Best architectural presentation books according to redditors
We found 614 Reddit comments discussing the best architectural presentation books. We ranked the 251 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 614 Reddit comments discussing the best architectural presentation books. We ranked the 251 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I am just going to say it out right: your portfolio is pretty awful. I'm not saying it to be an ass, but I feel it is something you need to hear. Taking a background image, throwing some Comic Sans on top, and adding a filter does not make for quality design. Let me ask you this: how long did it take you to put together each of those billboards/posters?
I feel that you've hit the point that a lot of aspiring designers hit some point. Photoshop is a tool and only a tool. Knowing how to use it is not enough to make quality work. Its like applying for a plumber job and saying "I know how to use a wrench." Well there is a lot more that goes into being a plumber than using a wrench.
That being said, I think you have a desire to become a better designer and that is the most important trait anyone needs in this field. I would highly recommend going back to school if possible, but I completely understand if money doesn't allow for it. You did mention that you received a "certificate" and not a degree, so I'm inclined to assume that you went a community college of some sorts? If possible see what kind of options you have as far as financial aid. There is no harm in sitting down and talking with an advisor.
If school is out of the question then I always recommend books. Personally, I love books. Two that come to mind are:
http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Graphic-Design-School/dp/0470466510/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=FRZXS10RRWDE&coliid=I28L555PEYQUH
http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-The-New-Basics/dp/1568987021/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=FRZXS10RRWDE&coliid=I30NDZDNI7972D
My challenge to you is to grab a pen and paper and look through the table of contents on Amazon (especially the second one). Then write down everything you know about each chapter of the book. This should give you a decent self-assessment of where you need to start.
Sure!
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I think two classic books to start with is
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Then I would move onto IDEO's Creative Confidence (https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Confidence-Unleashing-Potential-Within-ebook/dp/B00CGI3DWQ), which documents tons of different UX methods. Also, I haven't read it, but I've heard that Lean UX is a great book (https://www.amazon.com/Lean-UX-Designing-Great-Products-ebook/dp/B01LYGQ6CH).
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Oh and to learn HTML, CSS, and JS (if you don't know them already), these are AMAZING reads: https://www.amazon.com/Web-Design-HTML-JavaScript-jQuery/dp/1118907442/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1QXNLBZ2V6GL8&keywords=learn+html+css+javascript&qid=1558328362&s=gateway&sprefix=learn+html+css+ja%2Caps%2C-1&sr=8-3
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With that said, I know books are a big commitment so here's a random assortment of UX articles I've bookmarked over the years to get you started (some may be a little old but should still hold up from a process standpoint):
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There's a lot more where that came from, so let me know if you get through that and are craving more material.
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Here are a couple videos as well:
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Finally, here's a very very short article I wrote myself that provides a quick intro into human centered design: http://www.jdktech.com/human-centered-design/
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As you dive into this, note that user interface design and user experience design are different things--although they overlap and rely on each other in various ways. You can be a user interface designer (in which case I would recommend different reads), a user experience designer, or both. I'm a full stack designer, which means I specialize in all sides of the product life cycle, including research, validation, design, product management and development.
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Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!
I upvoted you, but I want to add that I also used to make jokes to disassociate from the reality of what I was contributing to by eating meat, so one day several years ago I just stopped. It was a lot easier than I anticipated and the physical and emotional rewards of that decision have been pretty profound so I just wanted to encourage everyone who was disturbed by this picture (in the least preachy way I possibly can) to read the book "Eating Animals" and give this issue just a little more thought.
Ching's 'Architecture: Form, Space, and Order' will surely help you. It is simple, quite visual and straightfoward. See if you can get hold of a PDF and let me know if it helped.
Do not have any CAM software in your shop, or are just doing this one job by hand to learn? If it's the former then that's disappointing because there are many inexpensive CAM programs for simple 2D stuff .
If it's the latter, then a really good book would be CNC Programming Handbook by Peter Smid. It covers damn near everything about CNC milling and turning, from machine kinematics to G-Code.
For those interested:
That's an awesome decision to look into going vegan! It's so much easier than you'd think once you start. This veganuary website is loaded with tips and info to get folks started. Plus the FAQ on the side bar might answer some basic questions.
If you're up for more motivation Earthlings is a very powerful movie which will likely cement your resolve to step out of an unnecessary system. Also Forks over Knives and Vegucated are on netflix which are much less graphic and provide lots of info.
I also like to recommend books to help people learn more about the ethics of animal consumption. Eating Animals is a great read from an investigative angle from a renowned novelist and Eat Like You Care is a short and very powerful case for the ethical necessity of not consuming animals.
Regarding your health, so long as you eat a varied diet and occasionally add a B12 supplement you health will not suffer and very possibly improve!
You're making an awesome decision and you will be amazed at how easy it gets after just a few weeks!
It gets mentioned a lot, but 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School is a great book if you can get your hands on it. Also, for beginners the Francis Ching books are great, especially Architecture: Form Space and Order, and Simon Unwin's Analyzing Architecture.
Another tip is, sadly, take this subreddit with a grain of salt. Many here seem to want to emulate professors who gave them a harsh beat down in critiques, and architecture generally has a very negative culture. You are not in architecture school, you don't need to be judged to the same standard. Especially if you are doing this as a hobby. Keep finding out what you like and be open to learning more.
Peter Singer is amazing. I remember having a 2-week breakdown and existential crisis when I read Animal Liberation. I just didn't know how to handle and accept the mind-blowingly immense suffering happening every second; I couldn't figure out how to go about my life with that fact existing. How could I simply turn my back on that fact, and not fight it every second? How could I possibly forget those animals and go about my life as if it weren't true?
Ultimately I had to make the conscious choice to forget. I could only do what I could do - become vegan, evangelize, be an advocate, protest, boycott, take part in everyday activism. But beyond that, what can I do for the billions of animals suffering unimaginable horrors every second?
There are facts and images seared into my brain that I cannot and never will forget - pigs snouts being sliced off and salt rubbed in the wound, cats being boiled alive in cages, raccoon dogs skinned alive and thrown in a pile of agony, animals caught in unbearable suffering in steel traps, others anally/vaginally/orally electrocuted to death for their furs, pigs boiled alive, chickens trampled and pecked to death in too-small to move cages, cows beaten and prodded to walk on broken legs, the heartbroken wail of a pig or cow whose baby is stolen away, male chicks ground up alive... I have SEEN these things. And it is unbearable.
I think these things should be shown to everybody. How anybody could bite into the flesh of a chicken after that is beyond me.
Edit: for those who may be interested in learning more:
I can't remember the other videos I've watched, and frankly, I can't deal with finding them right now. But they're on Youtube, or at least they were a few years ago.
Great question, and great idea! Off the top of my head:
The Basics
Landscape Architect's Portable Handbook - This one does get a bit technical, but it's a good guide.
Sociology/Psychology
Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - Just a good book about how people experience spaces
Design with People in Mind - An older film, but a classic. Funny and with great observations about how people use spaces and interact with their environment
Design Theory
Architecture: Form, Space and Order - This is a great guidebook for architects and landscape architects alike
History of Landscape Architecture
Illustrated History of Landscape Design - A great intro to the history of landscape architecture.
Urban Planning/Design
Death and Life of Great American Cities - It's a classic and should be a required read for anyone in landscape architecture or architecture
This is the short list - I'll add to it as I think of more!
A smile in the mind - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smile-Mind-Revised-Expanded-Thinking/dp/071486935X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul - https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-be-Graphic-Designer-2nd/dp/1856697096/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539299108&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+be+a+graphic+designer+without+losing+your+soul
Two books that have helped me and ones I tend to find myself re-reading from time to time. Otherwise, my sketchbooks are my best resource. You should try to get into the habit of always exploring ideas and thinking laterally, trying things out — maybe it won’t work for one brief but will in the future. Try to take inspiration from fields outside of graphic design too, like architecture and art history. Build up a library of textures and inspirational images over time that serve as kindling to your imagination for kick starting ideas — these are the best resources as they will inspire original thinking rather than replicating the latest trends :)
This book is actually free online . Another good book is Typographic Systems by Kim Elam .
If you're going all out nothing will be as useful as graphic standards. http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Graphic-Standards-11th-Edition/dp/0471700916
Haha, that's awesome and I think you're probably right.
I can definitely understand the hesitation. There are a lot of reasons that going vegan is hard that often get undervalued by people that have already done it and adapted to the lifestyle.
It's hard to imagine what you would eat if you gave up animal products. You probably have favorite foods you'd never be able to taste again. Food is such a big part of our culture, too, that it's scary to consider self-ostracizing yourself. You'd have to tell grandma you can't eat her special chicken soup from the old country anymore. You wouldn't be able to go in on the bulk buffalo wing buy at the next Super Bowl party.
Then there are concerns about nutrition. How do I get enough B12? Omega 3s? Protein? Is a vegan diet even healthy long-term? Will I be sacrificing athletic performance in the sport I care about?
And finally, it can sound exhausting to have to read every label, remember to take the cheese off every burrito order, plan every lunch outing at work so you'll have something to eat, and suffer all the other small inconveniences required of a vegan living in an omnivorous world.
Fortunately, dealing with all those concerns doesn't have to be done all at once. You can reduce your meat consumption and experiment with vegan food while still eating grandma's chicken soup whenever you visit her. Plus, it's better for your health, the environment, and the animals.
I recommend this book to people who are interested in investigating the issue: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
I seriously recommend Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran. It's awesome for understanding why we're doing this and how it helps. It's a look at the factory farming industry and is great if you need to debate family members who think you should start eating meat again.
You can get used copies for like $2, too! That's what I did.
My main reason for going vegetarian was that I was appalled by the conditions today's farm animals endure in order to become food as I learned more and more about them. If you'd like a good primer on that topic, I'd wholeheartedly recommend Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals; it's incredibly well written and goes into good depth on factory farm conditions as well as other topics related to animal agriculture.
And if it feels like too much to switch entirely all at once, you're allowed to do it in steps. Some people can cut it out all at once, but some need more time, and that's totally okay; your goal should be to transition in a way that will help you stick with it for the long term.
For further reading check out Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer--very interesting read.
A Smile in the Mind - great introspective + examples on what makes a design witty or dull, and why the most memorable designs of all time all are witty on some level.
Meggs’ History of Graphic Design - you can read books theorizing about design in general, or you can read books showcasing great design. This is the latter, and is so dense every time I open it up I discover something new.
Megg's History of Graphic Design is the best out there imo.
The history of graphic design by Meggs:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0471699020
Design basics:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0534625592
30 Typefaces:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1592532780
If you plan on using Adobe software, the classroom in a book series by them is good.
A color theory book would be good too.
Buy yourself a copy of Building Construction Illustrated by Francis Ching. You will undoubtedly use it in future classes and even into your first years of internship.
Ching also has a Building "Structures" Illustrated but, honestly, the "Construction" Illustrated will probably be more useful.
Amazon Link
1.) Write 3D graphics with DirectX11. Sure I learned OpenGL first but I regret not learning graphics with DirectX11. I personally believe DirectX11 is easier to learn than modern OpenGL.
Resource for both: https://fgiesen.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/a-trip-through-the-graphics-pipeline-2011-index/
Resource for OpenGL: https://learnopengl.com/Introduction
Resource for DirectX: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-3D-Game-Programming-DirectX/dp/1936420228
If you are a beginner DON'T start with Vulkan or Directx12.
2.) Depends on how much you work at it. Also be smart how much you work / how you work. You said 15hrs a day for 3 years. Learn to pace yourself. If you think this is realistic or healthy, you are going to learn the hard way. However, you are older than me so this approach might work for YOU. But I have friends with a similar mentality and it is just self destructive.
3.) Don't worry too much about this one. The main thing is knowing the difference between a low level vs high level graphics API. OpenGL, DirectX11 are high level (meaning easier to use and require less knowledge). Vulkan and DirectX12 are lower level (harder to use require more knowledge, but can be a lot faster).
Other than that to answer your question: PS4 has its own API. Other than that special case I already listed the APIs used in consoles / PCs.
4.) You need to know linear algebra. Can't get around that. Take a class or pickup a book on it.
Resources:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab
Strang, Gilbert, Linear Algebra and Its Applications (4th ed.)
5.) No it is not a waste of time. Any game studio worth its salt uses C++ to do their graphics under the hood. C++ offers complete control over performance. However, a lot of studios do not use STL data structures. Since games/graphics needs to be super optimized and the STL is too generic at times and not fast enough sometimes.
https://github.com/AnthonyCalandra/modern-cpp-features
Also I learned graphics programming very recently so I can definitly relate. I started freshman year 2015 and am currently in my junior year with a graphics internship. A lot of my advice here is based off what I tell freshman at my school, and things I hear from friends working at triple A companies / Nvidia / AMD.
This should get you started :)
Books:
Blogs:
Videos:
Podcasts:
I'm also writing blog posts about getting started in UX Design on my own blog. Check it out. If you have questions or want to know more about a specific topic, just let me know. I'm always looking for more topics to write about.
Edit: Added UX Mag
Here's a little list of best-sellers on Amazon and a few from this thread:
I too picked up DX11 mostly using rastertek's as a starting point, and then Microsoft's own documentation as a reference. I read rastertek's code as documentation in C++ rather than straight copying the code. After all, its abbreviated code is meant to illustrate D3D usage rather than be a production-level engine.
For a more guided approach, this book might suit you better:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-3D-Game-Programming-DirectX/dp/1936420228/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1502869223&sr=8-2
It was hard, until all of a sudden it was easy. My method? I learned as much as I could about the issues with animal agriculture. At first I continued to eat eggs and dairy (I'd already been a vegetarian for several years), but I'd feel conflicted and guilty afterward. Still, convenience or cravings would keep me coming back. But I kept reading everything I could find on the subject and one day, suddenly, no amount of tastiness or convenience could justify my continuing to support those practices.
Two of the main sources that informed my decision were the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and Colleen Patrick Goudreau's Food for Thought podcast.
Eating Animals is an extremely well-written and comprehensive overview of the ethical, environmental, and health effects of animal agriculture. Food for Thought touches a lot on the "why" of veganism, but where Colleen's work has really been helpful to me is in the "how." She explains, among other things, how to make sure you're properly nourished, how to stave off cravings for old foods, how to respond to questions and confrontations, and how to really take joy and pleasure in your new lifestyle.
As far as specific advice, here are a few tidbits.
Links to the books for the lazy ones:
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1591024501/ref=mp_s_a_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1495878180&sr=8-2-spell&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=slaughterhoue+book
Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer
My transition into veganism was probably initially generated by a general reevaluation of the habits I'd developed and inherited as a kid growing up. My parents never second-guessed the morality of buying and eating meat, and I didn't either. But eventually I moved out of my parents' home and then in a rather haphazard, lazy normal kind of way set about challenging my beliefs as I matured. One of those beliefs was that buying and eating meat is essentially a non-moral issue.
Reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Eating Animals" was eye opening for me. I became a rather naive sort of vegan after that for a while. A more recent but very distracting spell of interest in ethics has given me the opportunity to refine my beliefs somewhat.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
Recommended reading!
Even ignoring your immediate and inappropriate insult, your post is full of emotional regurgitation of Big Agriculture propaganda and simple marketing campaigns.
