 |
| |
"Help Yourself to a Blue Banana" subtitle "Awakening your eyes to art, design and visual living"
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| By: Michael Adams |
11/24/2007 9:29 AM |
Hard
cover, 345 pages. This is a primer on visual understanding written by
Michael Adams, a veteran marketing creative director and founder of
Behind the Scenes Marketing. Adams is also adjunct (evening) professor
of art and design at Montclair State University, which partially
underwrote the first edition of this book in 2005. The second edtiion
will be published in early 2008. Please consider recommending this book
to entry level artists and designers in the visual arts professions,
and to art, design and photography students. It is avaiable now (info@behindthescenesmarketing.com) will be available on
Amazon.com in early 2008.
Praise for "Help Yourself to a Blue Banana"
from visual arts professionals:
“It’s a new, stimulating way to look at art.”
“ . . . an approach that must be applauded.”
“There is nothing on the market that is quite so understandable.”
“This isn’t a rehash of Bauhaus or Swiss or modernist principles.”
“ . . . right on the mark in explaining the visual creative process
“The points made are universal, and that is wonderful.”
“This is the first time I have had the pleasure to
recommend wholeheartedly that a book be published.”
“He knows what he’s talking about and writes about it very well.”
“The market for the book is huge.”
“The magic of the book lies in the ‘nine lessons of light’ which
can be a resource in understanding visual perception.”
“The book is refreshing in its simplicity.”
and:
“ . . . if you want to know what I think,
I think it could be a classic.”
Praise for "Help Yourself to a Blue Banana"
from every day readers:
"I feel that Help Yourself to a Blue Banana is going to be my main reference for a long time.
I’m feeling that I’m going to be carrying it as my dictionary until I know it so well that I have no need to carry it any longer. The information on each lesson of light, in each chapter, is so easyto refer to, I can’t imagine not using it."
– Jackquelyn Mazzola, graphic design major, Montclair State University
"As I was reading the book, I felt like Professor Adams was sitting right there with me explaining every chapter and pointing out examples in everyday life. It felt like I was on a secret adventure that no one around me could ever possibly know about. This made me want to keep changing the places I was reading the book, especially so I could really see that examples of the nine lessons of light are everywhere. Each location was a different experience. Conveniently enough, I was in a bright multi-colored cafe when reading the chapter on color, and outside sitting in the grass on a sunny day while reading about texture. Sometimes I felt as though the book was being written as I was reading it. These occurrences were all very surreal."
– Frances Kerrigan, painting major, Montclair State University
"After reading Help Yourself to a Blue Banana,
I felt like a new born baby using my eyes for the very first time."
– Catherine Reed, graphic design major, Montclair State University
Dust jacket copy:
On 345 carefully crafted pages (each written in everyday language),
Michael Adams introduces us to his personal world of art and design.
This is a surprising and exciting adventure into visual perception, all brought
to life by a wonderfully simple concept of seeing called nine lessons of light.
One of the most comprehensive and understandable guides ever written,
Help Yourself to a Blue Banana is everyone’s first introduction to art and
design. It shows readers how, at any age, an appreciation of visual
expression is a pleasure that can enliven virtually anyone’s daily
experience. Whether it’s the most sophisticated art we find in the best
museums, or the design for a flower garden, a school scrapbook, the look
of advertising graphics or summer fashions, classic architecture, a romantic
tattoo, or the shape of a NASCAR racer, they are all part of our modern
visual reality.
As these chapters unfold, readers uncover a firestorm of visual
observations and insights, all tied to a new unified theory of what
contemporary visual communication really is. Along the way, even the
most casual bystanders can try out (or even embrace!) a fun and
intriguing new lifestyle that Adams calls visual living. It’s a lifestyle
that is wondrously illuminated as the pages turn.
While helping us see through his own eyes, Adams leads us to discover
inspiring examples of visual expression everywhere. He shows how these
examples are often “hiding” in plain sight in the real world that surrounds
us (or in other cases are revealed through the dozens of internet image
searches that are referenced throughout the book).
As a foundation for all these revelations, the wisdom of more
than thirty of history’s greatest artists is called on to anchor the text.
References to their works and philosophies (which are quoted throughout
the book) are expanded with examples and commentary taken from Adams’
own career as a visual innovator at the very best design studios, top ad
agencies and leading international hotel corporations.
Virtually anyone can understand art and design as presented in this
book. And virtually everyone has the potential to use the visual language to
create expression, expression that has genuine emotional meaning for others.
By “translating” art and design into nine easy ideas (called lessons of light)
Adams shows us what they are saying, and what questions they ask.
Written with the total novice in mind, Help Yourself to a Blue Banana is
also a remarkable inspiration for students in visual art programs, for
educators in communications and even for working visual art professionals,
who find every page provides refreshing vision into the depths of creative
thinking.
These chapters usher in a new era of thinking, speaking and writing
about visual perception. They are about understanding and living all of this
visual excitement within a brilliant new reality that is here now for anyone
to explore.
This is the “bachelor of art” degree you never got, all in a book you
will genuinely enjoy!
About the author
Designer Michael Adams was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania,
in the same hospital as Perry Como and Bobby Vinton. He can't sing,
but he studied painting in Germany under Ernst Krupp, architecture and
economics at Catholic University, and graphic design at the School of
Visual Arts. He was raised as a military brat in the U.S. Air Force.
He has held senior creative positions at top studios and marketing
companies including Wells Rich Greene Advertising and Ketchum Advertising,
and traveled internationally as the design director for three leading hotel
corporations. He is the owner of Behind the Scenes Marketing (.com).
Adams is an adjunct (evening) professor of art and design at Montclair
State University and lives visually in New Jersey. His online portfolio
is located at http://www.behindthescenesmarketing.com/
----------------------------------- |
| Copyright ©2007 Michael Adams |
| Permalink |
Trackback |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |