monkeys, and that can never be a bad thing. Full marks.

big book of greatness, 02 Nov 2008
A great sourcebook for illustrators, fashion designers and students. It features a vast range of styles and subjects with some hidden gem illustrators that won't be featured in any other books

THE best ever, 14 Dec 2007
This is of the the most packed books so great value ...such a range of modern illustration...very inspiring.Lots of computer aided illustrations. In my top 5 fashion Ill books!

A superb resource which features a huge and inspirational variation of styles., 16 Jul 2007
Illustration sourcebooks don't come much better than this. An excellent mixed bag of all sorts of illustrative techniques than really does impress. Contact details are given for all artists included which makes this perfect for art buyers/directors.

One of the Best Books I've Ever Looked At, 16 Mar 2008
Looking at this book is so thought provoking and inpsiring. I could look at it for hours.

One of the best, 13 Sep 2008
I have been using flash for years and there are still some great tricks that I have learnt from this book. I lecture flash at university to complete beginners and I intend to point them in the direction of this book. The exercises look great and are FUN to complete. Flash is not the easiest program to learn. The beauty of this book is that the content is so engaging, the exercises rewarding, you might not even notice you are learning along the way.

Top book even for beginners!, 22 Feb 2008
You don't really need an advanced knowledge of Flash to use this book. How to cheat in flash is very, very good. It is targetted mostly at cartoon animators rather than users that will want to do Action Scripting, presentation or web development. This book will guide you through from start to finish for a lot of basic animation techniques and provides a good insight into how to implement your own ideas. it also gives instruction on how to perform commands etc on both the Windows and Mac. Again, I would only recommend this book if you are into cartoon animation mainly, otherwise there are probably better books out there.

Too technical, 19 Feb 2008
Its a good book, but no good for begginers.
It assumes you already know where things are and how to do some things.
If your just learning how to use flash (as I am) this is not the book for you.


Flashtastic, 10 Dec 2007
Firstly I would like to say that when I reviewed this book a few weeks ago there was a post which thankfully has been removed.
Basically it dismissed this book because it suggested that it helps you 'cheat'
I for one am glad I wasn't put off because this book is fantastic!! It covers everything that you will need to know.
From design styles and basic drawing to using video and audio.
It even tackles action scripting very cool! this book is going to save me so much time only wish I had stumbled across it sooner
there's even a cd with the different graphics so you can play around when your reading this book.

Brilliant pot-pourri of flash, 04 Nov 2007
A great little book that is a pleasure to open and read. Well illustrated and presented - a book with high production values. The title (forget the cheating bit) describes the contents perfectly - The art of design and Animation - the knowledgeable author teaches great Flash techniques.

A great addition to your flash library.

One of the Best Books on Graphic Design, 21 Oct 2007
There are hundreds of books at the moment claiming to be the experts on Graphic Design.
Too many either take themselves much too seriously or fall back on the picture book format where
thousands of images lack structure and editing resulting in visual wallpaper.
The classic `Smile in The Mind` however, does neither and has the perfect balance of information and inspiration.
Its no wonder then, it is on the `essential reading' list of any graphic design course worth its salt.
(It could however, be revised to include a few more recent examples)

Rubbish, 27 Aug 2007
Quite one of the worst books I have ever bought. (I have a lot of books.)
The quality of the paper is very poor, matching the quality of the content.
Fat, overpriced, and valueless. Should I feed it to the dog or just throw it on the waste pile?

Must have!, 08 Apr 2006
This is a must have for any graphic design student about to start university, buy it before you go as it will be added to your reading list when you start. It includes many examples of where humour has been used in graphic design. Very insperational!

my mind's not smiling, add more humor, 06 Jan 2004
The previous reviews of this book were missing one important thing: nobody mentioned that the book is not meant to be funny. The back cover of the book says this without hesitation, which was kind of a put-down. The book agrees that wit is essentially a sub-category of humor, and with that previous understanding I was hoping for many more elements of humor. Just don't expect too many laughs...

Overall: the text in the book is great. Thoughtful and well-written. But, it was very straining to look at endless amounts of pictures, that usually require more context (than is given) to be fully understood (and to be funny). The presentation of graphical wit in book format is difficult, as the authors acknowledge, but I still think the authors could have squeezed in some explanations with punch lines to make the presentation witty as well. As it is, the reader has to do all the work to squeeze the wit out of each example.

My view is that this book tried to be too ambitious. Instead of picking only the best wit to be found in each category of wit (the book makes some kind of divisions), the authors have put in many many *small* pictures, none of which are elaborated on. I just felt my enthusiasm/creativity drained by trying to check out all of them.

a smile in my mind, 03 Oct 2003
This book helped me out a great deal when completeing my Graphic Design degree. It displays a variety of different types of wit, and so many things that are so simple and obviously so effective. It opened my mind to a new world of ideas in design and is a great source of inspiration. It is great to have a flick through when you feel as though you have hit a brick wall! Definitely a must for any design student.

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

Very over valued, 29 Jun 2008
I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this. Everyone at college has said you have just got to buy this book, its amazing. Is it?? No it isn't. Sagmeister is nowhere near being the design genius that he has been tagged with. When you compare it to Alan Fletcher, there is just no competition. I have seen far better work being displayed at the various university degree shows this year to be honest. Especially at Stoke, Birmingham and the fantastic illustration work at Bristol which was truly fantastic.
So whatever you do, keep hold of your money and buy something else. He is very over rated and has been built up on a pedestal when he clearly doesn't deserve to be.

Can graphic design touch someone's heart?, 16 May 2008
There are countless books on design and many of them are good, even brilliant. And yet one looks for something that is more than a design book with lots of designers' work. One always searches for a book that would act as a trigger, as a spark than can light a million ideas in one's own brain.
A book to do that was Alan Fletcher's Art of Looking Sideways.
And a book which surpasses everything that I have ever seen is Stefan Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far.
Why? Because it is brutally honest.
It is what design was meant to be.
Sagmeister uses his own learnings and converts them into magic. You turn the pages and you are mesmerised by the immensity, the sheer scale of ideas there.
Your mind begins to fill up with images and words and ideas you never thought existed.
You turn the pages and it hits you: Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
And `now' to me started with the book. This book truly changed my life.
I have read the critics say many things like this book being self indulgent. Well, a man who take pains to go around the world to encourage design and design students cannot be self indulgent. He is honest. And every page of this book is a primer for honesty.
And of course, brilliant design.
Sagmeister's design and typography are stuff legends are made of. I am a mere mortal to comment upon those. But I can say this, I have never seen an explosion of so many brilliant ideas in one place ever before.
Stefan Sagmeister has always asked the question: Can design touch someone's heart?
This book will touch millions.
A priceless book.


Emperor's New Clothes or Design Genius?, 12 Mar 2008
Is Stefan Sagmeister the Emperor's new clothes of the design world, or does he really deserve the genius tag he's so often given?

After reading Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, I firmly believe the latter. Sagmeister doesn't disappoint; he makes design fun and accessible, without dumbing down or losing effect - this book illustrates perfectly, both in content and format, that good design works.

The featured projects are fascinating; my reactions ranged from `oh that's sooo gorgeous,' to `how on earth....?' to `what HAPPENED to him to make him think like that?!'

It's beautifully put together - a design book that's not just for designers, with essays and Sagmeister's explanations of the projects, along with fantastic images.

As Sagmeister says, via the help of giant monkeys, "Everybody always thinks they are right," and I think I am in this case - buy it, swap around the covers to your heart's content, and enjoy your very own piece of Sagmeister!

A True Chameleon, 24 Feb 2008
There are lots of design books that are about design. Design books for designers. This isn't one of them - it's much more than that. The sheer richness of this book takes a while to take in - you will find new things every time you dip into it. This book is inventive, poignant, informative and unusual - but above all it is beautiful. There's such a wealth of ideas executed with style and an individual confidence that it is hard to say which is best, but I would say it's worth buying the book for the Singapore 'Keeping A Diary' section alone. Also there are a lot of monkeys, and that can never be a bad thing. Full marks.

big book of greatness, 02 Nov 2008
A great sourcebook for illustrators, fashion designers and students. It features a vast range of styles and subjects with some hidden gem illustrators that won't be featured in any other books

THE best ever, 14 Dec 2007
This is of the the most packed books so great value ...such a range of modern illustration...very inspiring.Lots of computer aided illustrations. In my top 5 fashion Ill books!

A superb resource which features a huge and inspirational variation of styles., 16 Jul 2007
Illustration sourcebooks don't come much better than this. An excellent mixed bag of all sorts of illustrative techniques than really does impress. Contact details are given for all artists included which makes this perfect for art buyers/directors.

One of the Best Books I've Ever Looked At, 16 Mar 2008
Looking at this book is so thought provoking and inpsiring. I could look at it for hours.

