Erik Fleischer

Slide show without the speaker, Jun 13 2006

You may at first be tempted to buy this book for one or more of the following reasons:

(a) if you leaf quickly through it, you'll see lots of grid thumbnails, which may give you the impression that a range of different grid possibilities is carefully explored and explained;

(b) you'll also find several design pieces (pictures of posters, ads etc) with transparent overlays containing grids, suggesting that each piece is carefully analysed and explained;

(c) it's published by Princeton Architectural Press, so hey, it must be good.

Unfortunately, if you do buy the book for one of the reasons above, you're in for a lot of disappointment… Read more

Good information, but the author gets on your nerves, Jun 26 2002

You'll find good information and clear explanations with plenty of examples in this book, so there's no denying that you'll learn something by reading it. Plus, although it is technically a technical book, it's fairly easy to read even as a bed time book.

But the author has the terrible habit of treating the reader as if they were complete idiots, and her patronizing tone really got on my nerves more than once. She cautions the reader with "don't be dumb" at least a dozens times, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Basically, the author seems to believe that she's the most brilliant genious ever to have walked the surface of this planet and she really thinks she knows what's right… Read more

I haven't been paid to write this review!, Jun 26 2002

First of all, I should say that I bought this book mainly because of all the favourable reviews, and consistently good reviews seem to be a good indicator of a book's quality. Not so with this one, unfortunately.

There's no doubt that you'll get a truck load of information: the book can easily be used as a weapon (let it slip from your hands onto somebody's foot and they're bound to end up in hospital). The problem is that the information is not presented in a clear, consistent manner, nor is it very well organized.

Each one of the 26 chapters is written by a different author, and the authors obviously didn't spend a whole lot of time planning how the chapters would all tie in with each… Read more