FROM COMIC-BOOK LEGENDS TO SILVER-SCREEN SUPER HEROES! Marvel presents an insider's look into the making of its cinematic universe - assembling three Avengers in one stylish slipcase. Featuring exclusive production artwork, behind-the-scenes photography, and in-depth cast-and-crew interviews, this four-book collection is a must have for any fan of Mighty Marvel movies! Includes IRON MAN: THE ART OF IRON MAN THE MOVIE HC, IRON MAN: THE ART OF IRON MAN 2 HC, THOR: THE ART OF THOR THE MOVIE HC and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE ART OF CAPTAIN AMERICA - THE FIRST AVENGER HC.

Simple country style in a modernsetting is becoming increasingly popular as it tempers hard-edgedurban minimalism. With an emphasis on comfort and natural shapes,the look is easy to achieve with a minimum of fuss and expense.Hence 12 practical step by step projects show you how to recreatesome of the essential features of modern country style fromcurtains to cushions to bedhead covers. Instead of breaking downinto room by room chapters, the book is organized by the mainingredients of style; colour, texture, pattern andatmosphere.

Cant decide what to wear in the morning? Why not mix a punk hairdo with a period dress? The pages of this interactive book (split into four parts) will take you from fashion faux-pas to fabulous in one flip. From grunge and pirate to disco queen and street style, create over 100,000 of your own fashion fantasies (and nightmares) with this colourfully illustrated and carefully researched flipbook. With magazine-style captions for each outfit there are words to play with too.

Vasari famously wrote that Giotto "recovered the true method ofpainting, which been lost for many years before him," and indeed heis traditionally considered a founder of the Italian Renaissance.Producing a series of commissioned works for the church and upperclasses in his native Tuscany and surrounding regions, Giottochanged the course of European art by breaking away from the rigid,stereotyped figures of the Byzantine and Giotto medievaltraditions. His innovation was to give his characters naturalmovement and expression. His great fresco cycles, such as the livesof the Virgin and Christ in the Scrovegni (or Arena) Chapel, Padua,are populated with realistic depictions of three-dimensionalfigures; secondary characters, both comic and tragic, display therange of the painter's wit and invention. And Giotto's treatment ofperspective was just as revolutionary as his approach to the humanform. The dramatic power of his scenes is heightened by theconvincing illusionistic spaces in which he places them. In thisaut

"Brand Atlas" is the world's first definitive compendium ofdiagrams and process maps about branding, marketing and design.This resource features dozens of full color diagrams that willaccelerate the understanding of core concepts and help readersnavigate complex theories and best practices.

A revealing, comprehensive and colourful insight into the design process, Fashion Designers Sketchbooks explores many major names working in the fashion industry today. Photographs, sketches, mood boards, line-ups, toiles, fabric swatches and more all contribute to the creation of ideas for fashion designs, and here they are brought together for the first time to show how the final work is conceived and developed. Garments on the catwalk are juxtaposed with lookbooks, the original research material, and with finished illustrations giving a new perspective on the working methods of leading international designers. This approach makes the book a fascinating resource for both students and designers. Numerous leading designers, including John Galliano for Dior, Luella and Christian Lacroix, are interviewed alongside their sketchbooks, discussing the roles they play in evolution of their work, and how they inform and encourage their creative processes. The result is in an inspirational overview of cutting-e

This work tells the story of the 20th century using images andmessages from 2000 picture postcards. The postcards depict theday-to-day life of people and what mattered to them, pleased them,shocked or amused them via the cards they chose to send.Year-by-year the book presents everyone from the high and mighty tothe low and the worthy talking about the characters, events and hotspots of the century. Saucy seaside jokes, the disasters of thewar, the hazards of travel, the caprices of life in work andleisure - all are pictured and discussed. Each year begins withpostcard views of the New York skyline and of Piccadily Circus.Though centred on Britain and the USA, cards come from every cornerof the world, from Los Angeles to Beijing, from Antarctica toAlaska. Themes which evolved with the century emerge including:transportation (aviation takes us from the Wright Brothers to themoon); cinema; the role of women; fashion; and holidays. Eachpostcard is accompanied by a caption which places its message incontext

First coming to widespread attention in 2000, the work of Adel Abdessemed has been generally understood as an intuitive and searing response to the convulsions shaking the contemporary world in its religious, political, economic and moral aspects. The artist has been said to re-appropriate the primal powers of violence and destruction by creating braided aeroplanes, a rolled-up fuselage, burnt-out cars moulded in terra cotta, rows of barbed wire Installations, performances, drawings, sculptures, videos, photos Abdessemed employs multiple media to register the signs of violence scattered across the world, to capture the hubbub of history and render it in images. True as these views may be, this book and the accompanying major exhibition at the Centre Pompidou offer a thorough reappraisal of them. I am Innocent shows that history in its chaotic, convulsive and conflicting forms is not the object of Abdessemeds art but rather its material, which is thoroughly reworked, stylised and sublimated to the image