One of the best, 13 Sep 2008
I have been using flash for years and there are still some great tricks that I have learnt from this book. I lecture flash at university to complete beginners and I intend to point them in the direction of this book. The exercises look great and are FUN to complete. Flash is not the easiest program to learn. The beauty of this book is that the content is so engaging, the exercises rewarding, you might not even notice you are learning along the way.

Top book even for beginners!, 22 Feb 2008
You don't really need an advanced knowledge of Flash to use this book. How to cheat in flash is very, very good. It is targetted mostly at cartoon animators rather than users that will want to do Action Scripting, presentation or web development. This book will guide you through from start to finish for a lot of basic animation techniques and provides a good insight into how to implement your own ideas. it also gives instruction on how to perform commands etc on both the Windows and Mac. Again, I would only recommend this book if you are into cartoon animation mainly, otherwise there are probably better books out there.

Too technical, 19 Feb 2008
Its a good book, but no good for begginers.
It assumes you already know where things are and how to do some things.
If your just learning how to use flash (as I am) this is not the book for you.


Flashtastic, 10 Dec 2007
Firstly I would like to say that when I reviewed this book a few weeks ago there was a post which thankfully has been removed.
Basically it dismissed this book because it suggested that it helps you 'cheat'
I for one am glad I wasn't put off because this book is fantastic!! It covers everything that you will need to know.
From design styles and basic drawing to using video and audio.
It even tackles action scripting very cool! this book is going to save me so much time only wish I had stumbled across it sooner
there's even a cd with the different graphics so you can play around when your reading this book.

Brilliant pot-pourri of flash, 04 Nov 2007
A great little book that is a pleasure to open and read. Well illustrated and presented - a book with high production values. The title (forget the cheating bit) describes the contents perfectly - The art of design and Animation - the knowledgeable author teaches great Flash techniques.

A great addition to your flash library.

One of the Best Books on Graphic Design, 21 Oct 2007
There are hundreds of books at the moment claiming to be the experts on Graphic Design.
Too many either take themselves much too seriously or fall back on the picture book format where
thousands of images lack structure and editing resulting in visual wallpaper.
The classic `Smile in The Mind` however, does neither and has the perfect balance of information and inspiration.
Its no wonder then, it is on the `essential reading' list of any graphic design course worth its salt.
(It could however, be revised to include a few more recent examples)

Rubbish, 27 Aug 2007
Quite one of the worst books I have ever bought. (I have a lot of books.)
The quality of the paper is very poor, matching the quality of the content.
Fat, overpriced, and valueless. Should I feed it to the dog or just throw it on the waste pile?

Must have!, 08 Apr 2006
This is a must have for any graphic design student about to start university, buy it before you go as it will be added to your reading list when you start. It includes many examples of where humour has been used in graphic design. Very insperational!

my mind's not smiling, add more humor, 06 Jan 2004
The previous reviews of this book were missing one important thing: nobody mentioned that the book is not meant to be funny. The back cover of the book says this without hesitation, which was kind of a put-down. The book agrees that wit is essentially a sub-category of humor, and with that previous understanding I was hoping for many more elements of humor. Just don't expect too many laughs...

Overall: the text in the book is great. Thoughtful and well-written. But, it was very straining to look at endless amounts of pictures, that usually require more context (than is given) to be fully understood (and to be funny). The presentation of graphical wit in book format is difficult, as the authors acknowledge, but I still think the authors could have squeezed in some explanations with punch lines to make the presentation witty as well. As it is, the reader has to do all the work to squeeze the wit out of each example.

My view is that this book tried to be too ambitious. Instead of picking only the best wit to be found in each category of wit (the book makes some kind of divisions), the authors have put in many many *small* pictures, none of which are elaborated on. I just felt my enthusiasm/creativity drained by trying to check out all of them.

a smile in my mind, 03 Oct 2003
This book helped me out a great deal when completeing my Graphic Design degree. It displays a variety of different types of wit, and so many things that are so simple and obviously so effective. It opened my mind to a new world of ideas in design and is a great source of inspiration. It is great to have a flick through when you feel as though you have hit a brick wall! Definitely a must for any design student.

Best ever logo book, 14 Nov 2008
First of all, thx amazon for the speed delivery.
Although it mention that will be reaching around 17-22 Nov but i received today! Very unexpectedly and very happy about that. Good bargain plus free delivery.