You've been sold a commercial you reiterate without realizing it. America is not "Feeding The World™". Since your post was entirely lacking in facts and sources, I'll provide some:
So no, we are not the World's Breadbasket. Modern factory farming is not sustainable and constitutes at least 10% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the US. The only purpose it serves is to stuff the coffers of Big Agri.
Farm Subsidies are a big part of this. Initially meant as "a temporary solution to deal with an emergency", the majority of these (still active and growing) subsidies go to
farmerscorporations with net worths of $2 million. That's not to mention the > $130 million spent on lobbying last year from these same companies, companies which already own many local representatives from Agricultural meccas in the mid-west.Despite the hard data representing the U.S.'s contribution to combat global hunger, Monsanto claims that feeding the rest of the world is America's "moral imperative", and not only in the interest of their bank accounts and stock options.
No aspect of factory farming is intended to be humane. The sole purpose is to be as cheap as legally possible, and where possible, change the laws. There's much more data and news articles regarding the scummy practices in local politics, in spraying feces-and-toxin coctails into the air because you can't legally keep it in pools (in some areas). I highly recommend you do some research and come to understand the true motivations of this industry.
I could go on, but others have done it much better. If anyone's interested in a non-preachy and fact-oriented account of a fantastic author researching what would be best to feed his child, I highly recommend Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Dreyfuss' Measure Of Man & Woman is the standard anthropometrics book in industrial design; it should give you all the specs you need for manual tools & controllers: https://www.amazon.com/Measure-Man-Woman-Factors-Design/dp/0471099554
That's the only book I really use, but it also might be useful to poke around on some physical therapy sites to get an idea of common hand injuries & the general anatomy, if you think the controller could cause any risk of a repetitive strain injury. IME physical therapists publish a ton of stuff online & generally have a lot of solid practical knowledge of what issues are most common.
Outside of that, we rely a lot on just model making & testing. Get a couple people with really big hands (usually ~95th men's percentile) & a couple with really small hands (usually ~5th P women's), make a stack of vaguely plausible prototypes, and have them tell you what works for them. I honestly sometimes start these by just squishing playdough around until it feels like it fits.
My reference at the time
Francis D.K. Ching's books are another reference, though more architecturally inclined.
A couple of texts:
Building Construction Illustrated
The Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling
Also check out the building code that governs residences in your area. For instance the International Residential Code has a handful of structural details that can form the basis of your own details.
I have compiled a reading list to be read in order just for this question.
I strongly believe that these books will make you better than 90% of designers out there.
Level One
Start with Thinking with Type it is a really good introduction to all things graphic design. It focuses a lot on typography and it is really basic. I
Next is Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type This book takes what you learned in Thinking with Type and allows you to develope it further in a grid based system. Its good, basic, and has exercises for you to do to play with composition.
Third on the list is Graphic Design: The New Basics It will take what you learned in Thinking with Type and Grid Systems and open them up a little. You learn about design elements other than just type like scale, rhythm and contrast. It really good, and has some projects to do.
Level 2
Now You can get into more "advanced" stuff. There are a lot of books that can go here, but Ill recommend some of my favorites. Its not as important to do this section in order.
Grid Systems in Graphic Design is the bible when it comes to grids. Its german and dry as fuck, but it is basically awesome. Its expensive, but worth every single penny.
Elements of Typographic Style Not alot about grids in here, but it tells you every insane crazy thing that typographers do when they massage text.
You can look at other designers work too. Heres a list of designers I like a lot:
Stefan Sagmeister
Paul Rand
Massimo Vignelli
James Victore
Paul Sahre
Wolfgang Weinhart
Paula Scher
Tibor Kalman
Most of these designers also have books out about their life and work.
Get a sketchbook and play around in it. Draw, collage, glue bubblegum wrappers in there. Just make it a diary of your visual life.
You could also get into Visual Theory here:
Norman Bryson has a book on still lifes that awesome
JWT Mitchell's What do pictures want is great
After this, its just a matter of making a lot of really bad shit and eventually its just a little less worse and maybe one day it might be good.
Ive got more, but that should keep you busy for a year or two.
Every time I read something like this, I think of this quote:
> “This isn't animal experimentation, where you an imagine some proportionate good at the other end of the suffering. This is what we feel like eating. Tell me something: Why is taste, the crudest of our sense, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other sense? If you stop and think about it, it's crazy. Why doesn't a horny person has as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it?"
Jonathan Safran Foer
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
> I guess what I'm trying to ask is, where should we draw the line?
I'm not a vegan (I am a vegetarian though so I guess I'm just a really bad vegan), but I typically dislike this line of inquiry on any subject. We're constantly drawing lines in life. While it's fair to ask where those lines should be drawn, I feel like more often than not this is a rhetorical tool to justify taking no action at all, rather than to really get a sense of where that line is.
I could apply this reasoning to anything - sure, I should recycle, but where do I draw the line? Should I reuse lightly soiled toilet paper? The fact is we don't have the time or the passion to go all-out in everything we do in life, but enough people taking the minimum effective action still adds up to a huge difference. A quote that's always resonated with me is from Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of Eating Animals. Someone posed the "Where do you draw the line?" argument to him in an interview, and he gave a pretty detailed answer, but the snippet that stuck with me was "We have such resistance to being hypocrites, that we would prefer to be fully ignorant and fully forgetful, all the time."
Hey, I'm not too sure how much I can help with the college choices, I come from a different country so I don't know enough about that, but I am big on learning things myself and if you'd like to strengthen your knowledge in graphic design, maybe even while studying, here are some awesome books to get yourself going in the right direction:
Meggs' History of graphic design: I love this book. before I bought it I found another on design as a whole but this is specifically related to graphic design. with a lot of briefs it helps to know what kind of association your font choice will create, and it's useful to look back at old graphic design to see if there's something you can re-purpose for your brief. if that's the case, this book is for you. Megg doesn't leave anything out too! it starts all the way back from the beginnings of written language!
The A - Z of Visual Ideas: How to Solve any Creative Brief: Imagery is almost as important to a brief as type. You'll need to be able to create something that grabs attention and gets a message across as quick as possible. If you're having trouble finding a way to express an idea, flip open this book and page through countless ways you could do it.
How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul: Work experience is the best kind of learning there is. and if you feel like you're lost when you begin, this book will be your faithful mentor. There's a lot about freelancing and starting your agency too, it's just invaluable all around.
The Principles of Beautiful Web Design: If you'd like to become a web designer, this is a good book to start with. I'm an experienced web designer so I find some of the points a bit obvious, but I found a lot to learn all the same.
I don't like to waste time when it comes to learning things through the books I've bought so I can tell you first hand that these books are absolutely useful and won't just waffle on about what successful agencies have done. I'd also like to let you know that one of the finest graphic designers my previous agency had was a guy who came straight from high school and just really loved doing graphic design. When he left, he left a huge space to fill. On the other hand, I've met designers with honours degrees who didn't stay for longer than a year. But get a degree if you can, it helps to get your foot in the door. Getting a masters is awesome, and if you went magna cum laude I'm sure you would knock it out the park :) you aren't over your head in the slightest.
The Measure of Man and Women is a very good reference, though the data may be outdated now. Link
H-Point is very good as well, although it focuses on cars and transportation Link
I'd recommend Donald Normans "The Design of Everyday Things" too, as it goes into the psychology of products and how we use them. Not ergonomics specifically, but very useful to learn about. Link
This is a pretty good one, as is this
Francis Ching has some good reference books for a starter: Building construction illustrated and Architecture: Form Space and Order. It might be a good idea to regularly visit sites like ArchDaily to see what contemporary architects are doing. If you want to start learning design programs, try downloading SketchUp or Rhino (both have free versions). Good luck!
Draw. Draw. Draw.
When you're tired of drawing, draw some more.
Focus on light and proportion. learn from the classics. learn about hierarchy. Visit buildings or even streets or neighborhoods that have some significance. Take a lot of pictures and then draw those pictures. Buy this book and draw the pictures and diagrams inside it.
Blogs are nice to help you build a vocabulary and to help you figure out what you like, but for now you should focus on only the greatest works by the greatest architects. The only modern architecture you need to look at is Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. Look at different scales of design. You might find yourself more interested in furniture design or interior design, or you could gravitate towards landscape architecture or urban design.
Also, do some research about the schools you are applying to. Are they focused on construction or design? Theory or built works? conceptual collage or technical drafting? is there a style that is preferred by the professors? Where I went to undergrad, Corb was the messiah and Gehry is the antichrist. Every school has a different pedagogy, and its important to find one that you can work with. You will spend many sleepless nights in studio so try to find the best fit for you.
Other than that, enjoy your freedom while you still have it! Good luck and have fun!
Ching's Form, Space and Order would be a fun introduction to the basics, particularly if you enjoy hand rendered illustrations.
I'm currently doing school for my 4th year in my apprenticeship. My professor has and highly recommends CNC machining handbook by Peter Smid. I'll find a link
CNC Programming Handbook https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0831133473/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_FN5MAb15GGWZ6
He says it explains CNC programming in an easy to understand manner. I kinda want it myself because I'm with you, g code is rough for me lol
If I had to choose one I would go with How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul. There is a lot of books on design theory but this one focuses on everyday problems of designers, wether you are student or creative director in your own agency, with very direct and specific answers and solutions.
There’s some decent sketchy / perspective books out there and some video and whatnot that have links on piniterest. Search and see what appeals to you and your needs.
I like this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Viz-Method-Visualization-Ideas/dp/159863268X/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Rapid+drawing&qid=1556261581&s=gateway&sr=8-2
Ultimately tho, I also prefer psd comps, so much more clear and I can use actual images of pieces I am buying. Learn how to do both design comps AND how to put a look together visual on a design board and you’ll be okay.
Buy this book.
The Grid is your life. It is your essence. If you'd like to learn more about ways to use it, definitely pick that book it. It's super helpful because it has great examples and it is very easy to understand.
I'll start off with some titles that might not be so apparent:
Unexpected Fundamentals
These 2 books provide much needed information about making reusable patterns and objects. These are life saving things! They are not language dependent. You need to know how to do these patterns, and it shouldn't be too hard to figure out how to implement them in your chosen language.
 
Good General book
 
This book is great if you're going to make a browser based game
 
General Knowledge books
 
Provide a working moveable 3D model with C++ and DirectX, Very cool.
 
More general game base building
 
Working product results books, little if any modification needed
Releasing in a couple months (hopefully) 2 Very good books using C++ to develop by.
 
Not presented in the best manner but still noteworthy:
 
I used to love XNA...but now it's not feasible for commercial development. If you're a beginner to game design...starting out with XNA might actually be useful. It's easy to pickup and put out a working product. XNA is C#
 
 
Working product books, modification needed to make run on current systems
Provides a working FPS game in C++ on DirectX 9. Good for some starting out knowledge for an FPS
 
Good for 3D Terrain rendering in DX9...however much of this is outdated...some concepts still apply, and it's not the worst idea to see a working example.
 
TLDR: Click links starting at top, buy, read, profit
Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field by Helen Armstrong
I had the same problem until I picked up a book on DirectX. The author did a little bit of hand waving, but most everything was explained from the ground up. It really, really helped solidify my understanding of how graphics applications are implemented.
I think it was this: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-3D-Game-Programming-DirectX/dp/1936420228
I'm sure there are other books that do well as well, but that particular book really made me get it.
Although I think it's unrealistic for most people to cut meat out of their diets, I do think it's important that the general population understands what factory farming entails. It's very difficult to find videos about farming that aren't sensationalized in some way, so take this with a grain of salt:
Inside Canada's Factory Farms
People who actually work on these type of farms, if there are inaccuracies in this video, I encourage you to reply and clarify.
A lot of people also praise the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
How do you feel having to do an IAMA up against this guy?
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_3
Since you said you're a meat lover, I'd encourage you not to rely on substitute meat (fake chicken, sausage, etc.). Even though some of them are good, chances are they're not going to live up to actual meat (at least not at first), you may get disappointed and then ultimately get discouraged and go back to eating meat.
Instead, I'd recommend a gradual process where you stop eating one type of meat at a time, starting with your least favorite and ending with your favorite. This will simultaneously encourage you to keep going (because it will be easier to stick to) and it will also slowly train your mind to start focusing your diet around other types of food! You may also start viewing meat in a different way, and may find that it's actually a little weird-feeling when you eat it.
I'd also recommend learning more about factory farming and where food comes from. I know many people recommend Eating Animals, by the author of Everything is Illuminated (great book). He wrote it when he was about to have a son and wanted to explore the farming business and decide how to raise his son (vegetarian or not). He's a fantastic storyteller, and you'll see it has some amazing reviews :)
Whatever path you take, I congratulate you for having a higher consciousness about your food! Best of luck!
What an amazing video! It's fascinating to see him think about it because he's purely speaking him mind - not worrying how what he says will be perceived by others, and how it fits in society and what not.
As someone else said, a lot of kids don't feel like they have an option, or are tricked into eating meat - and then when you're old enough to decide for yourself, it's a big thing like rejection religion - your whole family may not take it well.
It's great that she just listens to her kid and respects what he says, rather than forcing him to do things. Think kind of thinking should be nourished and sadly so often it's just shut down and the kid is told to go along with what "everyone" does.
I'd also like to plug Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Great book, and he's not preachy about it at all.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884/
The Bringhurst Bible
James Victore's book is amazing. It's a quick read but is packed with inspiration.
Envisioning Information is great for info design.
Megg's History of Graphic Design
The rest of these I haven't read yet, but here is a list of things I currently have on my amazon wish list:
Some People Can't Surf by Art Chantry
Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design by Jennifer Bass
Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut
Damn Good Advice by George Lois
How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy
How To Think Like A Great Graphic Designer by Debbie Millman
The Design of Dissent by Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic
Iron Fists: Branding the 20th Century Totalitarian State by Steven Heller
Firstly, drawing, Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop are just tools. Learn how to use them well but they are only tools. Design is more psychology than it is software expertise. Learning the tools is important of course, just don't confuse the two. Design is the "why" and "what" you are trying to communicate, the function. Art, illustration, type, etc is the "how" you create the form. Form follows function.
With that said. Keep drawing. Everyday. Look into illustration as an art discipline, it's very closely connected to graphic design as far as purpose and mindset. Far more so than traditional studio arts. (painting, sculpture, etc).
Learn typography. Really learn the difference between typeface and font and families. Learn why serifs work for body copy generally better than sans. Learning how to hand render type, and do it well, is an invaluable skill especially paired with illustration.
In my view these are essential to add to your reading list:
There are about a hundred others I could add. Look beyond "Best Design Of The Year" kinda crap and seek out critique and theory. These skills far outweigh the ability to look at what's popular and ape it.
Finally, remember that graphic design is communication above all else. Think about who you are trying to reach, what you are trying to say, and why you are trying to say it. Be true to yourself and your audience, and you will do good work.
Good luck!
Theory will fail you. Trust me. & Francis Ching is an illustrator. He is not a builder.
Here's what I did. I collected the Graphic Standards. There are 11 editions in all.
http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Graphic-Standards-11th-Edition/dp/0471700916
And then I carefully traced the changes in construction from one edition to the next on details that I thought were salient to my project. And for each project, regardless of whether a teacher wanted it or not, I put up a page of details. Because it is in the details that the construction reveals itself.
