Best architecture decoration & ornament books according to redditors
We found 85 Reddit comments discussing the best architecture decoration & ornament books. We ranked the 16 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Personally, I hate houzz (pronounced whose), they are greedy, steal ideas and are primarily an advertising/sale site (sure to get down votes from houzz fans). Though occasionally they have good ides. I am not a fan of pinterest, either, also because they steal content and often don't link back to the provider. Thankfully there is still a lot of content on YouTube that they haven't managed to co-opt.
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To Decorate on a dime you need to remember TIDE: (Thrift, Inspiration, DIY, Education)
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books at the library
American Junk by Mary Randolph Carter.
Amazing Furniture Makeovers by Jen Crider.
Big Design, Small Budget: Create a Glamorous Home ... by John Ha Betsy Helmuth.
Better Homes and Gardens Flea Market Style: Fresh Ideas for Your Vintage Finds.
City Farmhouse Style: Designs For A Modern Country Life by Kim Leggett.
Easy Flea Market Style: Creative Ideas & Fabulous Fix-ups by Alan Caudle
Found, Free & Flea by Tereasa Surratt.
Flea Market Chic: The Thrifty Way to Create a Stylish Home
Flea Market Decorating, by Vicki Ingham
Flea Market Style: Decorating with a Creative Edge by Chris Mead, Emelie Tolley.
Flea Market Fabulous by Lara Spencer.
Flea Market Finds Before and After: Home Decorating with Makeover Miracles
Flea Market Finds: Instant Ideas & Weekend Wonders: Matt Matthews.
Flea Market Secrets by Geraldine James.
Flea Market Style by Emily Chalmers, Ali Hanan.
Flea Market Style: Ideas and Projects for Your World Tim Himsel
Furniture and Accessories by Amy Howard.
I Brake For Yard Sales by Lara Spencer.
The New Bohemians: Cool and Collected Homes; by Justina Blakeney.
Paris Flea Market Style by Claudia strasser
Rescue, Restore, Redecorate: Amy Howard's Guide to Refinishing Furniture and Accessories by Amy Howard.
Styled: Secrets for Arranging Rooms, from Tabletops to Bookshelves by Emily Henderson.
The Whimsical Home: Interior Design with Thrift Store Finds, Flea Market Gems, and Recycled Goods.
Vintage Fabric Style: Stylish Ideas and Projects Using Quilts and Flea-Market Finds in Your Home by Lucinda Ganderton , Rose Hammick, et al. | Apr 1, 2003
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design videos
thrift interior design
Tips for Decorating Your Home With Thrift Store Finds.
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painting furniture:
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paint furniture DIY.
boho painted furniture.
Mackenzie painted furniture.
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Hope that helps!
Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner is a great book. Lots of details and both how the finishes work and how to use them. Including help identifying what went wrong and how to fix or at least not repeat.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1565235487/ref=mw_dp_mdsc?dsc=1
Cars
Photography
Comic Books 1, 2
Apple
LEGO's
American Football
PostSecret
Video Games
Vinyl
Warhol
Outdoors
Star Wars
Motorcycles
The Dark Knight
Paris
Interior Design
World Atlas
Banksy
Wes Anderson
Tribal Cultures
Playboy
Girls
Libraries
The Cosmos
The Beetles
Travel
Preppy
Steve McQueen
The Moon
I got you covered bro. https://www.amazon.ca/Coffee-Table-Book/dp/190103304X
a variety of companies have already done this actually. this cologne forum seems to have quite a few colognes people are saying are beachy. What I really want to see is a coffee table book about coffee tables. Not this one though. It's not even also a coffee table!
It exists!
There is actually a book that has a picture of every Main Street window around the world, and its significance. Here is the link on Amazon.
edit:fixed some spelling and added Bob.
Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking Books 1 and 2 by Tage Frid. Book 3 is optional but worth the read in my opinion. Books 1 and 2 go over techniques and skills in an very organised way making it easy to understand. Book 3 looks at projects and their designs teaching you how to design a project and why it should be designed that way. You use to be able to get Books 1 and 2 in a combined paperback for $20 but I can't find it for sale anywhere. There's a box set of all three books for $60 on amazon. You should be able to get the books second hand seeing as the books have been around 20-30 years.
Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner is probably the best book on finishing. It goes over a range of different finishing techniques and gives tips and solutions to common issues you might have.
There's plenty of other books that are good to read but these are the only ones I'd call essential.
If you want to be a front end developer then design will always be something that you will have to deal with. Most developers view design as a luxury, but it makes a big difference to the clients. Since clients cannot see your code, they judge the quality of the site by the design. I suggest reading up on typography and white space. Here is a Small Preview.
Bootstrap is a good framework to use because it adds some default best design practices and it makes your font helvetica by default which is one of, if not the most liked fonts.
I personally have a CS degree and can't draw if my life depended on it, but I know some basic rules to follow. Also I will use already made themes and if all else fails I will pay a graphic designer to help me out.
Here are some things that i suggest:
As with everything it takes practice. If you look at your CSS and you're not using a lot of margins, padding, letter-spacing, line-height, font-size and changing the color of the text then it's probably not designed properly.
It definitely looks better than anything I did when I was 15, back in 1999 (with Frontpage and no coding skills back then).
That said you seem to have a grasp of HTML and CSS. Your next step should be looking into some design material to improve in that front (color, size, composition). I recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956
My brother got me that book for last Christmas. It doesn't go over any particular topic in depth but it really provides a great overview of most woodworking topics. I particularly appreciated the sections on joinery and different wood types.
The next book I would add to your collection is Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner. It's a great read that provides useful information I just couldn't find online.
I may be late to the party, but it seems you haven't received many suggestions.
For her decorating spirit, this book, The Perfectly Imperfect Home: How to Decorate and Live Well, seems like a great fit as the book is wonderfully written, not just photos and ideas, but it looks amazing nonetheless. You probably wouldn't go wrong with a cute jewelry box in pink, a quality one - on Amazon I've seen cheap looking ones or pretty expensive ones, although quality stuff.
Since she loves gardening, maybe she'd like a metal bicycle-shaped planter, beautiful to have in the garden. Or a gardening kit with high quality tools.
Well, I'll be dipped...
I'm almost finished with the book, and boy, it's great.
While we're making book suggestions, I also highly highly recommend picking up a copy of Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think. It's important to remember, when delving into design, that it's not just about making things pretty - you need to make them functional, too.
I really like the books Color, Space, and Style and Materials, Structures, and Standards. They're full of fantastic information, and are really easy to use. I would probably start with the first book, as the second one dives into structure a bit more.
I'm pretty sure both books are currently out of print, but I know people have found them for decent prices when they've searched around a bit more.
I am currently reading this book and am loving it so far.
Understanding Wood Finishing - Bob Flexner
I also found a pretty sweet source for furniture related books on amazon as well. Search this persons used books. I ordered about 6 books from them the other night.
Well, if it's 100% tung oil then you could just put a couple of coats on and then let it dry. If it's Tung Oil Finish, which is pretty much anything that doesn't say 100% tung oil, then it also has varnish in it and you'll want to wait overnight, maybe sand with some 400 to get out any dust nibs or bubbles, then recoat and wait and see if you like it the next day.
Just make sure you let that stuff dry completely before you topcoat it with anything. Your shellac would actually make a good topcoat and you can really shine the hell out of it if you like that look, although it will add a little bit of color. It's nice, though, because if it gets nicked up you can just add a new coat of shellac and it'll completely reamalgamate into the finish and look new.
You can do that with some other topcoats, too, but any of the urethane stuff, water based or not, is going to build in layers and so it's harder to repair. If you have a good paint shop anywhere near you, or if you own a compressor and sprayer, you might also try lacquer. You can get spray cans of lacquer at good paint stores and it works pretty well and is still more repairable later than urethanes.
Just make sure your oil coats are totally dry before you topcoat. Get your nose down in that thing and really try to sniff the fibers out of it and make sure you don't smell any more of the finish anymore!
If you have some time before you do it and want to really investigate some options, check out this book by Bob Flexner (no, I'm not him pimping my book!).
