This is an intriguing title with lots of good ideas, but let down slightly by its layout.
The subtitle is “52 art ideas, projects and exercises to overcome your creativity block”, and that’s exactly what you get. Each idea is given a 2-page spread and topics include Paint Beyond The Boundaries Of The Photo, Explore Colour Variations Of The Subject and Change Your Viewpoint And Medium. Yes, they sound a bit obvious to me too, but this is another of those books that you’ll either want to take home or never to see again.
The problem is apparent the moment you open it. There are no full-page illustrations. Because each section only has 2 pages, all you get are the various steps. This means you can’t really see the finished results, which is a bit of a drawback. It also means that there’s nothing to provide impact or to break the book up. It just looks indigestible. Back when I was designing catalogues, one of the rules was to have “hero” pages: a single product that stands out. It gave impact, but it also broke up the flow and provided handy stopping points and attention-getters. That’s what’s needed here.
Otherwise, as long as you don’t think this is a collections of things you’ve tried already and you’re in the market for a bit of creative stimulation, it’s worth a look.
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