And after that you can start to go to the trades. Got precast in your project - go the the precast manufacturer association and look for details that would describe your solution.
Learn the details.
Your own theory will follow as a framework for your knowledge and for your values. In school, they'll teach it to you backwards. They'll take the theories of others who have gone through the process and give it to you fully baked, and without anything else, you'll end up knowing nothing.
Trust the Graphic Standards, even those from 1932. They have a ton to teach you.
Architectural Graphic Standards
Interaction Design
Interior Design
Landscape Architecture
Lighting Design
Product Design
Product Design
Sound Design
Urban Design
* Cities for People by Jan Gehl
Web Design
It looks like this picture has made its rounds again. I saw it in /r/interestingasfuck and /r/marijuanaenthusiasts -- and the first thing I always think when it comes up is that it reminds me of a plan graphic tree.
It always reminds me of the Grant Reid Landscape Graphics book.
Basically anything Copic for pens and color markers, Micron has great pens too. There's the ubiquitous Pentel sign pen, as well as Sharpies in a variety of point sizes. Staedtler makes great circle templates and pencil sets and you might want to consider some books such as the venerable Landscape Graphics and Drawing and Designing with Confidence. Oh, and tracing paper, lots of it.
[Building Codes Illustrated](Building Codes Illustrated: A Guide to Understanding the 2012 International Building Code https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470903570/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_cr46wbYAW1WCR) and [Building Construction Illustrated](Building Construction Illustrated https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118458346/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_au46wbHJM3Q9N) are good ones too.
edit: link
A personal favorite
I read a neat book not too long ago by Jonathan Safran Foer that talked about meat-eating as a cultural thing. It argued in part that one of the reason some people get so upset by others being vegan/vegetarian is that it is a deviation from the cultural standards they expect. It was a really good read on the topic.
Have you read the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer?
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Try
Buy
There is a book that goes against Pollan's views that I found interesting to read. The guy just brings up a few points throughout his book about why Pollan is right and wrong.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
I am downvoting you. Not because I'm a rabid vegetarian who hates meat eating and criticism, but because your statement is inaccurate. I do eat meat, but only that which is confirmed from sources where the animals are treated humanely (which in turns means less chemicals, hormones and antibiotics are in the meat, as less are needed to prevent the animal from dying). This is more expensive. It is a bit of an inconvenience (I can't buy it at the 24-hour Safeway). As a result, I eat less meat than I used to (a few times a week, but not every day).
however, it is so worth it. For my health but even more so, for the animals (and my conscience).
The standard meat chicken is bred to grow fast and have a large breast. The end result is a chicken that is so top heavy and fast-growing that its weak legs and bones cannot support its weight for very long. Instead, they spend hours sitting. Have you ever been near a chicken farm? You can smell them from far, far away. That smell is the ammonia from their sh*t. They sit in it, getting burns on their legs from their own sh-t, until they are killed. Next time you are in a grocery store, check the cheap chicken - sometimes you can see the burn marks on the plucked ones. The air would suffocate the chickens themselves if powerful fans were not always running. They sometimes get agitated in this environment, so they are kept in near darkness to keep them calm. "Free range" chickens have a small door somewhere where they can theoretically go out. The majority of chickens will never even get close to that door, and there isn't enough room for most of them out there if they could.
The slaughtering process is equally terrible, but others have done a better job than me describing it and I don't want this to become an essay, so please just click that link. Oh, and the same goes for Turkeys, only there they are bred so disproportionately that they cannot breed, so that is all done through a very fast and very rough insemination process.
So what about beef? All beef (except veal, which is raised in boxes) is free range. They are too big too keep in sheds. They are, however, kept in feed lots. A feed lot is a place where the cow sh-t is everywhere. This leads to unhealthy meat and co disease. It is small, with too many cows (sometimes up to 100,000) to keep the group from being anything but covered in it. The cows don't like this, they like to be cleaner, to have some room to move, to graze. The latter doesn't matter though because they are fed corn (and hormones to grow even faster). The cows grow faster that way and have fattier meat. They also have serious gastro-intestinal problems as their systems are made for grass, not corn. They get very serious, painful gas and stomach problems that are treated by forcing tubes down their throats to release gas, all without pain killers of course. The corn diet also removes a lot of the cows' abilities to shed bacteria themselves, making our meat unsafer. If the cows were allowed to eat grass for one week before slaughter, they would lose 85% of the e coli in their systems. but they aren't, its cheaper that way.
Slaughtering cows is also a real problem. By law they must be stunned first, but the rates at which they are killed are so fast, that frequent mistake occur and cows are skinned and butchered alive.
Pork is even worse, if that's possible. Similar issues exist when it comes to slaughtering pigs. They are crowded in very tight conditions, with so much manure that it become a toxic environmental hazard instead of the fertilizer that is would be in lower concentrations. The pigs themselves almost all suffer from respiratory problems from living in their filth, as do 60% of workers who spend only part of their day in the sheds.
As for the breeding sows, its worse again. "Modern breeding sows are treated like piglet making machines. Living a continuous cycle of impregnation and birth, the sows each have more than 20 piglets per year. After being impregnated, the sows are confined in small pens or metal gestation crates which are just 2 feet wide. At the end of their 4 month pregnancy, they are transferred to farrowing crates to give birth. The sows barely have room to stand up and lie down, and many suffer from sores on their shoulders. They are denied straw bedding and forced to stand and lie on hard floors. When asked about this, a pork industry representative wrote, "...straw is very expensive and there certainly would not be a supply of straw in the country to supply all the farrowing pens in the U.S." (source)
In slaughterhouses for all animal types, undercover videos show frequent abuse beyond the process. There are some studies linking daily participation in slaughter to desensitization to pain in others, as well as coverage of the difficult conditions in which workers must operate, but this is an additional problem.
That si a sleepy, hurt hand very abbreviated and oversimplified version. If you're intersted in learning more and makign an educated decision, {Eating Animals](http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/product-description/0316069884) is a good place to start. Well written, not too long or too preachy.
It is immoral to knowingly participate in this, not spoiled.
Welcome! I am so happy you made this decision!!!
If you're interested, do some reading up like Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals.
Browse blogs for recipes. My favorites are Oh She Glows and Post Punk Kitchen.
Enjoy the vegan life :D
What is your moral opposition to eating meat? I ask not in a defensive tone, because I too am a vegetarian (and I have been all my life). I think it should really just boil down to this: we pretty much know that animals are capable of feeling pain. This assumption is codified in laws regarding bestiality and animal cruelty. From a utilitarian perspective, disengaging from the meat-eating society allows you to engage in life in a way that more successfully limits the pain that living things experience on earth.
Another thing to consider is that the meat industry is one of the most environmentally unsound human endeavors ever conceived. The economic model for creating meat-based products is essentially "grow food, harvest that food, transport that food to the real food, have the real food eat the food we already grew, and then harvest the real food." Meat is needlessly expensive in a 21st century economy in which many people could be healthy with a vegetarian diet. This expense is far more than just in a monetary sense, it is a cost which resonates environmentally as well. Think about all the fuels used merely to transport grains or corn to the animals that will eat them. This kind of stuff adds up.
Someone else in these comments recommended that you should consult a nutritionist to see what kinds of things you would be lacking from giving up meat. I just want to let you know that everyone should consult nutritionists, and that people who don't eat meat really don't give up much. A common misconception about vegetarians is that they don't get enough protein. In reality, most meat-eaters are receiving an excess of protein (nothing harmful, but nothing necessary to their diet).
A final thought: I questioned my vegetarianism when I was about 15, as I had grown up with vegetarian parents and for a while it felt as if I was living under someone else's philosophy with no real thought of my own factoring in. I read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals during this time and it reassured me that vegetarianism wasn't just right, it was right for me. Do some reading before you reach a decision. You want this to be something that's truly yours.
Here is the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
I've read a lot of interviews from butchers that seem like they have to really disconnect from the animal to do their job. In most cases they will hide the animals face before killing it because it's the only way to deal with the guilt of being a literal murderer.
(The book I'm mainly referring to is "Eating Animals" by Johnathan Saffron Foer, which is also coming out as a movie this summer)
For more information on the animal products industry and advertising, check out Jonathan Foer's Eating Animals.
I haven't eaten chicken since reading it.
On typography:
On grids:
On colour:
On usability:
On information design:
On inspiration:
On theory:
On history:
Monographs:
Meggs' History of Graphic Design
Meggs History of Graphic Design is probably the go-to for that. It's not cheap, but it is a great resource for anyone trying to understand styles and why things are the way they are.
This seems to be a standard, and this is a great reference.
Hi, I am in school for graphic design at the moment as well. For me, the most important thing was/is taking time outside of the classroom to just work on your own projects and discover things about your own approach for your work.
One thing that really worked for me was reading about the history of graphic design. I felt as though I not only picked up on how styles developed, but it also just taught me "how to look" at the world and the visual communication that is all around us.
The book that really fascinated me and helped me understand the impact of what we do as visual communicators was this Philip Meggs' History of Graphic Design: https://www.amazon.com/Meggs-History-Graphic-Design-Philip/dp/0470168730
I go back to this book all the time as I think it's one of the most useful tools I have gained after I started doing graphic design.
Meggs' History of Graphic Design details the evolution of visual communication through the ages, starting with the birth of written language. An understanding and knowledge of the eras of graphic design and the forces/politics/people/movements that shaped it is a valuable asset. This makes a great reference book as well.
edit: typo
Meggs' History of Graphic Design
It has a very in-depth view of graphic design. It allows me to understand and reference different styles within my current designs.
Personal favorite for any stage of the design process: http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Francis-D-K-Ching/dp/0471752169/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1313740811&sr=8-3
For a first project, this looks really good. Others have said some of the stuff that I'm going to say, but there's a couple other comments I haven't seen others make.
First, learn how to export images. Every arch program I've used has the ability to do this and it makes things look much nicer than taking a picture of a screen, which leads me to...
Learn how to Google efficiently. If you don't know how to do something, think of what you're trying to do, take the keywords out of it ("I want to build a wall that is sloped outward in Google Sketchup" turns into "slope wall sketchup"). In high school, I ended up knowing the programs we used better than my teacher because of this. Now in college, I am one of 3 out of about 125 that everyone goes to for help with programs. About 50% of the stuff they ask I don't know, but I can Google it and find an answer in under a minute.
Now, for the design itself. It's important that every design decision you make, you ask "why?" If you cannot fully justify it, think of a couple alternatives, and choose the best option. Then at the very least your reason would be "I explored a few options and determined this was the best solution." Sure, some will be able to argue it, but you have a reason. Always try and push it though. For instance, why did you choose wood planks for part of your facade? Is it because it looks good or because you had a location in mind and it matches the style of that location?
Next, materiality on facades. My general rule of thumb I use is one main material, one accent material (larger amounts of glazing would count, simple windows like you have would not). When you start having more than that, it starts to look rather busy and can be distracting. But like in the last paragraph, try to have a reason for the material. Pick a location for the building, learn the style and material of the location, and design with that in mind.
Finally, it's never too early to start learning about how buildings are actually constructed. If you can, get access to books by Francis Ching. If they are available at your library, check them out. If not, they're relatively cheap ($20-$30 each iirc). Building Construction Illustrated, Architecture: Form, Space, and Order, and A Visual Dictionary of Architecture are three books I highly recommend to get started on. It will help you understand how buildings are actually put together (and provide tips like nominal construction so you aren't doing things like cutting a CMU in half so that it fits). I notice a few things (such as being able to see the outlines of your stairs from the outside) that you want to watch for so they don't show up. This can be solved by understanding where different elements stop, how they're connected to each other, etc.
So, like I said, this looks really good. Starting at 15 is awesome, I started when I was 16 and now I'm applying to some of the top grad schools in the US, so definitely keep at it! One last tip, if you haven't already, start sketching/drawing by hand. It's an invaluable skill to have and will help you immensely if you decide to study architecture. Even if it's drawing one object a day, just spend 10-15 minutes every day sketching things out. You'll be surprised how much you improve just from practice in even a month.
Very cool how much you want to support him.
The biggest misconception about the industry is probably how little math we actually use. There is of course a spectrum to our field that spans from sculptors and artists to programmers and engineers. By and large, however, we are visual people who hone our skills by practicing art. I was happily surprised in my first term of college to find out how much time we'd spend sketching and drafting. Hopefully that's appealing to him!
As far as what skills to learn: I took a CAD drafting class in high school that gave me a good head start in college. Sketchup is easy to pick up and I'd encourage him to get comfortable with Rhino to really be able to model digitally. I would not recommend Revit at this early stage as it's extremely technical. Physical modeling is also helpful. I grew up on Legos before moving to paper / cardstock / cardboard sketch modeling. Messy and fast and gives three-dimensional insight you can't get from a page or a screen, plus having the ability to make clean models is a great way to impress professors early on.
Regarding reading material. These books made an enormous impression on me:
I would highly recommend each and every one to him. All very approachable reading for a 14 year old already sketching commercial spaces.
And Bjark Ingel's Yes is More is a fun read in graphic novel form.
Lastly— reach out to your local AIA chapter. They can connect you and your brother with resources specific to your area including firms to check out / potentially shadow at, scholarships to apply for, and summer programs and other workshops to attend.
​
Best of luck to you both! It's quite a journey and a rewarding one if it fits.
I'm happy to talk more if you'd like to message me.
Frank Ching's Form, Space, and Order
EDIT: Added a link
I would have loved a set of Chartpak markers with a copy of Plan Graphics when i started. These arent completely necessary and her school will have books and materials they recommend/require of course
A nice powerful laptop is a must, but i imagine you have that planned already. There will be a variety of programs that she can get through her school with a discount. Photoshop and autocad are the basics and there will probably be a 3d program that is popular that she might want to get into.
I really think most of it will be up to her. One thing i wish i had planned for and done was a semester of study abroad or at least the "big trip" that most colleges do towards the end of their schooling. I didnt have the money for it, so saving up now might be a good idea.
The last one i can think of is also up to her, but i HIGHLY recommend it if she wants to be artsy at all. Its not necessary to know how to draw by hand, but if she does she will have a big advantage over most of the class. The lessons at drawabox.com (/r/ArtFundamentals) are free (or paid if you want reviews of your work) and they have made me much better at my job.
Peter Smid CNC Programming book
Further reading/research: (Not all of which I've gotten to read yet. Some of which may be quite tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand along with the books and sites I mentioned above. Consider this more a list of books pertaining to the history of technology, machining, metrology, some general science and good engineering texts.)