As for the book. it contains lots of great famous logo you always seen in ur daily life but this is not just showing you that. It explain why the logo is created like that. And also the great idea behind it.
Really a good book to buy!!!

Should be on every designers shelf, 29 Jun 2008
Bought this a few weeks ago and is defenitely worth buying. Some great examples with details of the design agencies involved so you can research further. Buy it now!!

"Your phd for living", 23 Sep 2008
If you search on youtube for "the art of looking sideways" you'll come across a 10 minute interview with the late Alan Fletcher. The man was clearly a visionary and apparently loved his Mac ;-)

If you're not into graphic design that much (like me) yet you're into philosophy or psychology, marketing or coaching, leadership or teaching or any other field where the human condition is front & center you'll still find lots of wonderful things in this book, if only by reading the quotes and the stories.

This book has been created by a discovering man, a collecting man and especially a listening and thinking man. He supposedly worked 18! years on this book. No wonder it's such a source of inspiration and insight.

I adore the 'chapters' on creativity and meanings. There are 72 'chapters' in total in this book, each covering a certain 'topic'. I prefer to call them 'mentalities'. Fletcher calls them '72 slices of life' and '72 slices of your brain'.

The two most genius properties of this book are:

- no two pages have similar layout
- you don't know what to expect when turning any page

Only buy this book if you want to discover. Fletcher was a designer but before one can design one has to discover. This book is a discovery by itself and it's filled with thousands of discoveries.

Stuck for an idea? Dive in here..., 24 Mar 2008
Alan Fletcher was one of the creative powerhouses of design from the 1960s on, and this book puts together some of his musings on life, the Universe and everything. The book is designed to spark ideas and thought, so even the paper used changes from page to page.

In typically quirky fashion, only the left hand pages are given a number so if you buy this book you actually get over a thousand pages of inspiring graphics, calligraphy, typography and photographs collected over the course of a long and illustrious career: he founded Pentagram; he designed logos for Reuters and the Victoria and Albert museum. The book gives a glimpse of the thought processes that went in to that work. For the money it's an astonishing bargain.

A homage to concept-driven design and thinking, 27 May 2007
This book provides so many examples of both the mechanics of a good concept and the power of lateral thinking. A great feat to have documented and communicated such an eclectic range of thoughts and ideas.

Inspirational, 27 Jan 2007
This is the book to have next to your desk: dip into it, when you need escape or inspiration. Or start from the beginning and work your way through it: whichever way you do it: I defy you not to find something interesting on virtually every page!!

Rowland Jones

A fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and a good dose of self-indulgence by the author, 31 Dec 2006
What a wonderful title for this book of more than 530 pages. The target is visual awareness and it has 72 chapters devoted to themes such as "ideas", "thinking", "seeing", "camouflage" and "handedness". The author claims it is "a journey without a destination", and he is probably right, the implication being that it is the voyage that counts in life. It is truly a massive collection of bits and pieces collected by the author, thrown on to a basic structure, and presented "shaken not stirred" (to misuse a common quote from James Bond). Her lies the books major asset and its major defect. It is full of interesting images and text bites, yet at the same time it is full of bits of useless or uninteresting trivia. There are times when you get the impression that the author has been overly self-indulgent, but it is certainly a lesson to us all - collect every little bit of dross since it could become a book one day. Yet it also a fantastic collection of interesting "factlets" and for the price it is certainly worth having on your shelves. I suspect it is also a book that I will go back to occasionally just to skim through the odd 100 pages. I was planning to give this extravagantly over-indulgent book only 3-stars, but in writing this review I've convinced myself to give it a solid 4-stars for its fun content and the gall of the author in thinking his lifetime collection of "odds and bods" would interest others. It did.

Very over valued, 29 Jun 2008
I have to say I am extremely disappointed with this. Everyone at college has said you have just got to buy this book, its amazing. Is it?? No it isn't. Sagmeister is nowhere near being the design genius that he has been tagged with. When you compare it to Alan Fletcher, there is just no competition. I have seen far better work being displayed at the various university degree shows this year to be honest. Especially at Stoke, Birmingham and the fantastic illustration work at Bristol which was truly fantastic.
So whatever you do, keep hold of your money and buy something else. He is very over rated and has been built up on a pedestal when he clearly doesn't deserve to be.

