- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Publishing (Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0789480301
- ISBN-13: 978-0789480309
- Product Dimensions: 24.4 x 20 x 1.7 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,891,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Orlando Hamilton has put together a masterful beginner's guide to thinking about plants as design elements. Starting with the basics, he quickly reviews a variety of atmospheres, from Modern Chic to Retro to African Revival to Beach Comber, adroitly leading you into basic design concepts, then moving on to an element by element examination of how tone is set. Each style gets one page of commentary, one full page picture, and 3 inset sample shots to give a more in depth sense of the style. The result is a brisk introduction to the art that adroitly leads the reader into thinking about their own environment and the elements that define it.
Moving into specific components, Orlando manages to zoom in on particulars, coherently covering a range of possibilities, without letting you lose sight of the larger picture. He talks about individual spaces (bathrooms, stairs, diningrooms, hallways), how they relate to the whole, & reels off possibilities, complete with lavish pictures to illustrate his ideas, and captions to explain how the particulars come together. He talks about forms, textures, sizes, and colors, each one addressed separately, and how they contribute to a room's overall presentation. He talks about pots, he talks about stands, he talks about lighting, he talks about materials... He talks about _details_, and all those little things that you might not think of as important until you see for yourself the stunning impact something as simple as a pot can contribute to the whole.
I think the genius of this book is the brevity with which it is able to communicate ideas. The interplay between text, photograph, caption and title is such that the author is able to convey these ideas without bogging you down with text (unlike certain reviewers). The pictures are appropriately gorgeous, the text is brisk but friendly, the captions are tremendously useful in elaborating his points, and the section titles cut right to the heart of the matter. And yet he leaves plenty of room for you to disagree or improvise...he even has a small section on how to paint pots!
In other words, this isn't a step-by-step primer, it's an introduction to concepts. Concepts that, having been grasped, will help you shape your own creative atmosphere.