Dan Gelbart's Youtube Channel
Engineerguy's Youtube Channel
Nick Mueller's Youtube Channel
mrpete222/tubalcain's youtube channel
Tom Lipton (oxtools) Youtube Channel
Suburban Tool's Youtube Channel
NYCNC's Youtube Channel
Computer History Museum's Youtube Channel
History of Machine Tools, 1700-1910 by Steeds
Studies in the History of Machine Tools by Woodbury
A History of Machine Tools by Bradley
Tools for the Job: A History of Machine Tools to 1950 by The Science Museum
A History of Engineering Metrology by Hume
Tools and Machines by Barnard
The Testing of Machine Tools by Burley
Modern machine shop tools, their construction, operation and manipulation, including both hand and machine tools: a book of practical instruction by Humphrey & Dervoort
Machine-Shop Tools and Methods by Leonard
A Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement by Whitelaw
Handbook of Optical Metrology: Principles and Applications by Yoshizawa
Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Gray
Machine Shop Training Course Vol 1 & 2 by Jones
A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882-1982
Numerical Control: Making a New Technology by Reintjes
History of Strength of Materials by Timoshenko
Rust: The Longest War by Waldman
The Companion Reference Book on Dial and Test Indicators: Based on our popular website www.longislandindicator.com by Meyer
Optical Shop Testing by Malacara
Lost Moon: The Preilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell and Kruger
Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Johnson & Smith
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Rich & Janos
Unwritten Laws of Engineering by King
Advanced Machine Work by Smith
Accurate Tool Work by Goodrich
Optical Tooling, for Precise Manufacture and Alignment by Kissam
The Martian: A Novel by Weir
Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain by Young Budynas & Sadegh
Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby
Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer by Shute
Cosmos by Sagan
Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook by Smith Carol Smith wrote a number of other great books such as Engineer to Win.
Tool & Cutter Sharpening by Hall
Handbook of Machine Tool Analysis by Marinescu, Ispas & Boboc
The Intel Trinity by Malone
Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Thompson
A Handbook on Tool Room Grinding
Tolerance Design: A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications by Creveling
Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy
Precision Engineering by Evans
Procedures in Experimental Physics by Strong
Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870's by Dick
Flextures: Elements of Elastic Mechanisms by Smith
Precision Engineering by Venkatesh & Izman
Metal Cutting Theory and Practice by Stephenson & Agapiou
American Lathe Builders, 1810-1910 by Cope As mentioned in the above post, Kennth Cope did a series of books on early machine tool builders. This is one of them.
Shop Theory by Henry Ford Trade Shop
Learning the lost Art of Hand Scraping: From Eight Classic Machine Shop Textbooks A small collection of articles combined in one small book. Lindsay Publications was a smallish company that would collect, reprint or combine public domain source material related to machining and sell them at reasonable prices. They retired a few years ago and sold what rights and materials they had to another company.
How Round Is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by Bryant & Sangwin
Machining & CNC Technology by Fitzpatrick
CNC Programming Handbook by Smid
Machine Shop Practice Vol 1 & 2 by Moltrecht
The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles A fantastic book with tons of free online material, labs, and courses built around it. This book could take a 6th grader interested in learning, and teach them the fundamentals from scratch to design a basic computer processor and programming a simple OS etc.
Bosch Automotive Handbook by Bosch
Trajectory Planning for Automatic Machines and Robots by Biagiotti & Melchiorri
The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals by Zhu, Zienkiewicz and Taylor
Practical Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines by Brown & Sharpe
Grinding Technology by Krar & Oswold
Principles of Precision Engineering by Nakazawa & Takeguchi
Foundations of Ultra-Precision Mechanism Design by Smith
I.C.S. Reference Library, Volume 50: Working Chilled Iron, Planer Work, Shaper and Slotter Work, Drilling and Boring, Milling-Machine Work, Gear Calculations, Gear Cutting
I. C. S. Reference Library, Volume 51: Grinding, Bench, Vise, and Floor Work, Erecting, Shop Hints, Toolmaking, Gauges and Gauge Making, Dies and Die Making, Jigs and Jig Making
and many more ICS books on various engineering, technical and non-technical topics.
American Machinists' Handbook and Dictionary of Shop Terms: A Reference Book of Machine-Shop and Drawing-Room Data, Methods and Definitions, Seventh Edition by Colvin & Stanley
Modern Metal Cutting: A Practical Handbook by Sandvik
Mechanical Behavior of Materials by Dowling
Engineering Design by Dieter and Schmidt
[Creative Design of Products and Systems by Saeed]()
English and American Tool Builders by Roe
Machine Design by Norton
Control Systems by Nise
That doesn't include some random books I've found when traveling and visiting used book stores. :)
Francis Ching, Building Construction illustrated https://www.amazon.com/Building-Construction-Illustrated-Francis-Ching/dp/1118458346
Francis D. K. Ching books would be a place to start.
D.K. Ching Books
I would suggest: Building Construction Illustrated and Architecture: Form, Space, and Order
Then maybe some more of his books as you are interested.
There is also a series of HomeDepot books: Plumbing 1-2-3 Wiring 1-2-3 etc that have lots of basic info: 1-2-3 Series
Feel free to ask if you are looking for anything more specific.
Without seeing your work, one common thing about design is that we're always looking to create a flow and hierarchy of information so that the viewer can easily figure out what to do next, or pick out the information they need to move on to their next task (whatever that is).
It goes above aesthetics because we need design to do some work.
One of the best ways to help us organize all of that is by using grid systems. You'll find plenty of books on Amazon. Grid Systems in Graphic Design is one of the gold-standards, but it can be a bit pricy if you're still in school. I have Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Design on my bookshelf and it got the job done while I was learning about grids. It's a bit more budget-friendly as well.
Graphic design is everywhere and at all levels, expect to be paid accordingly. Understand too that $1000 for a logo is completely relative and doesn't by any means reflect the work that goes into it. You may have a someone who whips something together in a few minutes or have a team of designers slaving away iterating on an identity for weeks to make sure it's perfect, to make sure it becomes a household/highly recognizable piece of branding.
Now on the typography I can make a few suggestions, some of these are pretty dry and not so flashy but have very solid fundamentals in them. If you go to art school (and I highly suggest you do if you can afford it, it can be a phenomenal experience) then these are the kind of books you will be reading in the first year or two.
Typographic Systems of Design ~Kim Elam
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type ~Kim Elam
Thinking with Type ~Ellen Lupton
Elements of Typography ~Robert Bringhurst
Hope that was helpful and I'm sure lots of other people have had very different experiences and will share their stories and opinions. It's a very diverse field.
Give this a read. How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul
A good book to look into would be Rapid Viz. While having pretty sketches can be advantageous, the real point of sketches is to convey information and you don't need to be an artist to communicate effectively.
I will post some of my favorite books in a second for you as soon as my computer gets turned on. :)Here are a couple of my favorites from my school "Hey, I actually like these.. I'm going to purchase them!" collection.
General Graphic Design:
Graphic Design: The New Basics
This publication does a great job of showing "relationships between formal elements of two-dimensional design such as point, line, plane, scale, hierarchy, layers, and transparency." If you are looking for a general overview on a lot of subjects within graphic design I think this is a great way to upgrade your vocabulary and general knowledge about graphic design.
Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field
I feel like this book really can help you improve your vocabulary and general knowledge of the graphic design world offering "primary texts from the most important historical and contemporary designthinkers." It's also nice that it offers a bit of history too, analyzing the early 1900s through today.
Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
Great. Absolutely great publication for all designers showing effective use of the grid system and how to layout your compositions. "Effective layout is essential to communication and enables the end user to not only be drawn in with an innovative design but to digest information easily."
Typography: <3
30 Essential Typefaces for a Lifetime
I loooooove this book. It gives a bit of history and usage examples of 30 amazing typefaces you should know and love.
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, and Students
Another great typography book. This publication was one of my favorites because, at the end of the day, I'm a visual person and this book has SO many visual examples to compliment it's copy it's beautiful. "This revised edition includes ... the latest information on style sheets for print and the web, the use of ornaments and captions, lining and non-lining numerals, the use of small caps and enlarged capitals, as well as information on captions, font licensing, mixing typefaces, and hand lettering."
Typographic Systems of Design
This is a very good resource for learning, as the title states, typographic systems. It "explores eight major structural frameworks beyond the gridincluding random, radial, modular, and bilateralsystems." Overall, I feel like this book helped me to improve my positioning and creative use of type in designs.
DirectX samples in the SDK have some great examples of HLSL shaders. You would know this if you have already installed and setup Visual Studio for DX projects. This book by Frank Luna is great as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-3D-Game-Programming-DirectX/dp/1936420228/
Knowing when to use the GPU as apposed to the CPU ? The short answer is always. Why? CPU computations are expensive and limited. The real questions you'll need to ask yourself is when do I write a pixel, vertex or fragment shader? And that is situation specific and can be pipeline specific. Something you will spend a lot of time regressing on. My advice is don't get into DX or opengl programming first. Spend some time in an engine and see how they do things first. My suggestion is to use Unity and write some shaders yourself. Shader language is funny and hard to debug so pick up a copy of a CG language book and learn from there. Spend a lot of time in Maya and Photoshop seeing how different graphical acheivements have already been done. Then try to mimic them before diving into the algorithm. Understanding shaders is basically the same thing. Final piece of advice. If you can work in a higher level language than C++ do it. No sense worrying about pointers when you can just use something like C# Java or even get away from types and just use something like javascript or python.
The Practice of Programming is a good one.
If you want something different try The Design of Everyday Things
Look up The Design of Everyday Things and Don't Make Me Think.
The first book is mostly about physical objects, and the second book is mostly about websites, but both cover UX fundamentals, and they're basically the essential UX books. That knowledge can pretty easily be applied to games.
Beyond that, the other important thing is just to run your game through testing sessions. Ideally, get someone who hasn't touched your game before, and watch them play it. For best results, record the entire play session on camera, and in game, and watch what they're doing in real life and in game. Recording all of that can be tough, and possibly expensive if you're paying your testers, but you might be able to find a local gamedev group and bring your game there.
Talk to a lawyer, then an accountant, in that order. Don't take advice about starting a business from the internet. I would also recommend getting the book How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, as it has good advice about getting started on the path you are talking about.
On a more practical note, if you are actually turning down work on a regular basis, then you are ready to get started with freelance. Otherwise you may not be able to cover your overhead. Good luck man!
Within Australia, budgets for design are closely linked to advertising spend. This means that economic downturns results in downturns for design and vice versa.
Growth has been pretty consistent over a long enough period of time, IBIS World indicates an annual average of 5.36% between 1995 and 2008. The total number of designers in the marketplace has definitely exceeded that rate of growth however, so yes, you are in an over saturated market. Like others have made clear however, focus on your skills and pay attention to trends and you are maximising your chances of weathering it.
The key word you used is 'professional' - you'd be surprised how many people from supposedly top quality insitutions don't conduct themselves professionally.
Have you read How to be a Graphic Designer without losing your soul?
From what you wrote in your post, it seems that you are interested in the actual nitty gritty relating to graphics. For that, Game Engine Architecture is a much more suitable book compared to Game Coding Complete. However, if you are really interested in graphics and stuff like DirectX, I'd highly recommend getting a book like Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 11: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-3D-Game-Programming-DirectX/dp/1936420228
I personally read the DirectX 12 book, but for newbies to graphics programming, DirectX 11 is much much easier to grasp. There are similar books for OpenGL, but imo you'd be better off learning DirectX 11 because it's a lot more modern.
A list of some of my favorites so far..
Interactions of Color by Josef Albers
[The Elements of Typographic Style] (https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Version-Anniversary/dp/0881792128/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1485894924&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=typography+book) by Robert Bringhurst
[Don't Make Me Think] (https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability-ebook/dp/B00HJUBRPG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1485895055&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=dont+make+me+think) by Steve Krug (More of web design, but I loved the book. It can apply to all design.)
Logo Design Love by David Airey
Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
These are just a few that I have really enjoyed.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ChiliTomatoNoodle/playlists
That guys youtube channel has DirectX 11 C++ tutorials. He has a beginner series, intermediate, and advanced. He still adds to the advanced occasionally, like SSE explanations and so on.
His videos are long, you really get to know him and his personality. His beginner videos teach you C++ too, he doesn't expect you to know anything going in. He swears fairly often, I thought it was funny back in high school when I watched these, but others might not.
These videos are where I started from in the very beginning, and I wouldn't be where I am programming wise if it weren't for Chilli. He has allowed me to educate myself on my own time, for free. After I had done the beginner and intermediate tutorials I went and read this.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-3D-Game-Programming-DirectX/dp/1936420228
That will teach you the basics of 3D Programming.
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Rendering-Computation-Direct3D-11/dp/1568817207
And that will teach you how to really understand the pipeline. Both books have their merits and both have very useful information for someone learning all this stuff. I'm currently making my own 3d game engine at the moment, so that's what understanding the information above can do for you. Takes time, though.
I can give you a book recommendation. Although not the newest book around, I still think it explains very understandable probably most of the topics you are interested in. You can follow the books line or you can just look up things.
have fun
Game Engine:
Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory, best you can get.
Game Coding Complete by Mike McShaffry. The book goes over the whole of making a game from start to finish, so it's a great way to learn the interaction the engine has with the gameplay code. Though, I admit I also am not a particular fan of his coding style, but have found ways around it. The boost library adds some complexity that makes the code more terse. The 4th edition made a point of not using it after many met with some difficulty with it in the 3rd edition. The book also uses DXUT to abstract the DirectX functionality necessary to render things on screen. Although that is one approach, I found that getting DXUT set up properly can be somewhat of a pain, and the abstraction hides really interesting details about the whole task of 3D rendering. You have a strong background in graphics, so you will probably be better served by more direct access to the DirectX API calls. This leads into my suggestion for Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX10 (or DirectX11).
C++:
C++ Pocket Reference by Kyle Loudon
I remember reading that it takes years if not decades to become a master at C++. You have a lot of C++ experience, so you might be better served by a small reference book than a large textbook. I like having this around to reference the features that I use less often. Example:
namespace
{
//code here
}
is an unnamed namespace, which is a preferred method for declaring functions or variables with file scope. You don't see this too often in sample textbook code, but it will crop up from time to time in samples from other programmers on the web. It's $10 or so, and I find it faster and handier than standard online documentation.
Math:
You have a solid graphics background, but just in case you need good references for math:
3D Math Primer
Mathematics for 3D Game Programming
Also, really advanced lighting techniques stretch into the field of Multivariate Calculus. Calculus: Early Transcendentals Chapters >= 11 fall in that field.
Rendering:
Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX10 by Frank. D. Luna.
You should probably get the DirectX11 version when it is available, not because it's newer, not because DirectX10 is obsolete (it's not yet), but because the new DirectX11 book has a chapter on animation. The directX 10 book sorely lacks it. But your solid graphics background may make this obsolete for you.
3D Game Engine Architecture (with Wild Magic) by David H. Eberly is a good book with a lot of parallels to Game Engine Architecture, but focuses much more on the 3D rendering portion of the engine, so you get a better depth of knowledge for rendering in the context of a game engine. I haven't had a chance to read much of this one, so I can't be sure of how useful it is just yet. I also haven't had the pleasure of obtaining its sister book 3D Game Engine Design.
Given your strong graphics background, you will probably want to go past the basics and get to the really nifty stuff. Real-Time Rendering, Third Edition by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines, Naty Hoffman is a good book of the more advanced techniques, so you might look there for material to push your graphics knowledge boundaries.
Software Engineering:
I don't have a good book to suggest for this topic, so hopefully another redditor will follow up on this.
If you haven't already, be sure to read about software engineering. It teaches you how to design a process for development, the stages involved, effective methodologies for making and tracking progress, and all sorts of information on things that make programming and software development easier. Not all of it will be useful if you are a one man team, because software engineering is a discipline created around teams, but much of it still applies and will help you stay on track, know when you've been derailed, and help you make decisions that get you back on. Also, patterns. Patterns are great.