Can graphic design touch someone's heart?, 16 May 2008
There are countless books on design and many of them are good, even brilliant. And yet one looks for something that is more than a design book with lots of designers' work. One always searches for a book that would act as a trigger, as a spark than can light a million ideas in one's own brain.
A book to do that was Alan Fletcher's Art of Looking Sideways.
And a book which surpasses everything that I have ever seen is Stefan Sagmeister's Things I have learned in my life so far.
Why? Because it is brutally honest.
It is what design was meant to be.
Sagmeister uses his own learnings and converts them into magic. You turn the pages and you are mesmerised by the immensity, the sheer scale of ideas there.
Your mind begins to fill up with images and words and ideas you never thought existed.
You turn the pages and it hits you: Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
And `now' to me started with the book. This book truly changed my life.
I have read the critics say many things like this book being self indulgent. Well, a man who take pains to go around the world to encourage design and design students cannot be self indulgent. He is honest. And every page of this book is a primer for honesty.
And of course, brilliant design.
Sagmeister's design and typography are stuff legends are made of. I am a mere mortal to comment upon those. But I can say this, I have never seen an explosion of so many brilliant ideas in one place ever before.
Stefan Sagmeister has always asked the question: Can design touch someone's heart?
This book will touch millions.
A priceless book.


Emperor's New Clothes or Design Genius?, 12 Mar 2008
Is Stefan Sagmeister the Emperor's new clothes of the design world, or does he really deserve the genius tag he's so often given?

After reading Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, I firmly believe the latter. Sagmeister doesn't disappoint; he makes design fun and accessible, without dumbing down or losing effect - this book illustrates perfectly, both in content and format, that good design works.

The featured projects are fascinating; my reactions ranged from `oh that's sooo gorgeous,' to `how on earth....?' to `what HAPPENED to him to make him think like that?!'

It's beautifully put together - a design book that's not just for designers, with essays and Sagmeister's explanations of the projects, along with fantastic images.

As Sagmeister says, via the help of giant monkeys, "Everybody always thinks they are right," and I think I am in this case - buy it, swap around the covers to your heart's content, and enjoy your very own piece of Sagmeister!

A True Chameleon, 24 Feb 2008
There are lots of design books that are about design. Design books for designers. This isn't one of them - it's much more than that. The sheer richness of this book takes a while to take in - you will find new things every time you dip into it. This book is inventive, poignant, informative and unusual - but above all it is beautiful. There's such a wealth of ideas executed with style and an individual confidence that it is hard to say which is best, but I would say it's worth buying the book for the Singapore 'Keeping A Diary' section alone. Also there are a lot of monkeys, and that can never be a bad thing. Full marks.

big book of greatness, 02 Nov 2008
A great sourcebook for illustrators, fashion designers and students. It features a vast range of styles and subjects with some hidden gem illustrators that won't be featured in any other books

THE best ever, 14 Dec 2007
This is of the the most packed books so great value ...such a range of modern illustration...very inspiring.Lots of computer aided illustrations. In my top 5 fashion Ill books!

A superb resource which features a huge and inspirational variation of styles., 16 Jul 2007
Illustration sourcebooks don't come much better than this. An excellent mixed bag of all sorts of illustrative techniques than really does impress. Contact details are given for all artists included which makes this perfect for art buyers/directors.

One of the Best Books I've Ever Looked At, 16 Mar 2008
Looking at this book is so thought provoking and inpsiring. I could look at it for hours.

One of the best, 13 Sep 2008
I have been using flash for years and there are still some great tricks that I have learnt from this book. I lecture flash at university to complete beginners and I intend to point them in the direction of this book. The exercises look great and are FUN to complete. Flash is not the easiest program to learn. The beauty of this book is that the content is so engaging, the exercises rewarding, you might not even notice you are learning along the way.

Top book even for beginners!, 22 Feb 2008
You don't really need an advanced knowledge of Flash to use this book. How to cheat in flash is very, very good. It is targetted mostly at cartoon animators rather than users that will want to do Action Scripting, presentation or web development. This book will guide you through from start to finish for a lot of basic animation techniques and provides a good insight into how to implement your own ideas. it also gives instruction on how to perform commands etc on both the Windows and Mac. Again, I would only recommend this book if you are into cartoon animation mainly, otherwise there are probably better books out there.

Too technical, 19 Feb 2008
Its a good book, but no good for begginers.
It assumes you already know where things are and how to do some things.
If your just learning how to use flash (as I am) this is not the book for you.


