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I'm a long-time fan of Debbie's podcast, and after reading her diary images on Brainpickings, I decided to go for the gold and actually read her book. The book is more memoir than anything else, recounting her young experiences with brands, design, and career decisions. The essays are a peek into her inner-life, but really, they're not anything you didn't already get from what you saw-on-the-internet. Even though I found the book somewhat superficial in its' meditations on design-life, I had to
I LOVED this book. So many of Debbie's essays spoke to me, and the design is truly beautiful.
There is always something new to dream of and always different dreams to choose. And you don't have to pick just one.
There is always something new to dream of and always different dreams to choose. And you don't have to pick just one.
I finally understood myself after reading this book.
Visual essays that are so beautifully done, they inspire me on multiple levels.I'd love to journal this way - if only.
Visual essays that are so beautifully done, they inspire me on multiple levels.I'd love to journal this way - if only.
A really wonderful read. Debbie Millman is so moving and motivational as she describes various experiences and their effects in her life and career.
This is a brave and daring book, well complemented by its unique and expressive design. Only fitfully, though, is it genuine and moving. The conceit—very successful branding executive writes a collection of short memoir pieces to try and locate her relationship to design—is certainly unique. (I'm jealous I didn't think of it first and then try to write it.) But that's exactly the problem. Branding executives are pied pipers and pedantic by nature. That's the job, actually. Trumpet our clients' a...
There are few books I cling to my chest after reading them and this is one...partly because the Debbie Millman and I came of age at a similar time and things like sewing clothes and packaging and Diane Keaton and style and Andy Warhol and all those things impacted my sense of design, but also because the pages are written by HAND! Oh, I just love the way this book looks.This book is a must read for people who are curious about design and how it impacts us, it is a very personal memoir written fr...
Maybe I've seen too many things influenced by this sort of work. Or maybe it's the other way around. Good reminders, sort of interesting non-specific thoughts about general life things. Why not read it? It's not totally like other things you've already read.......
I'm about 4.5 stars on this one. I really, really liked it. Millman, whom I didn't know at all before I (almost randomly) picked up this book at my local university library, turns out to be a big-time brand design guru. The essays in the book aren't about branding per se, 'though. They are, as the subtitle says, at "the intersection of life and design," which means that they're little autobiographical stories about moments in Millman's life. Each story is connected in some way, to "brands"--incl...
More of an autobiography of sorts....the most interesting part was the typography. Otherwise it's more of an homage to brand (design) and the power of marketing.
I absolutely loved this book. Millman's life events had a certain synergy with my own, but more than that I love how the conventions of the type and layout are played with and contested. Millman's thoughts and theories on life are witty and intelligent and expose how some of us 'arty types' connect with the world.
"Childlike" is a word often looked down upon but I believe Millman truly encapsulates it beautifully in her sense of wonder. I personally found solace in someone else with so much pride in sentimentality and collections. Her writings are incredibly thoughtful and loving in details, seemingly being someone who is truly living. She has a great understanding of communication, easily exuding her emotions and passions in both prose and design. Not reading a physical copy of this was truly unfortunate...
On page 184 Millman boasts that she didn't like Cloverfield. I'd like to say this didn't influence my dislike of the book, but I can't promise it.I felt many of her essays were pedestrian, and the attempt to link them to design philosophy felt artificial and forced. Printing them in quirky, over-sized, type/handwriting/embroidery/index cards did not help. Just not my book, I guess.
A nostalgic tug, accompanied by fascinating graphics.This book made me laugh out loud. So many times I saw my own traits within these essays. Well written Debbie made the English language dance in thoughtful prose. A book which would interest graphic artists and writers alike.
I really wanted to like this but it just felt sort of ... self-indulgent and repetitive and annoying. Like I think young Debbie and her obsession with having brands maybe had a problem. Sometimes she hints that she's since learned deeper truths but it felt forced. Didn't quite work for me.
I've been a long-time fan of Debbie's podcast for her sentimental and narrative approach to design, so this book was a delightful behind-the-scenes/before-they-were-stars glimpse for me. I even discovered some similarities in our early experience of life, which undoubtedly contributes to my fondness for her perspective. She speaks of an early incapacity for certainty, and of a later aversion to "choosing one", and this book is a personal celebration of the glorious tangle of life as a passionate...