Note: I would not suggest Software Engineering for Game Developers. It's an ok book, but I've seen better, the structure doesn't seem to flow well (for me at least), and it seems to be missing some important topics, like user stories, Rational Unified Process, or Feature-Driven Development (I think Mojang does this, but I don't know for sure). Maybe those topics aren't very important for game development directly, but I've always found user stories to be useful.
Software Engineering in general will prove to be a useful field when you are developing your engine, and even more so if you have a team. Take a look at This article to get small taste of what Software Engineering is about.
Why so many books?
Game Engines are a collection of different systems and subsystems used in making games. Each system has its own background, perspective, concepts, and can be referred to from multiple angles. I like Game Engine Architecture's structure for showing an engine as a whole. Luna's DirectX10 book has a better Timer class. The DirectX book also has better explanations of the low-level rendering processes than Coding Complete or Engine Architecture. Engine Architecture and Game Coding Complete touch on Software Engineering, but not in great depth, which is important for team development. So I find that Game Coding Complete and Game Engine Architecture are your go to books, but in some cases only provide a surface layer understanding of some system, which isn't enough to implement your own engine on. The other books are listed here because I feel they provide a valuable supplement and more in depth explanations that will be useful when developing your engine.
tldr: What Valken and SpooderW said.
On the topic of XNA, anyone know a good XNA book? I have XNA Unleashed 3.0, but it's somewhat out of date to the new XNA 4.0. The best looking up-to-date one seems to be Learning XNA 4.0: Game Development for the PC, Xbox 360, and Windows Phone 7 . I have the 3.0 version of this book, and it's well done.
*****
Source: Doing an Independent Study in Game Engine Development. I asked this same question months ago, did my research, got most of the books listed here, and omitted ones that didn't have much usefulness. Thought I would share my research, hope you find it useful.
You might wanna check out Frank Luna's "Introduction to 3D Game Programming with Directx #" books. The older ones are probably cheap used. The most recent one was released today it seems. amazon link
There is always a lot of ways to get involved. Nobody can hold you back from being successful but yourself. If you have the drive to get involved, you can succeed, regardless of your 'inate programming intelligence'.
Check out gamedev.stackexchange.com. Can you answer the questions people have there? If not, figure out why! Read the answers they get, and learn that stuff. Someday, you'll be able to answer that for somebody else.
Try making some games, too. Start with simple stuff, in whatever language you know (but I always like to recommend C++). Then work your way up. Hangman, Pong, Asteroids, Pacman, Tetris. You can write all of these by yourself, and you can expand on them to make them cool. I wrote a bot that plays Bejeweled 3 that I still use on my resume, because it's cool!
Want to learn some graphics stuff? Check out this opengl tutorial. Need to understand these topics better? Buy some books! I'd recommend Pracitcal Linear Algebra: A Geometry Toolbox, and Frank Luna's DirectX books.
I'd type more but I'm sort of tired. Please feel free to send me a PM if you're interested in more references that could be helpful to you.
Rapid Viz was really helpful for me. It doesn't take as long as you might think to get better at sketching.
http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Viz-Method-Visualitzation-Ideas/dp/159863268X/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
This is a great book
It's got everything as far as "the stuff that doesn't change" goes
my deisgn history's textbook is ths one, basically it's a big collection of essays from FT Maranetti to some present day designers, quite good.
/u/LeadGenDairy:
> GO TO SCHOOL
This is good advice. Before I did some career counseling to figure out what to do with my life, I didn't know industrial design was even a thing. (I figured you needed a degree in engineering to do that sort of thing, but learned that it's common for a company to employ engineers who figure out how to make the thing work as well as designers to determine how it should work and, moreover, how it should look.) Once I realized that ID was definitely what I wanted to do, I looked up programs in my city, and found a good one. It was at an art school. I decided to apply.
"Apply with a short statement and a portfolio of 10-15 images of your recent work."
Welp.
I had never even taken an art class. I had no recent work. I had no "work" at all. So I made some. It took a few months, and I had some late nights, but by the application deadline, I had 12 pieces, including a few pretty solid drawings and some screenprints that started out in Illustrator. Got in, and got my degree.
If you're looking to learn drawing skills good enough to get into school, get a good book - I recommend Sketching: drawing techniques for product designers and Rapid Viz - and practice the techniques therein. You can also find a lot of tutorials online for programs like Illustrator, Photoshop, SketchUp, and Rhino if you're interested in building those skills too (and can get your hands on the software).
If your background is in CS, you probably have a good bit of experience coming up with weird creative workarounds for tough problems. This kind of problem-solving comes in very handy in ID. I wish you the best of luck!
One of my all time favorites.
http://www.amazon.com/Hand-Job-Catalog-Michael-Perry/dp/1568986262
Sometimes the idea might lie within the small details. So make an exact copy of a work that you like. In this way you'll inspect every single detail of the work. That'll provide you ;
And read books. Please read. Lots. Of. Books. It doesn't matter if it's about graphic design or not. Just read. READ A LOT.
I can suggest a nice (and realistic) book for start creating your library. Since you're fresh in design it'll be a nice guide for you.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Graphic-Designer-Without-Losing-Your/dp/1856697096/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373440424&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=how+to+be+a+graphic+designer+without+losing+your+soul
These are all really great books:
Grid Systems in Graphic Design
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type
Thinking With Type
Meggs' History of Graphic Design
Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits
Don't Make Me Think
The Design of Everyday Things
How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul
I read Eating Animals about a month ago. Really awesome and eye opening, even after having been vegan for a while
The only book I've read on the issue is Eating Animals, but I don't remember the ratio of facts vs storytelling.
I mostly read up on these issues online, on different animal rights sites. As long as they provide the sources to their claims, it doesn't have to be a (big) problem that the site has an agenda of its own. I think Vegan Outreach has some good info, and they have good advice regarding how to present the knowledge you have too. (How to be an effective animal advocate.)
As for the "humane meat" part, you might want to listen to someone like Gary Franscione to get some idea of what the philosophical arguments are: Do we have to find instances of suffering on "humane farms" to say that they are indeed not humane? Or is it sufficient to point that the animals are all eventually sent to slaughter? (Ie. isn't it immoral and inhumane to kill someone, ending their lives against their own will, regardless of how good their lives was up until that point?)
eating animals by jonathan safran foer
OK, so I want to preface this by saying that I'm not an expert. I'm also not a vegetarian. However, I did just this morning finish reading this book to see if it would change my view on meat, and it did. There are some flaws with it, but it was still enough that I'm going to try to avoid factory-farmed meat from now on.
>Do pigs at the slaughterhouse know what's going on?
So to answer your question...in THEORY, no, they don't. Most slaughterhouses have the live pigs outside and they get let in one by one through a non-transparent door, beyond which they are stunned and then killed.
In REALITY, however, it's not at all uncommon for this process to work imperfectly. The pigs are not always stunned effectively or killed quickly. Just this morning at the end of the book I was reading interviews with slaughterhouse workers and one talked about his time working as the guy who killed the pigs, and how many of them were conscious when he killed them, or in some cases mutilated and then killed them by doing things like ripping out an eye or cutting off their nose. At this point they're obviously inside a slaughterhouse and the smell of pig blood is all around, so yes some of them definitely do know what's up.
>Has there been any reports of sows somehow seeking to sacrifice themselves, being first in line, to save their young?
Heh...no, but not for the reason you think. Most factory-farmed animals have been very genetically fucked with, and in some cases they're literally not even capable of reproduction (this is true of most factory-farmed turkeys, i.e. 100% of the turkey you eat, for example). I think it's less true of pigs, but pigs - like most animals - are still slaughtered quite young (usually around 6 months) because that's the way it's most profitable. For that reason, the pigs we eat don't get to do things like "have offspring."
The offspring are produced by specific breeding sows, which spend most of their lives in gestation crates like this. These pigs do get to live a lot longer, but they only keep their "young" for around 20 days of nursing before the piglets are taken away and it's back to the gestation crate for the next artificial insemination and pregnancy.
So, no, there are no reports of sows cutting the line to try to save their young.
>whether or not I should think twice before having that delicious BBQ pork.
You absolutely should. That doesn't mean don't eat pork, as there ARE some places that do things more ethically, letting the pigs outside to walk around and stuff (for example). But they are few and far between, and they take work to find (and of course the meat costs more). If you're buying the grocery store stuff, there's pretty much a 100% chance that your meat was factory farmed, which means you're eating a sixth-month-old fattened up, genetically altered pig that's been pumped full of antibiotics to compensate for the fact that it has spent its entire life inside a giant, shit-covered warehouse. It almost certainly lived a short and fairly nightmarish life, and its death may or may not have been quick and painless, depending on how lucky it got at the slaughterhouse.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
The internet is a very good place to go for people who are very worried about what other people believe. It's not so good at changing anyone's behavior, since you can't observe others' behavior through a computer. But you sure can tell people they are wrong and demand that they agree.
That means that the vegans you're encountering online aren't representative of all vegans. They're just the vegans who are very worried about what they and other people believe. By definition, that's not going to be a very humble subset of vegans.
Most vegans change other people's minds far away from the internet. They do it by simply purchasing, preparing, and eating vegan food, and when asked why they eat that way, explaining their position simply and without judgement.
> I also can't mention to anyone I know that I'm eating vegan because of the obvious social consequences.
I don't know if that's true. I don't think many people experience social consequences for their diet alone. Here's what I do if I don't want to talk about my reasons for being vegetarian, but someone asks me. I say, "Oh, you know--the usual reasons." If they press, I say, "Animal rights, environmental impact, that kind of thing." And I always go out of my way to explain that I "just ate less meat" for a while before becoming a full vegetarian. And also make sure I compliment others' omnivorous meals so people know I'm not judging anything as personal as their diet.
There's a wonderful book called Eating Animals whose author, I think, takes a very reasonable and humble approach to the ethics of eating meat.
Not OP, but I can tell you that all of those dishes are super easy to "veganify." Start buying different veggie burger patties, check out Beyond Meat products (they make burgers, ground beef, and chicken type meat currently - honestly I've been meat free for so long that it's all a little too meaty for me, but I wish the Beyond brand had been available when I first stopped eating meat). There are a ton of other veggie patties out there. Check out your nearest vegan restaurant if there are any around you. If you're a milk drinker, I honestly prefer plant-based milk, pea milk, oat milk, almond, flax, soy... all so good. When my husband first went vegan we went and bought a whole bunch of different plant-based kinds of milk to do a taste test b/c he's very picky about the creamer in his coffee. He ended up choosing the pea milk - it's got a good creamy feel to it in coffee. Chao Cheese is delicious (a lot of vegan cheeses aren't so great but that one is).
Easy snacks: almond butter and banana, or avocado and hummus sandwiches, soup and bread is easy, something about coconut oil on toast tastes EXACTLY like butter to me, but there are vegan butters available that mimic the real thing very well also... there's a lot of vegan junk food out there like chips, Oreos, cookies, and ice-cream too to get that fix. Ben and Jerry's dairy-free ice cream is unreal. I didn't even know it was vegan when I used to eat it as a vegetarian.
Vegan cooking blogs:
[Minimalist Baker] (https://minimalistbaker.com/) - she has a good shepherds pie.
[Hot for Food] (https://www.hotforfoodblog.com/welcome) has a lot of good comfort food
[Thug Kitchen] (https://www.thugkitchen.com/)
[Here's a list of the Top 50 vegan food blogs] (https://www.culinarynutrition.com/top-50-vegan-blogs/)
Reading ["Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer] (https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884) was really instrumental in helping me make the shift as well. Foer is a fiction author who went vegan irl and the book is autobiographical of his decision making, so it's very approachable and not guilt-trippy at all.
Welcome to the right side of history! Also, I didn't feel different at all going from meat-eater to vegetarian, when I went from vegetarian to vegan, however, I felt a world of difference in terms of improved mood and energy and getting to poop like three times a day ha.
And, like someone else said, you don't have to do it all at once. Maybe try cutting out one animal group at a time. If I had to do it over, I would start with dairy, then chicken, fish, pork, beef... Dairy is really just awful in terms of cruelty and health impact.
Okay now I'm rambling. Take care!
Edit: formatting wall of text.
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer might interest you. Almost seven years old now, but still interesting.
Maybe you would like something written by the animal rights philosopher Tom Regan. His Empty Cages are a great read, and he has written a very readable introduction to moral philosophy on ~150 pages: Animal Rights, Human Wrongs
Welcome and congrats on your decision!
Here are my tips on getting started:
There is a great plant-based diet you might be interested in, it's called "The Starch Solution by Dr. McDougall":
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/shopping/books/starch-solution/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_7rrkG3xYk
1.1) Learning new recipes
It takes a few weeks to learn new recipes and get to know new products.
Also, there is quite a bit of misinformation in the area of nutrition.
It will take a while until you see "through the fog". Just hang in there :)
http://www.chooseveg.com/switchnditch (get their free guide on the homepage!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmnPM6QzDTw
https://www.youtube.com/user/thevegancorner
https://www.youtube.com/user/hotforfoodblog
veg restaurants: http://www.happycow.net
1.2) Doing your research (health, ethics, environment)
No worries, 3 documentaries and books and you are fine :)
http://www.forksoverknives.com/the-film/
http://www.cowspiracy.com/
http://www.nationearth.com/earthlings-1/ (graphic)
Watch these with your husband, if possible, so that he is part of your journey and understands the basics.
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/shopping/books/starch-solution/
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Dogs-Pigs-Wear-Cows/dp/1573245054/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1457183607&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=why+we+love+dogs+eat+pigs+and+wear+cows
Also has a great TEDx talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0VrZPBskpg
(I am not affiliated with amazon, btw)
2) Really, no need to worry about protein
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/natural-health/vegan-sources-of-protein/
http://www.forksoverknives.com/slaying-protein-myth/
http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/protein/
You can enter your meals into http://www.cronometer.com just to be safe.
And finally some basic help on getting started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2k4NHjAP84
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htf5eCgyt5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o9uzH_vrXA
That will keep you busy for a month or two, but it will also get you over the hump :)
Let me know if you got any questions or need help.
Good luck!
the book is great as well! you might check out his other book eating animals which explains why he doesnt.
There's an excellent chapter in Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals that's all about fish and other seafood.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0316069884/
Start here: http://www.amazon.com/Meggs-History-Graphic-Design-Philip/dp/0470168730
Uncategorized:
Thoughts On Design: Paul Rand
Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design
How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul
100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design
Paul Rand
Paul Rand: Conversations with Students
Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design
Bauhaus
The Vignelli Canon
Vignelli From A to Z
Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible
It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book
Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)
Josef Muller-Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design
Popular Lies About Graphic Design
100 Ideas that Changed Art
100 Diagrams That Changed the World
Basics Design 08: Design Thinking
Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965
Lella and Massimo Vignelli (Design is One)
The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice
History of the Poster
How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer
The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics
George Lois: On His Creation of the Big Idea
Milton Glaser: Graphic Design
Sagmeister: Made You Look
Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?