Really great book that is very, very comprehensive and easy to follow on different types of finishes, the pros and cons of each, application techniques, surface prep, etc. I use this book constantly, as evidenced by the bent up, finish-stained pages that sometimes stick together now. Any of the books by Jeff Jewitt are also really good for finish types and techniques, but the Flexner one is a great go-to for just about anything. If you live anywhere near a Woodcraft or Rockler or other woodworking store then they probably stock it.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. Just finish your sample piece the way you think you want to finish the guitar first and then you'll know exactly what you're getting and what issues to expect.
You need Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner
Personally, I liked Learning Web Design 4th ed.. It gives you a nice overview of everything you're going to work with on the front-end.
Duckett's book is good and easy to read, but as far as learning, it didn't do it for me--you may be different.
You would also be well-served to learn some design theory. Don't Make Me Think is probably the penultimate in this area. Design for Hackers is also very good.
Learning jQuery is also a must. Code School has a great jQuery course.
Like /u/ijurachi said, a scripting language like PHP or Ruby on Rails would be a next step after that.
http://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Table-Book/dp/190103304X
Design for Hackers is pretty great. Again, light on specific tools but focuses on core fundamentals.
there is one on Amazon but doesn't look as good as Kramer's. No legs or anything.
Well it sort of is
Yes. http://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Table-Book/dp/190103304X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269847937&sr=1-1
Senior Level Software Engineer Reading List
Read This First
Fundamentals
Development Theory
Philosophy of Programming
Mentality
Software Engineering Skill Sets
Design
History
Specialist Skills
DevOps Reading List
Something like Design for Hackers seems right up your alley. It's written specifically for people who want to make their projects look good but don't need to become full-on designers.
I'd suggest reading a book on finishes. I just read a book that was fantastic --really upped my game. There is quite a bit to learn, but you'll be happy you did.
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Finishing-American-Woodworker/dp/1565235487/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374796630&sr=1-4&keywords=stain+finish
http://www.amazon.com/Interior-Desecrations-Hideous-Homes-Horrible/dp/0307238725
70-luku oli sisustussuunnittelulle pahaa aikaa. Onneksi musiikki oli hyvää.
Check out the book "Design for Hackers" by David Kadavy. The author teaches the principles of design in a way that is easy for anyone to understand.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119998956
I don't know if I'm missing a joke, but it's a thing.
Also if you are interested in learning what each type of finish does and how it works, the best book you could buy is Understanding Wood Finishing.
Bob Flexner is amazing, he writes pretty much all the articles on finishing for Popular Woodworking. This book is probably the most enlightening woodworking book I have read. Prior to reading it I always found finishing to be a bit of mystery and definitely intimidating, not anymore.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956 is a great start. Covers all of the basics really well.
Read Design for Hackers, it's catered towards educating developers and engineers on the basics of design : Color, Layout, Typography, etc...
My process is for product design (building web apps and software) but it applies to static sites as well.
1. Consider your end goal for each piece of the product and optimize your UI/UX (User Interface and User Experience) for that goal. Start on larger site-wide goals and work your way into more granular component based goals. Establish a hierarchy of user needs and make give the most important things the most prominence.
>e.g.If you're building a blog site: Your overall goal is for users to find consume your content. The goal of the Navigation component is for users to easily get a sense of where they are on the site (information/site architecture) and navigate to different areas of the site.
2. Design and build your site with these goals are paramount, discard anything that doesn't advance your site towards these goals. Don't include something just because it's a typical convention or it's trendy (does a blog really need a rotating banner or carousel). Anytime you add something make sure it can pass this litmus test:
>Is this relavent to the siteIs this fulfilling a user need? Is this the best way for users to consume this piece of content?
The rubber duck method of debugging is also useful for critiquing design. Explain to your rubber duck why you choose these colors, this typeface, why you made the body copy this size, etc...
3. Establish rules, and stick to them unless absolutely necessary. People are great at recognizing patterns and prefer to have their content consistent. Could you imagine how frustrating it would be if every chapter in a book was typeset in a different font? In the same way it's frustrating as a user to identify a pattern (eg all of the links are blue and italicized) only for it to change arbitrarily throughout the site ("Wait. Why are the links not italicized now?"). If you have to change a pattern make sure it's for a good reason.