Alfresco draws on the remarkable photography of Gilles deChabaneix to present a marvellous evocation of the delights ofliving alfresco around the world. This catalogue of opportunitiesfor getting the best out of outdoor lifestyles is reflected in thefollowing sections: Outside the Home is all about reclaimingnature: how we impose ourselves on the areas around our homes, fromterraces in Corsica to gardens in Provence and parks in Scotland.Transitional Spaces looks at the more elaborate structures wecreate to facilitate our enjoyment of the outdoors, while stillremaining close to the comforts of our homes: verandas, terraces,patios and backyards. Rooms Outside surveys the many types ofbuilding specifically created away from the main home for theenjoyment of an outdoor lifestyle: garden pavilions in Bali andMauritius, summer-houses in Stockholm. Bringing the Outside Inillustrates the many types of found objects of the alfresco world -stones, bones, wood, dried fruit and flowers - which can makefascinating

Designers and artists have always looked to nature forinspiration and materials, but only recently have they been able toalter and incorporate living organisms in their work. In a worldwith finite resources and a growing population, design that mimicsor appropriates the sustainable template of nature is likely toprove as vital as it is novel. "Bio Design" examines some seventyprojects (concepts, prototypes and completed designs) that coverthe fields of architecture, industrial processes, education, fineart, material engineering and bioengineering. Each project isillustrated by a short text, images and captions that combine toexplain the problems the venture tackles, and how living materialsand processes were harnessed to solve them in sustainable andaesthetically pleasing ways. Many of the solutions also provokethought about manipulating life for human ends. From bacteria thatcan spin microfibrils of pure cellulose for use in the clothingindustry to pigeons that fed special bacteria excrete harmlessdet

Whether Gould's subject is Boulez, Stokowski, Streisand, orhis own highly individual thoughts on performance and creation ofmusic, the reader will be caught up in his intensity, intelligence,passion and devotion.

A spotlight on French landscape painters of the first half of the 20th century which is a true hymn to nature Eight French painters born after 1870 are brought together for the first time in an exhibition that highlights their mutual affinities and charts their respective influences and evolutions. Aside from Gaston Balande (1880-1971), who is well known for his art deco wall murals designed for transatlantic ships, and Paul Deltombe (1878-1971), who benefited from a retrospective exhibition in 1970, the work of the other painters collected here has remained uncelebrated for far too long. The present exhibition and its catalogue aim to repair this oversight, as well as to reignite the study of this generation of French painters who, without turning their back on the avant-gardists, concentrated primarily on the traditional genre of landscape, and to a lesser degree on still-lifes. The 80 works of art, mainly painted between the wars, are at the crossroads of the many influences of this creative period,

This exhibition catalog is a long-awaited monograph on one ofthe most important contemporary artists working today. Barcelo'sartistic journey is explored through the themes that have markedhis work over a period of more than twenty years. His subjects arefirst and foremost intentionally autobiographical: Barcelo depictshimself as he paints, alluding to the role of the demiurgeincarnated as artist. Different artistic techniques enable him torepresent the reality of the world, essentially exposing theconstant flux of life and death. The book is divided into twoparts: six introductory essays that describe Miquel Barcelochronology in terms of his stylistic and technical development, anda catalog of about 60 works.

The Renaissance holds an undying place in our imagination, itsgreat heroes still our own, from Michelangelo and Leonardo to Danteand Chaucer. This period of profound evolution in European thoughtis credited with transforming the West from medieval to modern andproducing the most astonishing outpouring of artistic creation theworld has ever known. But what was it? In this masterly work, theincomparable Paul Johnson tells us. He explains the economic,technological, and social developments that provide a backdrop tothe age’s achievements and focuses closely on the lives and worksof its most important figures. A commanding short narrative of thisvital period, The Renaissance is also a universally profoundmeditation on the wellsprings of innovation.