Things I have learned in my life so far
Covering the '60s: George Lois, the Esquire Era
Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
[Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration]
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812993012/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&amp;colid=VEJ64Y4T0U6J&amp;coliid=I1WMMNNLTRBQ9G)
Graphic Design Thinking (Design Briefs)
I Used to Be a Design Student: 50 Graphic Designers Then and Now
The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design
Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills
Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference
Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
The elements of dynamic symmetry
The elements of content strategy
Corporate Diversity: Swiss graphic design and advertising
Book Design: a comprehensive guide
Meggs' History of Graphic Design
I seem to get asked this a lot, but here is my list, posted here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/graphic_design/comments/1uq58s/good_graphic_design_books_for_a_beginner/ceklj3y
> These are all books that I absolutly love, and bought for either personal use or to accompany different courses while I was getting my BFA in GD. I have seen some of them both are brick and mortar book stores, and college book stores. If you get a chance to see them in person before buying, leaf through them to get a feel.
>
> Megg's History of Graphic Design, absolutely essential to understanding where graphic design comes from historically. IMO the best GD history book on the market, at least the most encompassing. One of my favorites, was very helpful writing different papers and researching historical styles.
>
> Graphic Design School. Another great book, focuses more on design process and stuff like that. This one more walks you though being a designer. Gives tutorials on different things too, which is useful.
>
> Graphic Design Referenced is a really great book that is a bit of a hybrid. This book describes a lot of design terms, styles, and general knowledge while referring to historical and modern examples.
>
> Those three for me are really essential books for new graphic designers, I learned more from those three than I can express. Below are a few more books I really like, but might be a bit more advanced than someone just getting started might want.
>
> Another book I have used a lot, and almost included with those three is above. Thinking with Type. Really great intro into typography.
>
> More advanced even.
>
> How to be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul
>
> A Graphic Design Student's Guide to Freelance
>
> Hope this helps!
>
Keep in mind this is just a starting point. There are tons upon tons of inspiration books out there for graphic design stuff, not to mention educational books on all sorts of specialties. I love graphic design books, the hard physical copy of them. When I'm stuck on a project I like to flip through them, read a bit, and then revisit my work again.
Here are the books currently in my amazon wishlist, so I can't vouch for them, but I do plan on eventually owning them.
Wish List:
Graphic design can be about communicating an idea, a message, a feeling. You don't need fancy tools/software to be a designer. You just need to have a message and a way to execute it... with whatever tools you have at your disposal. It's a hefty investment to get the adobe programs so I suggest starting off-screen. Maybe even reading about design history, ex: Meggs history of graphic design or looking at current, contemporary designers could spark some inspiration.
For schools- Capilano University's IDEA program is pretty reputable within the industry. It recently became a 4-year degree program, and it offers a really great curriculum with a good balance of theory and application.
But, I'm also really pro self-teaching! If you don't have it already, I think Megg's History of Graphic Design would be a great book for you to study.
Also, you can get a free lynda.com membership via a lot of public libraries, so I'd look into that too. I find Skillshare more fun because you're encouraged to complete a project for every course, but Lynda has been around a while already and has a huge library of courses that may interest you. :)
Meggs' History of Graphic Design is a really good place to start.
also study typography. Learn the difference between serif, sans-serif, display fonts and how to use and combine them appropriately.
Stay away from software-specific tutorials. Learn the basic principals of design (layout, grid principals, color, proportion, negative space, etc.) before you get into software and you'll be way ahead of the game...
Design Drawing by Francis Ching
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Drawing-Francis-D-Ching/dp/0470533692
He covers perspectives and a host of other architectural drawing types, as well as things like line weight, tone and shading.
Also Architectural Graphics also by Ching.
http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Graphics-Francis-D-Ching/dp/0470399112/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z
This is considered the Bible of architectural graphics and I'm pretty sure it's been a required textbook in most Schools of Architecture since the 1940's.
This might be a good resource.
This is Bill Hammock's channel but it's missing a lot of videos. He had a bunch when he worked in some kind of office.
Someone else uploaded a mirror of it. He has some humor in the older ones.
I've looked for the book he references as well--The Measure of Man: Human Factors in Design by Henry Dreyfuss--it's expensive. There is a revised edition if you're actually curious about the measurements.
I like these books as a starting off point.
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton
The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
The Language of Graphic Design by Richard Poulin
Megg's History of Graphic Design
To be good at design in general, there's a few things you need to know.
Basically, there is no shortcut. You need to study the history and understand why things work or don't. A bit of psychology never hurt anyone either, even just a 101 class should be enough to get you started. Lastly, just remember this one thing, it will be the most important part in your career...CONCEPT IS KING. I cannot stress this enough, make sure everything you do has a big idea behind it. Something that lets you organize everything under it. I don't care how much UX/UI thought you have, how many ad units and SEO whatevers you did, without a great idea, its total shit and just fluff.
I would suggest Graphic Design Refrenced and Meggs History of Graphic Design
I've taken several typography classes and I have a core group of books that I constantly turn back to for information. I'm a total typo-file and I've read a lots on the topic, but these are my favorites:
Tips on working with type
A good book on just some basics and a little history of typefaces
If you're interested in learning a little history
More history
The first book I mentioned is a really good resource. Sometimes it's easy to make type look too fancy, but it's important to remember that it doesn't always have to do all the talking. Sometimes it's the main dish, sometimes it's a spice added to the whole.
As far as the color theory goes, I don't have much to contribute. Figured it'd be best to just share what I'm familiar with.
Happy designing!
Oh sorry. My bad. Muller-Brockmann is a legend. I haven't read his book. Is it any good?
I suggested Alan Fletcher's "The Art of Looking Sideways". It's good for replenishing the creative juices. Also, "False Flat" by Aaron Betsky is awesome. And you can't go wrong with Phillip "Meggs' History of Graphic Design". Far too many people don't have that book.
EDIT: I haven't read Muller-Brockmann's book but I imagine it's a great take on the modernist/rationalist grid. Though, times are a-changin' my friend. If you look at the top design programs out there, say Yale MFA Graphic Design, Werkplaats or KABK for example, things aren't exactly the way they used to be. The only name we have for what's happening right now is Contemporary Graphic Design. I love it. It's an amazing time to be practicing Graphic Design. Though most web design doesn't even come close to interesting, unfortunately.
I think you are looking for Architectural Graphic Standards
There is also an online resource
Plus if you are interested in all aspects of design, consider the 99% Invisible podcast
I don't have too much experience with Landscape Architecture besides about 6 months interning at a firm, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Books, I honestly don't know "the best"
I did however read these 3
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Elements-Landscape-Architectural-Design/dp/0881334782
http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Landscape-Architecture-01-Design/dp/2940411123
http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Landscape-Architecture-02-Ecological/dp/2940411441/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
They should get you started on Landscape stuff
For general architecture knowledge (if you don't get the other 3 get this one....if you do get the other 3, then get this one too)
http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Francis-D-K-Ching/dp/0471752169/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2
Tips for the first day.
same with any job, do what needs to be done and try to look happy doing it
In addition to tamupino's suggestions, check out Form Space and Order.
I got a copy second-hand through Amazon for $5 a few years ago... Not sure why the prices are so high right now, but check back in the spring when all the architecture kids are selling their books off.
It touches a bit on passive solar design, and general forms, spaces and orders, as I am sure you can garner from the title.
Architecture isn't a very textbook-y kind of field, so there aren't really many authoritative books that are universally used by everyone (other than the IBC).
Francis D. K. Ching is really the only exception to this rule as most schools seem to have incorporated at least one of his books into their curriculum. I would highly recommend the following:
Form Space and Order is a great introductory text that will introduce aspiring architects to some of the basic concepts of architecture.
Building Codes Illustrated relays code information graphically, making it easier to understand. It is not a replacement for the actual code, but it will at least give you an idea of what to look for.
Building Construction Illustrated is arguably the most useful of the three. I continue to refer back to this book even today and I'm not even in school anymore.
Frank Ching's Architecture: Form, Space & Order is a good primer for architectural principles. It might be a little mature for an 11 year old, but it's got a lot of interesting drawings that explain design concepts.
EDIT: it's a bit old: the back cover on the "Look Inside!" preview says "Now with a CD-ROM", haha
These two books were heavily used at my college. They're pretty useful, specifically for architectural work. They're geared towards creating your own designs, which I would encourage you to try.
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Drawing-Francis-D-Ching/dp/0471286540
http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Francis-D-K-Ching/dp/0471752169
If you want to learn some of the more technical aspects, particularly perspective drawing, I would recommend taking a course from a local college. It can help you to start off on the right foot. Also, try doing some copy drawings of other artists work, and incorporate elements of their style that you enjoy.
that second one was supposed to be:
http://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Francis-D-Ching-Advisor/dp/0471752169/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1290481938&amp;sr=8-1
my bad!
you have a good start and it's always fun to sketch by hand and figure out how space works.
I know a lot of people here have said to pick up computer programs but I would start with learning how to scale and proportion first and the best way to do that is by hand. The computer is an amazing tool and can help tremendously but there is no replacement for hand sketching.
Check out some books by Francis DK Ching, they are a really good resource. Specifically Form, Space, and Order and since you seem to like laying out space also look at Interior Design Illustrated.
These aren't the end all be all resources but they are great for getting started and also show what a really well done sketch looks like.
Good luck and keep posting those sketches!
I really, really love architecture: form, space, and order and use is as a guide quite often.
I'm still learning myself. This book has been incredibly useful.
CNC Programming Handbook, Third Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0831133473/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_S64kDbT3R6PQ6
I had a copy of this when I first started out. CNC Programming Handbook, Third Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/0831133473/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_CaO4wbM6APTY9
Try this book
https://www.amazon.com/Programming-Handbook-Third-Peter-Smid/dp/0831133473/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=CNC+Programming+Handbook&amp;qid=1558293186&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1
This book by peter smid is what our mastercam instructor used to teach us the fundamentals. Very basic feeling after you get into the trade but it's necessary. Pm me if you would like to glance at a copy.
Also
u/nine_divines suggestion of the machinist handbook is great, probably the only book I use I. The shop that's not a tooling catalog.
learn G-code, learn how to read blueprints and geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, get a good understanding of the cartesian coordinate system and acquire basic machining skills.
If you have a trade school nearby, you can take a course in machine shop, usually they'll have an intro to CNC. This book will teach you everything you need to know about G-code.
Francis Ching wrote half the books I used for detailing in school, if you don't mind reading up and studying, I'd definitely look into getting some of his books. We specifically used this one a lot https://www.amazon.ca/Building-Construction-Illustrated-Francis-Ching/dp/1118458346
Francis Ching is the industry standard for building details and architectural drawing. His books primarily focus on contemporary building but it will give you a good understanding.
Here is a link to his bibliography
This is a great book showing construction details
Good luck!
Oh good ol' Materials and Methods class...I just read this book. I didn't copy the damn thing! lol. Nice work.
I've found all of these books to be helpful. I think you mainly would find the Grid Systems book useful.
Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam is a pretty good reference for using grids and better understanding composition. It has alot of examples of works that are accompanied by transparent pages that have grids to lay over them.
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton helped with just understanding typography better.
Designing Type by Karen Cheng is good for understanding the intricacies of type and the differences between different typefaces by using grids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_(page_layout)
A grid is setting up a layout on the page that creates hierarchy and order to the content in a consistent way.
Good books:
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Breaking-Grid-Graphic-Workshop/dp/1592531253/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1300584269&amp;sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1300584269&amp;sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestaltung/dp/3721201450/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1300584269&amp;sr=1-6
thanks for posting. I think you have a great attitude, and honestly, attitude counts for more than you think.
I'll not critique the website, but, knowing you're new to the fundamentals, try to share some more general thoughts.
What sketching is important for is flexing ideas and testing compositions before going to the computer.
http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Graphic-Design-Communication-Courses/dp/0321934288/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419898490&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=stop+stealing+sheep
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Version-Anniversary/dp/0881792128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419898879&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=robert+bringhurst
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419898800&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=typography
http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419898762&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=kimberly+elan
http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestaltung/dp/3721201450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419898837&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=grid+systems
http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-Photography-Manual-Revised/dp/0316373052/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1419898921&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=black+and+white+photography
and
Above and beyond the basics, I see your passion is impacting the world through design. So the question becomes HOW can graphic design impact the world, and does it at all? and what can you make or do directly? I think above all, a designer is an entrepreneur these days. Especially with that main driving passion.
Just dive in head first. In the summers and after you've graduated, do internships, find mentor programs to be paired with working professionals (AIGA and similar organizations have these), take on freelance gigs - do anything to get some real life experience. The technical prowess you can gain from school is just your toolbox, you need to get working on something to learn how to apply those tools. Plus, doing internships and the like are a great way to get your foot in the door of various design departments, and could lead to a great, steady job.
Also, for a more specific suggestion - I highly recommend the book "How to become a graphic designer without losing your soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy. It is a very well written book about all of the details they never teach you in school - best ways to promote yourself, interview tips, networking, what type of design work environment could be the best fit for you... etc. Not to mention its beautifully designed.
Don't be discouraged by designers you admire, they had to work hard to get to that point as well. Use them as benchmarks and inspiration, and realize that you have a lot of self-motivated work to do before you can enjoy success as well. Hope some of this helped, best of luck! :)
Off the top of my head I can think of How to be a Graphic designer without losing your soul. There's also the extremely famous (though not related to design) How to win friends and Influence people.
Probably worth a read:
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
> What you are trying to do is impose a moral scale, a ranking, on life that says that taking this life is moral but taking this one is not.
So, I'll try to get this straight. Please set me straight if I have any of this wrong.
You're asserting that in moral terms, ALL LIFE is equal, completely regardless of its nervous system, capacity to perceive the world, form social connections, experience emotion, or suffer. For example, a herd of cows should be given exactly the same ethical consideration as a leaf of spinach: none whatsoever. Right? Because humans have a moral mandate to kill. And since all nonhuman life is equally worthless in these ethical terms, according to our moral mandate, we are allowed to destroy as much life as we please in order to eat what we'd like. Deciding if I want to be responsible for the "death" of a few beans or some spinach, or be responsible for a lifetime of captivity ended by a violent death of a cow (not to mention all the "plant death" that was necessary to make it grow in the first place).
Except humans. We can't kill each other, because we can acknowledge rights for each other.
What would you say about very young children and or mentally handicapped humans who don't have the mental capacity to "respect and protect the rights of others?" If this is where rights come from, then obviously not all humans have rights. Or is there more to it than just that?
> The arbitrary categorization of one life as more valuable than another is not made for moral reasons. It cannot be because morality is binary. A choice is either moral or immoral.
Please cite any theory of morality or ethics at all that says that there is no gradient of morality. While you're at it, please cite any theory of morality or ethics at all that says that if you must kill something, then you're justified in killing anything you want.
Actually, if you could cite anything to support your position, instead of just asserting things, that would be great! In particular, I'd love to see any credible ethical argument that all nonhuman life should be treated exactly equally in ethical terms.
> If this theory is true then the pure herbivores of our species did not survive natural selection - the omnivores proved better adapted for survival.
So, we should take our ethical cues from natural selection, then? I thought you said earlier that we shouldn't.
Regarding "human efficiency," what do you think of the environmental destruction caused by animal agriculture? Or, if human efficiency is only measured on an individual scale, how is it affected by the mounting evidence that eating animals isn't so great? (each word is a distinct link.) What about the antibiotics issue? Please address this.
> Yes - if both animals and plants suffer and several lives have been given already to create the animal then the animal causes the least loss of life and the least suffering. How many plants do you have to slaughter and digest screaming to equal one animal?