/me heads to amazon
EDIT:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/190103304X
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1411603265
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1853917516
I too thought about that a while ago and found out there's something similar on the market.
"Tung oil cures very slowly ... you need to wait several days between coats". Source: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Finishing-Edition-Woodworker/dp/1565235487
If it truly was 100% tung oil, then it was the "polymerized" kind, where it has been heated in an oxygen-free environment to cause crosslinking. This causes it to cure faster when exposed to oxygen.
Ah, no worries. The bible for this sort of thing is Understanding Wood Finishing. Fantastic book.
You achieve it by hard work supported with decent experience.
You can start with the basics here.
Trade half of your brain for half of mine? I'm on the other side of the creek from you. Trying to get into development but already established into design. I feel like the main things that would come in handy are
Some great sites to check out:
And if you're really getting into graphic design and enjoying it, I suggest some of these books to dive deeper.
There's a ton more so feel free to ask any questions or if you want any critiques I'd be glad to help. Good Luck!
Oil varnish is more durable than shellac. Shellac is more traditional and easier to repair.
I have used shellac as a sort of sanding sealer before moving on to oil varnish for film building finishes. A thin shellac sealer drys very fast allowing you to sand and move on faster. Oil varnish will take quite a bit longer to dry.
I usually make my own wiping oil varnish using various amounts of mineral spirits, linseed oil, and polyurethane.
If you're interested in diving into the vast world of wood finishing, I would recommend Bob Flexner's book Understanding Wood Finishing. It's very comprehensive.
A few things:
In any case, mineral oil is not a real wood finish as it does nothing to protect the wood and eventually evaporates. You evidently don't know much about wood finishing, here's a good book on the subject to get you started.
I am majoring in technical theatre and my favorite thing to do is props and set dressing. [This] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0810959143/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_img?_encoding=UTF8&colid=ET9F1H0BMZEE&coliid=I33XH5TACWEYTM) reference book would be really helpful for me choosing props to set the style of the play I'm working on. :)
You need to check out this book. It is well written and particularly so for people who are coming in from a developer point of view: Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956
Yup, designers throughout history have been following specific ratios because it means nothing. The golden ratio and fibbonaci ratios have nothing to add in design.
The above 3 examples are garbage because he wasn't really using this grid to create them. I was explaining what following a grid design means, which you obviously don't understand. If the play button was bigger (in the ham-fisting the grid on top of the shuffle), how the hell would it have stuck to the grid layout when it would obviously be outside of the inner ring?
Read this and learn something: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956 is the general recommendation.
I really never use shellac, so I may not be the best resource on that.
I also don't think I would ever use solely wax, though some people do that. I like my woods to look natural and typically don't want a high gloss. I find myself using Danish Oil or Arm R Seal. Danish Oil is an "in the wood" finish. You let it soak and remove the excess from the surface. Arm R Seal does have some polyurethane in it so can build coats on the surface. I don't work with pine but most finishes will add at least a slight amber hue. For a bedside table I'd want some protection so would think Arm R Seal could work well for you. This book is great .
>I am sure you have already taught beginners to reach an intermediate level but have you already helped advanced painter to reach a 'master' level? (if yes, I'd like to see some of their/your works)
There's really not that much to learn, it's just that it has to be learned well, which is where practice comes to play. To get from beginner to intermediate, you need to learn some things. To get beyond that, you need a pile of work so high it would literally hurt you to jump from it.
>Because that's the whole point of my argumentation: I'm not talking about the difficulty of learning to be just 'good' [...]
We're in agreement here. That it sounds like I feel it's trivial is because the amount of learning involved is - the amount of practice and work is not, and while you can be taught everything you need to know (which is what I'm really saying), you cannot be taught to practice.
>And my last question: if you agree that beauty can be a powerful statement and an abstact concept as worthy of exploring than other themes, why are modern art museum/critics/curators totally ignoring those aesthetic driven representational work?