Flashtastic, 10 Dec 2007
Firstly I would like to say that when I reviewed this book a few weeks ago there was a post which thankfully has been removed.
Basically it dismissed this book because it suggested that it helps you 'cheat'
I for one am glad I wasn't put off because this book is fantastic!! It covers everything that you will need to know.
From design styles and basic drawing to using video and audio.
It even tackles action scripting very cool! this book is going to save me so much time only wish I had stumbled across it sooner
there's even a cd with the different graphics so you can play around when your reading this book.

Brilliant pot-pourri of flash, 04 Nov 2007
A great little book that is a pleasure to open and read. Well illustrated and presented - a book with high production values. The title (forget the cheating bit) describes the contents perfectly - The art of design and Animation - the knowledgeable author teaches great Flash techniques.

A great addition to your flash library.

One of the Best Books on Graphic Design, 21 Oct 2007
There are hundreds of books at the moment claiming to be the experts on Graphic Design.
Too many either take themselves much too seriously or fall back on the picture book format where
thousands of images lack structure and editing resulting in visual wallpaper.
The classic `Smile in The Mind` however, does neither and has the perfect balance of information and inspiration.
Its no wonder then, it is on the `essential reading' list of any graphic design course worth its salt.
(It could however, be revised to include a few more recent examples)

Rubbish, 27 Aug 2007
Quite one of the worst books I have ever bought. (I have a lot of books.)
The quality of the paper is very poor, matching the quality of the content.
Fat, overpriced, and valueless. Should I feed it to the dog or just throw it on the waste pile?

Must have!, 08 Apr 2006
This is a must have for any graphic design student about to start university, buy it before you go as it will be added to your reading list when you start. It includes many examples of where humour has been used in graphic design. Very insperational!

my mind's not smiling, add more humor, 06 Jan 2004
The previous reviews of this book were missing one important thing: nobody mentioned that the book is not meant to be funny. The back cover of the book says this without hesitation, which was kind of a put-down. The book agrees that wit is essentially a sub-category of humor, and with that previous understanding I was hoping for many more elements of humor. Just don't expect too many laughs...

Overall: the text in the book is great. Thoughtful and well-written. But, it was very straining to look at endless amounts of pictures, that usually require more context (than is given) to be fully understood (and to be funny). The presentation of graphical wit in book format is difficult, as the authors acknowledge, but I still think the authors could have squeezed in some explanations with punch lines to make the presentation witty as well. As it is, the reader has to do all the work to squeeze the wit out of each example.

My view is that this book tried to be too ambitious. Instead of picking only the best wit to be found in each category of wit (the book makes some kind of divisions), the authors have put in many many *small* pictures, none of which are elaborated on. I just felt my enthusiasm/creativity drained by trying to check out all of them.

a smile in my mind, 03 Oct 2003
This book helped me out a great deal when completeing my Graphic Design degree. It displays a variety of different types of wit, and so many things that are so simple and obviously so effective. It opened my mind to a new world of ideas in design and is a great source of inspiration. It is great to have a flick through when you feel as though you have hit a brick wall! Definitely a must for any design student.

Best ever logo book, 14 Nov 2008
First of all, thx amazon for the speed delivery.
Although it mention that will be reaching around 17-22 Nov but i received today! Very unexpectedly and very happy about that. Good bargain plus free delivery.

As for the book. it contains lots of great famous logo you always seen in ur daily life but this is not just showing you that. It explain why the logo is created like that. And also the great idea behind it.
Really a good book to buy!!!

Should be on every designers shelf, 29 Jun 2008
Bought this a few weeks ago and is defenitely worth buying. Some great examples with details of the design agencies involved so you can research further. Buy it now!!

Brilliant, 15 Nov 2007
When i first saw this book on amazon i wasn't sure if to buy it or not, as there were mixed reviews with some saying it was brilliant and others useless. I found my friend reading it and he got it from my college library, so i didi the same. After a quick flick through i could tell this book was definately worth getting. It tells you the Aardman background plus all you need to know to make 3D animation. This is a must for claymation enthusiasts everywhere.

Great for an overall introduction, 01 Feb 2006
I bought this because I was having difficulty knowing where to start in stop-motion animation, and also because I really like the movies that Aardman have produced.

The book has a great background and introduction to stop-motion, and goes on to explain some areas of how a stop-motion film is produced. Areas covered included how certain effects are achieved, how the sound is added and lighting set-ups. Things that are not covered include frame-grabbing using a computer, and as most amateur animators start off with webcams and free/cheap frame-grabbing software this should be taken into account if you are a beginner. Hoever, information on frame-grabbing software etc is widely available for free on the internet at site