You said earlier that plants can't scream. And can't suffer. And the answer, once more with feeling, is: about a 10:1 ratio! Remember? I linked those wikipedia articles for you! Did you read them?
Which reminds me, I've been careful to only cite things that are reasonably "impartial": news articles, PubMed, wikipedia, that sort of thing. Nothing from the Humane Society or anything like that, since I imagine that you'll probably just dismiss it. If you'd be willing to read those things seriously, then by all means let me know and I'll share a few. And if you wouldn't mind addressing some of the things that those linked articles address, I'd appreciate it.
I'll go back a couple posts of yours, if you don't mind, because I forgot to address this point:
> The animal would have eaten the plants regardless of your decision. By eating the animal you are not participating in the death or the potential suffering of the plants.
Yes you are! You've paid for the animal to be bred, raised, fed, and slaughtered. You are contributing to the demand for this process. Are you claiming that by supporting something financially is completely divorced from all ethical responsibility? Please explain this, since I don't understand this view.
> Farming an animal for food is not torture. Torturing an animal for the sake of seeing it suffer is morally wrong.
Well, if you're in America, more than 99% of the time it is. Is it permissible to torture an animal to eat it more cheaply?
Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals, by the way, is an excellent and very honest investigation of the ethics of eating meat. It's written from the perspective of someone who's oscillated between eating meat and not eating it for his life so far, and I hope you'll believe me when I say that it is absolutely not judgmental of those who do. There's no way around the fact that it's been a human tradition for a very long time, and there's a great deal of sentimentality around it, and this book approaches the subject with great intellectual and moral honesty. I hope you'll at least consider reading it, if you would like to, I'd even be happy to send you my copy in the mail (although I'd probably be unwilling to give out my address over the internet), and you can keep it after that. And if you're right about the ethics of it, you'll blast through it in a few days and come away completely unchanged, since your position is totally bulletproof. If there's no threat, all you have to lose is a few hours of reading time. And, if you don't want to read anything, he's given a couple brief interviews 1, 2, 3, 4 that you can watch in a few minutes (the longest is an hour).
And of course, since I'm suggesting some reading material for you (I hope you're actually reading those articles by the way... it's hard to tell, since you haven't address any of them except the ADA abstract, which you dismissed with an appeal to nature), it's only fair that if you recommend any books or articles or films to me at all, I solemnly swear to read (or watch) them with an open mind. I'll even get back to you about what I think!
I think it's extremely telling that the industry has fought so hard to pass laws against documenting abuse in their operations. Would you agree that given a choice between cheap meat that has been raised in torturous conditions, and expensive meat that was raised in a way to give the animal a good life while it was alive, one has a moral obligation to choose the one that caused less suffering? This, I expect, is in line with your moral mandate to kill. After all:
> Certainly limiting the amount of pain inflicted is a desirable choice.
Try this: go to your refrigerator, and look at the label for the animal flesh you already have in there. See what farm it's from, and look up a phone number. Give them a call, and pretend that you're interested in taking a tour of their facilities to see the conditions. Then, when you're at the farmer's market, find someone selling meat and ask if it would be possible to go see the farm sometime.
Look, I don't want to be hostile. Clearly we disagree on some very fundamental things (like the notion that suffering has anything at all to do with ethical decisions) but I want to be very clear that I'm not trying to pick a fight or belittle you in any way. I just find some (most, frankly) of your views baffling, heartless, and honestly, pretty terrifying. But honest discussion is the whole point of CMV, right? And, I'd like to encourage you again to cite anything to justify your assertion that plants and animals should be given exactly the same ethical consideration (none). And again, please cite anything at all to support the notion that the capacity to suffer is of no moral consequence.
Thanks! I'm looking forward to your reply. I've tried to be very clear about the points I'd like you to address, and hopefully I succeeded.
My research goes back many years. A lot of my research has shown me proven results because I’ve done my own experimenting. I’ve gone through huge eating and dietary changes over the past 15 years. I also read a lot of books on these topics as well as follow many people on social media who have profound research done of their own.
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
https://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1941631568
https://www.naturespath.com/en-us/blog/eating-animal-products-making-us-sick/
https://blondevsbooks.com/14-books-that-will-make-you-think-twice-about-eating-meat/amp/
https://instagram.com/alkalinehumanism?igshid=k8850d755uy5
https://instagram.com/the_raw_herbalist?igshid=17qe82edk1f6l
https://instagram.com/alkaline_vegan_news?igshid=1o9559eqvsgts
https://instagram.com/fruitifytheworld?igshid=1lsvu5nbt79ii
I love Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
As for cookbooks, this cookbook.
If you have an ice cream maker/plenty of free time, I love this for vegan ice cream
There's a pretty good book on it by Jonathan Safran Foer :
https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
“Perhaps in the back of our minds we already understand ... that something terribly wrong is happening. Our sustenance now comes from misery. We know that if someone offers to show us a film on how our meat is produced, it will be a horror film. We perhaps know more than we care to admit, keeping it down in the dark places of our memory-- disavowed. When we eat factory-farmed meat we live, literally, on tortured flesh. Increasingly, that tortured flesh is becoming our own.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals
Couple of links:
http://www.eatinganimals.com/site/book/
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884
If this topic interests you, I'd recommend this book.
There are a number of books on the topic of Evolution or Evolutionary Psychology that will provide a greater understanding of how connected and similar we really are.
Hopefully this is something to start this thread off in a positive direction.
I hope they will include
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Animals-Jonathan-Safran-Foer/dp/0316069884/ref=zg_bs_14454_1
and
http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Liberation-Definitive-Classic-Movement/dp/0061711306/ref=zg_bs_14454_9
or
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Dogs-Pigs-Wear-Cows/dp/1573245054/ref=zg_bs_14454_14
or
http://www.amazon.com/Terrorists-Freedom-Fighters-Reflections-Liberation/dp/159056054X but i guess not.
I actually became a Vegetarian a year ago Tomorrow all because of this book. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.
For me it was the environmental impact of the industry. It was an easy way to stand up for what I believe in.
How 'bout some Safran-Foer?
Megg's History of Graphic Design
and/or:
http://www.designishistory.com/
I think what you're getting at is that you want to contextualize contemporary design trends within a broader history. Either of these will help you immensely.
Well said!
Edit: to add to this, is there a place that has presets for cad line weights, etc, or should I just take them from Graphic Standards
My pleasure. Oh, and I forgot to mention about the printing. I learned style that from my dad, who was a draftsman. Everything he wrote around the house was in that style of printing. I copied him as a kid and it's been my primary hand for over 30 years now.
Of the primary styles of technical lettering, it's probably the closest to freehand lettering as described on this page.
There are other variations. Architectural lettering is different from engineering or technical lettering. I describe architectural lettering as an "animated' form of technical lettering where it's common to see horizontals take on a slightly up-and-to-the-right slant. The basic style is described in the popular text Architectural Graphics by Frank Ching and is studied by most architecture students. Architects can take a more liberal approach to their lettering and most architects develop their own style and flair for writing. Engineering and mechanical drawings cannot take such liberties, and as a result, technical lettering is much more uniform in style than architectural lettering.
Before any modeling, I'd get a handle on 2d drawing
http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Graphics-Francis-D-Ching/dp/0470399112/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4
Learn about lineweights, drawing plans/sections, isometric drawings - These rules matter once you take it to the computer.
Architects communicate in 2D like this, renderings usually only help the layman understand your project as they can't visualize space and form as easily as an architect can
http://drawingarchitecture.tumblr.com/
When you're in the computer I would probably learn autocad and revit to start out, rhino with paneling tools in your later semesters.
Try to find a renderering software that works with what you're good at. I use 3dsmax + vray for realism, but some professors prefer the clean look of sketchup
Okay, I'm not going into architecture really but I would like to have some advice. I'm in illustration and I'm looking on learning how to design and get the fundamentals of architecture. I'm pretty decent at perspective (I'm in technical illustration) and I mainly want to learn the thought process. Some books mentioned in this thread are pretty interesting and I'm contemplating on maybe buying one or 2. Although before I do I was wondering if anyone can enlighten me on these books I've found on my own but unsure about the quality:
http://www.amazon.com/City-Shaped-Patterns-Meanings-Through/dp/0821220160/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373412339&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=The+City+Shaped%3A+Urban+Patterns+and+Meanings+Through+History
^ This books seems really promising, but of course the price puts me off a little (I plan on buying more than one book) anyone have this book? Seems really great for inspiration and learning how cities develop.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Architecture-Francis-D-Ching/dp/1118142063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373412493&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Introduction+to+Architecture
^ again another promising book but the price Q.Q Same issue as the other book above. Feedback is appreciated.
http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Graphics-Francis-D-Ching/dp/0470399112/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1373412567&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Architectural+Graphics
http://www.amazon.ca/Interior-Design-Illustrated-Francis-Ching/dp/1118090713/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_nC?ie=UTF8&amp;colid=9P9QTDTSZXLG&amp;coliid=I248RXWWVDQ6NZ
I'm basically looking at Ching's books. Last one is a .ca amazon.
Not online. Drafting really needs to be practiced in person and critiqued in order to be learned (even digitally).
People have mentioned below, but the Ching books really are THE standard for architectural drawing. There are really two types of drawing as well in architecture. There's all the technical stuff for construction documents. And then there are design drawings that are more of an artform.
My advice is to buy the Ching book. Learn about the conventions and techniques (what lineweights do, the types of orthographic, isometric, and perspective drawings). Then go and start looking at all the drawings you can online. Look at Paul Rudolph (particularly his section perspectives), look at the French Beaux-Arts drawings, look at Laugier, Labrouste, look at John Soane's drawings. For modern drawings look at Lebbeus Woods. Be a sponge, absorb it all.
Probably this: https://www.amazon.com/Measure-Man-Woman-Factors-Design/dp/0471099554
I've come across a few human factors book with a good set of data. If I remember correctly this represents data analysed and collected by US army in the 70s and the data is heavily biased towards Caucasian bodies.
I would like to avoid OCR and parsing it. If anyone knows any openly available dataset it would be really helpful.
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
Here is link number 1 - Previous text "few"
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^Please ^PM ^/u/eganwall ^with ^issues ^or ^feedback! ^| ^Delete
Honestly, a good history of design book would be the route I would recommend going first.
This is one of my favorites. http://www.amazon.com/Meggs-History-Graphic-Design-Philip/dp/0471699020/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1396721586&amp;sr=1-9&amp;keywords=history+of+design
After that I'd recommend learning your terminology as far as the different parts of letters goes. Once you have that down, moving to learning about points & picas will help a lot, especially if you want to get into designing grids and/or fonts. A lot of designers I know still don't understand those, and it gives me the edge every time.
One of my favorite books to keep around as far as reference goes is "Forms, Folds, and Sizes".
http://www.amazon.com/Forms-Folds-Sizes-Details-Designers/dp/1592530540/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1396721691&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=forms+folds+and+sizes
Hm. There aren't too many books that span graphic design history. It is rather extensive, as you can imagine. One that can give you a rather general overview is Megg's History of Graphic Design. Despite its Euro-centrism and other issues, it'll at least provide a general overview and let you highlight specific areas you might want to research further.
Another, though more limited in scope (or, should I say, focused) is The British Library Guide to Printing: History and Techniques and the better, but significantly more expensive / harder to find, Printing 1770 – 1970.
Anyway, some starting points for you.
Meggs?
The definitive graphic design history book.
There were a few books that were reccomended as staples in my Design degree.
History of Design
How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul
Making and Breaking the Grid
...and there was one caled 'Type' that I can't seem to remember the author of.
Meggs' History of Graphic Design
http://www.amazon.com/Meggs-History-Graphic-Design-Philip/dp/0471699020/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1250861554&amp;sr=8-1
An incredibly interesting book, I bought it for use in my sophmore History of Graphic Design class last year, and still read it.
Also, another vote for Elements of Typographic Style. An incredible resource if you're at all interested in type.
I think you are looking for Architectural Graphics Standards published by The American Institute of Architects
The name is a little esoteric but it is basically the bible of architectural drawing.
11 Edition of Architectural Graphic Standards
https://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Standards-American-Institute-Architects/dp/0471700916
Architectural Books/Monographs to me are classic architectural gifts
Don't look at other people's portfolios and be concerned, you are looking at work from people who have spent literally years studying and practicing a single subject, so are way more specialized than someone your age who has to take on a number of subjects and give them equal importance, not to mention its a subject that you haven't yet had the chance to try out. See it more as inspiration.
Its great that you've got some experience lined up! Very important to give it a try before you commit in case you outright hate it, university will be different from real life practice though. Before university be prepared for your work experience to feel like 'just a job' (but hopefully one that you can see yourself enjoying) after university you will have the knowledge and hopefully passion to see that job as an opportunity to create things in the world.
Don't worry about architectural knowledge before university, any prior knowledge will be useful but its a level playing field no-one will go in knowing what to expect, and having too much of a preconceived idea will probably be a bad thing. The easiest thing to do would be to just check a few blogs every now and then, just to look at things and see what you like, don't take it to seriously just see if there's any styles or designers that catch your eye. Try these:
Dezeen
DesignBoom
Architectural Review
If you really want a book to read this is probably the best 'my first architecture' book you could get its simple, but very informative.
As for drawing, it is important, you should practice whenever you can. You don't need to have picture perfect hand drawing skills but you need to learn to 'think' and 'describe' and 'observe' with your hand - its one of the key skills of an architect. Again, it doesn't have to be perfect but you need to be able to describe and understand texture and light and shadow and 3d objects in space. Sometimes a rough sketch with energy and emotion like this peter zumthor study can tell us more about the weight, feeling, texture, lightness or darkness of a space than perfect drawing, although perfect drawings do have their place as well.
Architecture has a lot in common with graphic design, the ordering principles, problem solving, composition etc. But graphic design tends to lack, both 3d dimensional work but also and importantly an emotive aspect. I would encourage you to take up art as an A-level, if thats not possible, don't worry but it would be good to find a short course where you could practice art away from the formal and practical constraints of pure graphic design. Hope that helps!
I'm taking the pre-architecture courses now, and I've recently graduated from a computer drafting program (AutoCAD and Revit with some Sketchup).
If I was going to start over again, I'd want to know how to draw. Definitely develop good line control (through contour, blind contour, and just line drawing exercises).
Model building is another important aspect. It's all about craft and getting familiar with the materials. You may end up using other materials but foamcore and basswood are the two go to materials in my classes.
For now, and my knowledge is limited, if you're going to learn any software, I'd focus more on Photoshop, Sketchup, and Rhino.
Helpful books would be Form, Space, and Order, Design Drawing and Drawing, A Creative Process all by Francis Ching.
I'd also study art and architectural history. Having a good knowledge base of different styles would help you in your own designs.
Try this: https://www.youtube.com/user/30by40
And this: https://www.amazon.com/Architecture-Francis-D-K-Ching/dp/0471752169
Some architectural drawing books are your best bets then. Like:
http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Landscape-Chip-Sullivan/dp/0471430358
http://www.amazon.com/Landscape-Graphics-Grant-Reid/dp/0823073335/
Definitely not a lost cause, and glad to hear you're interested in an MLA. I'd say ecology is one of the strongest backgrounds from which to enter the LA profession. Seems like a lot of firms are looking to hire people with that type of expertise, as the role of ecology in projects continues to rise.