Simply put, I don't feel that they are. But, there's more to it than that, and I'll try to elaborate:
2.1 Also to be considered, is the fact that with the modern era of art, a simple composition could be considered beautiful. The arrangement of color and shape and nothing more. This was influenced heavily by the loosening of ethnocentric values of western "artistic beauty," as more artists became aware of trends in African, Middle-Eastern and Far-Eastern (Oriental) art. Islamic art is never representational, for example. But the Moores (European Islamists) get the longest and best treatment in the mid 19th century account of 2-D design by
Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament. In fact, if you look at the titles of modern art pieces, the title Composition X is not uncommon. Hell, I think I just named 90% of Kandinsky's catalog right there. So, color and shape no longer pull second-fiddle to pure representation.
I'm currently reading Design for Hackers (http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956).
I'm a web developer also, and was always curious why designers choose certain fonts for certain mediums - for e.g. I learned Garamond is the most readable typeface for printed media and is also 400 years old, Georgia is the most readable serif font for the web, Arial is nearly the same as Helvetica and is the most readable sans serif on screen, and everyone hates Comic Sans and the book explains why (kerning between letter combinations is not optimized for example).
These are probably common knowledge to practiced designers, but from someone that looks at if else statements all day long, it was a wow moment.
The book goes on in depth by "reverse engineering Impressionist painting, Renaissance sculpture, the Mac OS X Aqua interface, Twitter's web interface, and much more" and goes on to "color theory, typography, proportions, and design principles", which really speaks an engineer's language.
Studio Marmo
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/039373028X
https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Marble-Architecture-Studio-Marmo/dp/0393730743
Here's the stone guidelines. I found the OG book in the Strand on vacation. My friends gave it to me as a bday gift because I was so obsessed and didn't realize.
Mine has the original CD which is why my eye is twitching right now.
Here's one:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/190103304X
For anyone curious, it's from the book Design for Hackers.
You're welcome
Yes ~2 grand of engineering books. Occasionally I will reference them, but google is quicker.
At the top is this book
Its my design/hackers bible, if you will.
I was in a similar boat. I'm still not quite 'good' at design but I'm making progress.
Check out this https://medium.com/@karenxcheng/how-to-get-a-job-as-a-designer-without-going-to-design-school-bad8cdb67068
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956
This is assuming that you know HTML + CSS. If not, learn those too. This is a pretty useful guide for writing CSS https://smacss.com/
Yup
Design for Hackers is a good starting point, especially for programmers.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119998956
RN styling is pretty much modern CSS styling using Flexbox.
Good
mobileUX design is independent of what framework you are using. If you want to start adding animations and such, then you need to dive more into the RN ecosystem, but to just make something that is visually pleasing, learn basic design principles.Pick up a copy of Design for Hackers. Yes it is a large book, but UX is a field people get a 4+ year degree in!
Same author, you can sign up for his online course.
After you understand the basics, Google's Material Design page can then give you insight as to how larger companies think about design.
Knowing what a visual hierarchy is, how to create it, and how to purposefully direct the user's eye around is fundamental though. It is the difference between an app that is easy to use an an app that is frustrating to use. It is also the difference between a landing page that converts and a landing page that doesn't convert!
Drop shadows and rounded borders and even icons go in and out of style, but good use of typography, not over-using colors, and good visual hierarchy are universally fundamental to all good design.
Edit: Best $ I ever spent was paying a good designer to give me UX guidelines.
Design For Hackers
Design for Hackers is a decent book, aimed squarely a Developers looking to pickup some design skills.
https://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Table-Book/dp/190103304X
Book:
"Living on the Earth" (Amazon source below)
http://www.amazon.com/Living-Earth-Celebrations-Warnings-Harvested/dp/0394710568/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290016150&sr=1-1
It is the Best $ you will spend in the subject.
Design for Hackers is a pretty good read to help you in addition to the Google links shared above
Just throwing out some topic areas that have interested me lately:
Things on my todo list to learn more about in the future:
Other things...
https://www.amazon.com/Coffee-Table-Book/dp/190103304X
I am also artistically challenged.
I recently read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956/ref=sr_1_1 - while it did not cure me, it was good food for thought. It talks about web design - not CSS and JS.
For some reason a google search for "web design" gives me a ton of sites teaching me to do something in JS. That has very little to do with design I think.
This book: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Wood-Finishing-HC-Woodworker/dp/1565235487/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451936834&sr=8-1
And, this government paper: http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=175.300