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Product Description
Douglas Coupland, novelist
A terrific book. Essential. After you've read it, you really can't look at the world in the same way... which is also one definition of art.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
In the 21st century, commerce and culture are ever more closely entwined. This collection of essays by design critic Rick Poynor takes a searching look at visual culture to discover the reality beneath the ultra-seductive surfaces. Poynor explores the thinking behind the emerging resistance to commercial rhetoric among designers, and offers critical insights into the changing dialogue between advertising and design. Other essays address the topics of visual journalism; brands as religion; the new solipsism; graphic memes; the pleasures of imperfect design; and the poverty of cool. The worldwide dominance of huge corporations is invariably expressed by visual means. This book challenges this mono-culture critically. It offers inspirational evidence of alternative ways of engaging with design, and it will appeal to any reader with a questioning interest in design, advertising, cultural studies, media studies, and the visual arts.
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First Sentence
What is it about Martin Parr that makes him not only one of the most successful, influential and ubiquitous British photographers, but also one of the most controversial and reviled? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
What is it about Martin Parr that makes him not only one of the most successful, influential and ubiquitous British photographers, but also one of the most controversial and reviled? Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have always keenly read Rick Poynors essays in design magazines such as Eye, where he is Writer at large, and enjoyed his previous book 'Design without Boundaries', so when I first heard of this book I was sure that I would not be disappointed. However the reality far exceeded my expectations. Unlike 'Design without Boundaries', the book is littered with lavish colour examples, which illustrate the articles perfectly. The book is a great object and the design makes the incisive text a pleasure to read. As cliched as it sounds once you pick this book up it is difficult to put down.
It is great to re-visit texts such as 'Surface wreckage', which I remembered reading in Eye last year as well as others such as 'When objects dream' which were new to me. I have been telling anyone who will listen that this is probably the best book I have read this year.
It is great to re-visit texts such as 'Surface wreckage', which I remembered reading in Eye last year as well as others such as 'When objects dream' which were new to me. I have been telling anyone who will listen that this is probably the best book I have read this year.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Obey the Giant beautifully deals with many and most of the places where images come into our world. From a pithy critique of Damian Hirst's pop monograph to an ironic look at the ad mans love of shopping, it's all found within this monster. Sections like Too Much Stuff and When Objects Dream are good but Poynor is best when he becomes personal and subjective. In Death in the Image World we are taken on a visit to the London Dungeons, a tourist attraction where we dance with our fascination with dying and death. He proposes a more than straight forward connection between fiction and real violence - both having consequences for each other, and how there is unavoidable traffic between the two. History with the nasty bits left in! The picture research and repro is first-class (as it should be with a book dealing with life in the image world), as are the collage like illustrations by some guy called Kan Tang. Art, design, advertising, world images and how we look at them. "Life must be seen, before it can be known" the same can be said of "Obey the Giant"
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
RISE AND SHINE
11 Jun 2002
Format:Paperback
Rick Poyner chimes in on pop culture throughout this series of essays, which collectively produce a loud, clanging wake-up call. If you are a creative professional or student, you MUST read this book!
Mr. Poyner provides an accessible, but unflinching look at the role of our profession and it's impact on humanity. In this book, the cute, hip, self-referential "Irony" of the last decade is no longer a revelation, and Poyner questions what it means now that "respected" corporations and self-promoting advertisers and designers have co-opted it.
As an instructor of Commuication Design, I have for years preached to my students to "be responsible for every mark that you make" in order to communicate effectively. This little book has fueled that fire for me with it's view of the bigger picture and has forever altered my perception of my role not only as a designer and a consumer, but as a human.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
i spy the giant....
4 Oct 2004
Format:Paperback
rick poyner has done it again. i think that if you are interested in design and cultural landscape, you will thourougly appreciate this book. you really can't find a better examination of culture meeting design. obey the giant.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Good But Not Great
15 Nov 2008
Format:Paperback
I bought this as soon as it came out in 2002 (?). It had a good plug in Print magazine, which Rick Poynor sometimes wrote for. I love Rick Poynor in small doses, but this essay collection somehow did not make it. Its purpose seemed fuzzy; it discussed things of marginal interest. A couple of gossamer ideas were spun out for 200 pages.
Basically, a good book title with vague filler as contents.
More recently the title of the book has been subverted by Shepard Fairey's graphic-art house, which is called OBEY Giant. Fairey may have earlier title, as he was doing Andre the Giant stickers as early as 1989.
Fairey is the guy who did the blue and red Obama HOPE poster, which began as a parody of Bolshevik propaganda with the slogan PROGRESS. The HOPE poster supposedly was enormously popular but no one seems to have seen it except on lapel buttons and the internet.
Basically, a good book title with vague filler as contents.
More recently the title of the book has been subverted by Shepard Fairey's graphic-art house, which is called OBEY Giant. Fairey may have earlier title, as he was doing Andre the Giant stickers as early as 1989.
Fairey is the guy who did the blue and red Obama HOPE poster, which began as a parody of Bolshevik propaganda with the slogan PROGRESS. The HOPE poster supposedly was enormously popular but no one seems to have seen it except on lapel buttons and the internet.
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