The companion volume to the ten-part PBS TV series by the teamresponsible for"The Civil War" and "Baseball." Continuing in thetradition of their critically acclaimed works, Geoffrey C. Ward andKen Burns vividly bring to life the story of the quintessentialAmerican music--jazz. Born in the black community ofturn-of-the-century New Orleans but played from the beginning bymusicians of every color, jazz celebrates all Americans at theirbest. Here are the stories of the extraordinary men and women whomade the music: Louis Armstrong, the fatherless waif whoseunrivaled genius helped turn jazz into a soloist's art andinfluenced every singer, every instrumentalist who came after him;Duke Ellington, the pampered son of middle-class parents who turneda whole orchestra into his personal instrument, wrote nearly twothousand pieces for it, and captured more of American life than anyother composer. Bix Beiderbecke, the doomed cornet prodigy whoshowed white musicians that they too could make an importantcontribution to the

This substantial book features one hundred of the most spectacular interiors across the world, spanning the entire 20th century to the present day. It includes interiors assembled by artists and fashion designers, architects, interior and set-designers, bringing together diverse design talents from Piero Fornasetti and Coco Chanel to Alvar Aalto, Marc Newson and Matthew Williamson. Twenty short profiles are presented in the introduction, with a single iconic photograph and a concise, informative eighty are profiled at length, in chronological order, with superb colour photography and texts recounting the stories of these remarkable designs. Representing every style from minimalism, Art Nouveau and Neo-traditional to Gesamtkunstwerk creations that defy definition, these iconic interiors are elegant compositions that endure as lasting creations.

A title that will appeal to those interested in book cultureas well as furniture and interior design, Bookshelf is the firstpublication to take bookshelf design as its subject. From theconceptual Read-Unread Bookshelf (which weighs books read againstthose still to be started) to the multi-function Trick (a unit thattransforms from shelf-space into a table and two chairs), Bookshelfpresents over 200 inventive and experimental shelving designs inmore than 400 colour illustrations that are sure to covet andinspire. Individual specification details are provided for eachbookcase, including materials and documentation, and theaccompanying texts by Alex Johnson, author and editor of The Blogon the Bookshelf, provide a fun and informative look at the historyof the bookcase, as well as reflecting on how a new generation ofdesigners have re-imagined a classic. One might have presumed that,with the advent of the e-book, the days of the bookshelf werenumbered. In fact, readers are now taking almost as much interes

“Dozens of examples of successful signage at variousplaces—like public spaces, museums, and businesses—around theglobe. . . . Each featured work is accompanied by text written bythe firm that authored the signage.”—Step Inside Design A signagesystem is much more than just a set of symbols. As well as itspractical application, it helps to create an identity for a spaceand can add decorative flair to any built environment. Andreas Uebele draws on his own design experience to exploresignage as a point where graphic design and architecture cometogether. He first describes the basic rules of signage design:signs must be visible but not distracting, informative but notunwieldy, and concise but not confusing. Striking the right balanceis crucial. Color, typography, pictograms, and icons are allelements that can be varied and exploited to encapsulate as muchinformation as possible and fit the job’s requirements: the signagefor a hospital, an airport, or a conference center may have littlein c

Tattoos and tattoo artwork have become part of mainstream culture, and more so over the last few years with popular TV shows taking the viewer inside the tattoo studio for the first time. Many tattooists are also highly skilled artists in their own right, and have moved beyond the artwork they tattoo onto skin to creating bodies of personal artwork more likely to be viewed in a gallery than a tattoo studio. Art by Tattooists is the first book to showcase this art. The book features twenty-six international artists who use a variety of media, from ink, watercolour, acrylic paint and oil to lino printing, painting on wood and board, and even examples of tattoo-style skateboard graphics. Many of the artists are heavily influenced by the imagery they use as tattooists roses, hearts, skulls, scrolls, birds, pin-ups, etc. and carry this into their personal work. Other work features colours, themes or subject matter that is more subtly related to tattooing.

Asian Resorts is conceived to be the most comprehensivecollection on Asian resorts. Written and shot by the region'sbest known Asian architecture specialist, TanHock Beng, who has already put together five books on the designand aesthetics of tropical architecture, Asian Resorts promises toshow its readers the biggest variety of Asian resorts that no otherbook has ever shown. With its beautifully' shot images and relevantinformation, this book will certainly serve and entertain youbeyond just the coffee table. In fact, it is a must-have for everyarchitectural office and every home.

In My View is a collection of reflections by 78 contemporary artists in which each artist reveals the influence and inspiration he or she has found in a particular artwork or artist. Among the artists are John Baldessari, Daniel Buren, Chuck Close, Michael Craig-Martin, Tacita Dean, Marlene Dumas, Antony Gormley, Susan Hiller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Candida H?fer, Vik Muniz, Jorge Pardo, Raymond Pettibon, Ed Ruscha, Bill Viola and Rachel Whiteread. The works chosen range from the fifteenth to the mid-twentieth century, some of them iconic, others lesser known. The accompanying essays are often very personal, recalling childhood memories and life-changing moments, and capturing the joy and excitement that come from encounters with great art. The stories show the profound connections that exist between artists past and present and offer an alternative look at art history from the 15th century to the 1960s, through the eyes of contemporary artists themselves. Simon Grant’s introduction identifies themes tha