The Care and Feeding of Ideas
From the Publisher. Good ideas are not easy to cultivate. They need rich soil, attention, and encouragement to take root and grow. Jim Adams’s classic Conceptual Blockbusting was a handbook to weeding your garden, to clearing your mind of rubbish that stifles creative thought. The Care and Feeding of Ideas is its long-awaited sequel, a guide to creating a greenhouse environment in which ideas can thrive.“If you’re serious about encouraging creativity”, writes Adams, “you need to understand the entire creative process-from concept to reality.” You need to understand thinking-the mysteries and mechanics of creative thought. You need to understand doing-the actions you can take to increase your creativity. Only by becoming aware of how you conceptualize, and of the techniques that lead to better problem solving, can you begin to bring forth your very best ideas. Adams leads a tour through the unconscious mind, the brain and nervous system, and the storehouse of memory, and points out how they work (and conspire against us) when we tackle problems. He shows that bad problem-solving habits can be broken, that money and time are your muse’s best friends, that creativity involves risk but the risk is worth it, and that the stereo you bought with your last bonus was not a luxury but a necessary reward. He illustrates his arguments with ingenious games and exercises that will surprise you with what they reveal about your patterns of thought. Whether you’re a midnight novelist or a managment consultant, a Sunday painter or a city planner, this book can forever change the way you approach creative challenges.
Unlike any other book, this gave me the permission to think differently and to be different. It breaks down the mechanics of creative thought and offers games and exercises that help you tackle challenges.
Announcements
Now is Better by Stefan Sagmeister
Now is Better
By Stefan Sagmeister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: October 2023
Combining art, design, history, and quantitative analysis, transforms data sets into stunning artworks that underscore his positive view of human progress, inspiring us to think about the future with much-needed hope.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition) by Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Die Fläche: Design and Lettering of the Vienna Secession, 1902–1911 (Facsimile Edition)
By Diane V. Silverthorne, Dan Reynolds, and Megan Brandow-Faller
Publisher: Letterform Archives Books
Published: October 2023
This facsimile edition of Die Fläche, recreates every page of the formative design periodical in full color and at original size, accompanied by essays that contextualize the work, highlighting contributions by pathbreaking women, innovative lettering artists, and key practitioners of the new “surface art,” including Rudolf von Larisch, Alfred Roller, and Wiener Werkstätte founders Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann.
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