OK, it's not about plants, but it is about design!
I think what is most different about this book, is that this is the book I wanted to buy. This is a book about trends, about the future of design, written not by a marketer, or a business person, but by a designer - a creative's vision on why the future is so hard to design.
It's not negative, it's optimistic ( for creative people). Basically, it's easy today for ANYONE to call themselves a designer, heck, they can buy a computer, buy the software to design a logo, and buy the fonts, and the best thing is, the computer comes with all of the colors you would every need!
At Home Depot, on a Saturday morning, young house mates choose color palettes themselves, to design their own space. On TV, reality shows pit everyday people in designing against each other, DIY has become a trend, and design is suffering for it. Design today is trivialized, diluted, and yet, it has never been in such demand by big-business.
Mass retail now knows that 'Design sells', Target and competitor, Wal Mart know the secret, heck, we are even fooled and challenge ourselves to identify the differences between a TV commercial from JC PEnny, Sears and Target - they all start to look the same.....so what's next? And Is there a next? Or, can there always be a new 'next
?
Those are the sort thoughts that keep designers up at night, and this is what my book BEYOND TREND is all about.
Please consider picking it up, you might enjoy the 200 pictures, or the quick and hopefully, easy read!
Thanks
BEYOND TREND - How To Innovate In An Over-Designed World by Matt Mattus hit's the shelves in bookstores and your fav. online book stores from Borders to Amazon to Barnes and Noble in the States, to Kinokuniya in Japan, and Asia, David and Charles in the UK, and, well, it seems most major retailers from Wal Mart to Target. ( eeek ).
A little more about BEYOND TREND.
I was asked by the publishers of ID magazine, HOW magazine and PRINT magazine, F & W Publications ( also the publishers of HORTICULTURE now, strangely enough!) to write a book about design trends and the future of design, something that I speak about at design conferences, and what I do, at Hasbro, as a Visual Brand Strategist.
The result, this little hardcover book with over 200 color images of everything from Sir Norman Foster's architecture to Zaha Hadid's renderings for the 2012 Olympics to Hand bag designer Kate Spade and everything in between. Visual design today is becoming boring, as is gardening, I must say. We live in a world where we are obsessed with the idea of 'New', and trends seem to come and go faster than ever before. As a trend hunter, I was being asked, "what is next?", and after traveling the world, I had to say " not much". But that was not the entire story.
BEYOND TREND examines my journey through this realization of discovery. As I edited the visual sameness searching for the next, hot color. What I discovered surprised me. Maybe you will find the read and the visual ride exciting too.
2 comments:
I first found out about your book through my Amazon recommendations. Being a graphic design graduate and an advertising student, I found it intriguing and bought it right away.
I received my copy today, I was excited to read it and to recommend it to my friends and professors, but I couldn't read past page 21. I was stunned by the picture of the Aquafina bottle which was supposed have a label in Turkish. Though it certainly helps reinforce the point being made, it is false.
Geographically this might very well be a picture taken in Turkey. However, unless Pepsi introduced Aquafina prior to 1928 and Jason Higgins was there to document it, this is definitely not in Turkish. I know that because I am Turkish.
For those who don't know, in 1928 Ataturk, founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey, introduced a new alphabet, as part of the cultural reform, which is a slightly modified version of the Latin alphabet. Very much like the alphabet I'm using to write this comment. Since then the "exotic" and "pictorial" Arabic based Ottoman alphabet is no longer in use.
I just find it unfortunate that someone with your knowledge and expertise would miss such an important detail. It is a whole nation's language after all. It's part of our culture and identity, about 80 million of us.
"Size basarilar ve iyi sanslar dilerim". "I wish you success and good luck" (in Turkish)
Regards,
Ezgi Yersu
Thank goodness I didn't buy this book at full price. I thought it might be interesting to see that I'd been mentioned in it, but it's just a big load of regurgitated crap. The author doesn't seem to have an original thought in his head, yet has convinced himself that he's influential in the 'design world'.
He's never created anything of note, and would be better off impressing his buddies at the toy shop, who are awed by his choice of colors in little girls' pony toys.
Little fish are better off in small ponds, as the real world of design would gobble this author up.
I bought my copy for less than a buck brand new, which was still overpriced. I was going to hollow it out and use it as one of those secret book safes to hold my pig-ears, but it is much too thin for that. I now use it on the floor of my garage, where it prevents me from pulling my car in too far.
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