Portfolio-wise, I'd agree with what /u/tricky_p and /u/PHXgp said so far (express enthusiasm, include anything that might be relevant), and add the following advice:
Overall... I don't know, just be honest about your skill level and where you're coming from. And check out (www.landezine.com) if you haven't already. Best website around for getting inspired about LA.
Autodesk Fusion 360 is probably the best free to use (home use only!) 3D modeling software out right now. There's a huge community for it and the interface is very intuitive. Plus It has a built in G Code generator for CNC and wireframe generator which is helpful for stuff like 3D printing. These features aren't perfect but they're good starting points. I would still recommend a book to learn what each code does. You can also output engineering drawings as .PDF files and do some physics modeling on your parts/assemblies to get a rough estimate of how hard it will be to break something.
Also get your hands on a copy of CNC programing handbook by Peter Smid.
http://www.amazon.com/CNC-Programming-Handbook-Third-Edition/dp/0831133473
This book?
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Handbook-Third-Peter-Smid/dp/0831133473/ref=la_B001IU4QEM_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1421716024&amp;sr=1-1
Here is the mobile version of your link
I think you would enjoy "Building Construction Illustrated" by Francis D. K. Ching. Link here. Our office has a copy of this and it does a reasonable job of explaining "conventional framing." By that I mean the kind of layout and details that contractors are familiar with, less likely to complain about, and less likely to improperly install. I think it focuses more on timber framing. We rarely spec masonry but have to deal with it with existing structures; I think CERM's chapters on masonry are a good primer on that.
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Off the top of my head I don't know of any publicly available drawing and design calculation examples, but for low-rise structures you'll rarely see performance-based design unless it's a (well-funded) historic or institutional building. Lateral design will largely come out of ASCE 7-10, SDPWS, and TMS 402/602 and be copied into MS Excel. I've seen engineering calc packages from other firms and the visual/ functional quality is all over the place. I also saw an ASCE 7-10 wind design spreadsheet online last year if that helps. The International Residential Code (as adopted by California here) has some figures in there if you're interested in how prescriptive timber design looks. There are some figures in R602 and R606 that set the baseline for timber and masonry construction, respectively.
The first class I ever took was a mechanical drafting course in high school. We learned the fundamentals of drafting: orthographic projection, how to dimension a drawing, intro to CAD, etc. I still use those skills every day. So that's where I'd start on the - 'how architects communicate their ideas to clients, contractors, and engineers.'
Another aspect of architecture is learning how buildings get built. For this I'd recommend a book like Building Construction Illustrated. It's got a lot of info that will seem intense at first, but will become common knowledge if you go into the AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) field. One way to get the most out of a book like this is to read a section of it and look up all the terms you don't understand or that interest you. You'll go down rabbit holes that never end. A lot of the knowledge in the construction industry is held by manufacturers and their trade groups. They publish reports, white papers, do testing, etc. on how to use their products. I reference this material constantly and I learn stuff every day.
There's also architectural history; fundamentals of design; sustainable design; structural, mechanical, civil engineering; there's a whole area of legal expertise surrounding architecture; current software being used (Revit, Rhino, Sketchup, AutoCAD, Grasshopper...); etc. If any of these topics interest you let me know and I'll point you towards some sources.
Some books to help with that, depending on what you need.
Architecture Reference - A good introduction that also goes into specifics.
Building Construction Illustrated - A broad overview of most parts of putting a building together (technical).
The Function of Ornament - A more theoretical view of architecture in a modern cultural context; you might find it interesting in regards to your job as a social scientist (not cheap, though).
Hope this helps!
This book has some good info in it. It is where I get a lot of my dimensions.
Anything in particular that interests you? It's such a broad topic that it's difficult to suggest a point of entry.
A library will be your best bet. This book gives a nice overview of notable buildings: www.amazon.com/Buildings-across-Time-Introduction-Architecture/dp/007305304X/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_1968491462?_encoding=UTF8&Version=1&entries=0&pf_rd_p=1968491462&pf_rd_s=smile-campaign&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=007305304X&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1V150HKR2JVVBKAEJT9G
An introduction to how buildings are assembled:http://www.amazon.com/Building-Construction-Illustrated-Francis-Ching/dp/1118458346/ref=zg_bs_173508_11
My favorite is Ching's Building Construction Illustrated: http://www.amazon.com/Building-Construction-Illustrated-Francis-Ching/dp/1118458346
I used it when taking my licensing exams. Wish I had it in school.
Fundamentals of Building Construction
Building Construction Illustrated
The book Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam is amazing and extremely useful in understanding design. Available on Amazon here. I can't recommend it enough.
First, I would study some basic design principles. Look at a few books on typography, grid, etc. Learn about some of the major design movements.
Check out these book:
http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-Revised-Updated/dp/1592535879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1299115160&amp;sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1299115186&amp;sr=1-7-spell
What tends to happen is most people dive into these tutorials knowing how to use the programs, but not knowing anything about design in general. Knowing how to use Photoshop doesn't necessarily mean you are a designer, like knowing how to play a few chords on a guitar doesn't necessarily make you a musician.
Web design is big now, but if you want to hop on the next gravy train, I'd suggest getting into Mobile / Tablet visual design. The demand is hot and theres not enough people who know how to do proper visual design for touch screen devices.
Oh yeah, and Lynda.com and tutsplus is good too. Learn the programs, but don't expend too much energy learning fancy lighting tricks until you've learnt the basics of design. It'll help build a foundation on which you can go from there.
Look for books on grid design (here's a simple one I own), check out some magazines with good design (wired, espn) and watch framing and color use in high end commercials, billboards and print ads.
If you want to get more in-depth with grids and layouts you should check out Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam. It has a lot of explanations on what different layouts and grids accomplish and includes pictures of grid-based layouts with a transparent page with that layout's grid overlaid on the image (i.e. there's a transparent page with just the grid and the next page is the actual image).
It's really helped me out in certain designs and in general is an interesting book.
I like to find some of the weirdest shit imaginable that I would still treasure. Also, some stuff for hobbies that some people might think is pretty weird if they don't know anything about the hobby. Or in other words...normal.
BOOKS:
NOT BOOKS:
Catfish's daily grind of 'enhancing' poultry comes to a halt when he is accidentally tripped up by a loose chicken, causing him to fall victim to his own process. What proportions of his that were once human are now beyond anything normal. Add villainous corporate and military big wigs, a roller-skating weapon-toting chick named Kitten Kaboodle, a gang of tattooed babies, and there's still that enormous beach monster... And what you have is MONDO, in all its raging glory!
DKNG has some awesome videos about poster design process. Check out their Vimeo page You should definitely ditch PowerPoint. Have you played around w/ Illustrator at all?
There used to be a really killer site called gigposters.com that shut down last year. Not sure what the best place on the web is for poster inspiration now. A few good design books to check out:
Thinking With Type
Hand Job: A Catalog of Type
Making and Breaking the Grid
Gig Posters
I assume googling already got you to the RasterTek tutorials.
Frank D. Luna's book is good, Introduction to 3d Game Programming with DirectX 11. While introductory it's fairly comprehensive of the pipeline and why (sometimes brief, but the main DX docs fill that in).
Beginning DirectX11 Game Programming, is a bit more newcomer friendly but a lot less comprehensive.
HLSL Development Cookbook is a reasonable fill-in for HLSL and shaders that you would actually use. It doesn't cover the nitty gritty like DX api calls, but does explain what you need to have your render states setup as each step of the way.
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If you aren't already familiar with 11 then 12 is likely out of your league for the time being. DX10 began the move towards a lower-level API in comparison to DX9 and OpenGL.
The grid is just one system for organization, you can use a different one:
A book explaining the systems
Adrian Shaughnessy
If you want to get into graphics, I would say use Frank Luna's DirectX 11 book or Joey de Vries' website LearnOpenGL.
EDIT: Phone's autocorrect...
I highly recommend Frank Luna as well. His DX11 book is excellent. Some of the DirectX specific code is a bit outdated now, (for example fx files aren't a thing anymore and D3DX was killed off), but the graphics theory is still very good.
A book not mentioned in that post would be Graphic Design: The New Basics - Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips.
I would recommend this book as a starting point. It's more like a collection of different design ideas with enough description to search further.
Also, I noticed color psychology was brought up. Be careful when reading into that, there is a lot of subjectivity in mainstream sources (like those infographics you sometimes see). Most research only points at the practicality of color psychology.
Well I bought this book and gonna work through this until next semester starts. I think I can start using wrapper and frameworks after I know what I'm using under the hood.
Makes the wrapper&frameworks more intuitive... at least for me. But thanks for the tipp. I'll look into the stuff after I red the book.
That would explain it! I would recommend reading some design books. Your university probably has a good selection in the library. If you can get ahold of syllabuses for intro design classes, check out what books they use. I recommend Grid Systems to everyone. We also used Graphic Design: The New Basics in school, and this it's a really great intro to design. I don't really have any suggestions for Typography books, but maybe someone else could jump in with a recommendation?
A book that's a bit more in depth/technical: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Graphic-Design-Theory-Readings-Briefs/dp/1568987722/ref=sr_1_65?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1314288814&amp;sr=1-65
First of all a short background of my past experiences.
I'm a fairly experienced programmer I've mostly dealt with stuff that is closer to the hardware (kernel/networking dev). Hence I have a good amount of experience with C and C++.
I've also got a good amount of knowledge in the field of mathematics (currently reading up on functional analysis and galois theory). So any maths prerequisites shouldn't be an issue.
I also know absolutely nothing about computer graphics, currently have a particularly poor knowledge of UX, have never created a game before, and know much less about programming in Windows than Linux (I have at most a vague idea of what a COM object is).
I'm interested in writing a game since I want to pick up gamedev as a hobby. I don't really care what type of game I end up writing since I see this project as being more of a learning experience than a fully fledged game. I'm also taking this project as an occasion to get more comfortable programming in Windows. Before I start coding I've got a couple of questions for the people of /r/gamedev since I don't want to pick up a whole bunch of negative habits or bite off more than I can chew and get discouraged.
Start with the book Rapid Viz. It's a workbook for sketching and rapid communication of ideas. Look for books on car sketching, toy sketching, product sketching, whatever... just practice practice practice. Get a note book and fill it from cover to cover, then start on a new one. Trust me on this; good sketching skills will get you hired one day.
Look for Beginner OpenGL or DirectX11 tutorials, Follow them to a t, work from there.
I learned a little GL from some random tutorials and then by watching this series.
I first jumped into Graphics and got a real understanding of what was happeneing form this book Learning from a book is a really good idea, Video tutorials can have a number of bad practices.
Once you understand the basics then ask questions about Ambient Oclusion, LightMaps, Cubemaps, Reflection.... all maps, baking(map thing) and other stuff. I would say knowing C++ is a good idea however you can do this stuff in C# and Java as well asa number of other languages. Also, have a look at Makin Stuff Look Good In Unity to get a good intro to shaders without having to write a renderer from scratch.
I'm a inexperienced student like you but I recommend this book, very helpful for understanding the business of it all which I rarely get to learn in class.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Graphic-Designer-Without-Losing-Your/dp/1856697096
There are the books I was recommended:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7.
Sure!
Adrian Courreges blog is great.
I especially recommend the Doom study.
Yeah, it's a nice casual read but if you're looking for a more technical introduction you really can't beat the Luna book. The project files take a bit of updating and I don't recommend using the effects framework (most engines roll their own) but other than that it's ideal for getting into the graphics side of the industry.
If you're really serious about getting into 3D-programming with DirectX I recommend getting a good book. A quick search on Amazon will get you the most common ones.
As for online resources my favorite is braynzarsoft.
EDIT:
My favorite books on DirectX:
Introduction to 3D Game Programming with DirectX 11
Practical Rendering and Computation with Direct3D 11
Real-Time Rendering
any particular reason that you don't want to just learn how to code with DirectX 11? Go buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-3D-Game-Programming-DirectX/dp/1936420228/
That’s actually a fail in functional design
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E257T6C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect_nodl?ie=UTF8&amp;btkr=1
Yes
and this
and this
Denial, denial, denial. It’s so sad that you can’t see that animals that are raised in torturous conditions, then MURDERED. just for their meat, which humans don’t NEED, is a terrible problem in our society. You just don’t want to see the truth. These animals deserve better than to be alive just to die for your lame, fat ass. Deep down, you know you’re wrong or maybe you’re just terribly stupid?
BTW - all meat starts rotting the second it dies, you idiot. And all factory farmed animals are tortured by horrible conditions. Read “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer and if you’re still okay to eat meat after that, well then, you can’t be saved lol. By the way, it’s very rude to call people retards, don’t you have any manners? You seem to be such a sad little man, I hope you get help.
I know you're young and early in your career as a designer, but please, please, PLEASE don't create logos for $35. That tiny amount of money wouldn't even cover an hour of research, let alone the hours, days, and weeks it should take to create a proper brand.
Don't undersell yourself, and certainly don't undersell the work of other designers. If you're interested in pursuing a career as a designer, read this, get this, and keep up the good work.
Which is, on occasion, a wonderful form of payment. As I outlined above, having friends or family pay you back with beer is (occasionally) acceptable.
And I'm sure it would have been hard to have anything remotely like the creative freedom you seemed to have enjoyed were the people paying you in cash.
However, the fact stands that without legal tender changing hands you are, at best, saying "the efforts of my labor are worth a few cold ones." At worst you set a dangerous precedent for this company, and other companies reading about them on reddit or other websites, to think that any creative work should be valued at a lower rate.
To put it another way: What if you'd walked into the restaurant and said "generally the going market rate for a dinner at a restaurant is $25/person. But why don't you feed us for $2/person and we'll tell all our friends?" The restaurant is hard up for cash, so they agree. You eat, they lose money on the deal, but they hope you bring in your friends. And you do... only you've told your friends "there's this great restaurant I went to that feeds you for two-bucks a piece."
A new wave of folks come in, they all want the same deal. The restaurant argues, maybe they get some people up to $5. They've increased their pricing by more than 200% but they're still losing money.
Suddenly they have a wave of people in the city talking about cheap meals. Other restaurants are hurting, so they have to slash their prices to compete. Which means that the first restaurant has no hope of arguing up in price because not only do they have a history of giving away food at absurdly low amounts, now the people next to them are doing the same thing so they have no choice put to match or they fail to compete.
Pretty soon, you can't charge more than $5 a head at a restaurant, wait staff are cut, quality of food suffers, customer service sucks... and now $5 for what used to be good is now looking pretty shitty.
Things go that bad, that fast. That's why the market comes to a natural, healthy level and people shouldn't drastically undercut it.
I'm sure you didn't think about that, and (in all honest) the restaurant you did work for probably doesn't have nearly the budget of... say... taco bell or chi-chi's or whatever they're competing with. But the fact remains that some greater value needs to be applied.
If this is a career you want to persue, I really recommend you check out this book. It applies mostly to the design world (print and web), but the lessons translate very well to any creative medium.
Maybe not what you are looking for, but I just read Eating Animals and it terrified me.
yes, and/or Elam's http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1248720042&amp;sr=8-1
Grid Systems
understanding and having good grid skills is pretty much foundational and essential.