Book Description

Largest collection anywhere: 2,500 authentic illustrations of bowls, bottles and pipes; geometric and floral patterns on beadwork, pictographs, symbolic tipi decorations, masks, basket weaves, Hopi katchina figures, Zuni and Navaho sand paintings, totem poles, hide paintings, much more.
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Excellent resource!
This book is a visual encyclopedia of Native designs, from prehistoric to recent history. Tribal art and artifacts are covered from all over, for example, there are images and sketches of Navajo sandpaintings, Eskimo clothing, Pueblo pottery, plus masks, belts, and even just basic designs! If you do beadwork, quillwork, pottery, or other Native arts, this book is a must for your library! ... Read more

Book Description

This lavish collection of copyright-free engravings by the celebrated 19th-century artist F. Knight—reproduced directly from a rare original edition—contains elaborate wall murals with trompe-l’oeil effects; scenes of hunters, flanked by mythological figures; idealized damsels in rustic settings; and numerous other florid motifs. Designs both floral (leaves, running vines, and blossoms) and animal (realistic and grotesque) appear ina variety of sizes and styles. 700 black-and-white illustrations.
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Great B/W ornamental sketches of scenes & design elements
This is a great sourcebook for decoupage. From intricate running designs to entire one-page scenes, it has the gamut of Victorian style drawings. For the price, you could buy a couple and cut the pages and make a great decoupaged piece of furniture. ... Read more

Book Description

A virtually inexhaustible supply of copyright-free graphics of timeless appeal, reproduced from a turn-of-the-century French type foundry catalog, ideal for a wide range of arts and crafts projects. Subjects range from food and drink to vehicles and machines to sports and music. The style ranges from realism to Art Nouveau.
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So much to look at, so little time
This book had literaly every kind of object that you would want to look at. Everything from flowers to fruit, to cars and planes, to houses and buildings, to people and their tools. ... Read more

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Wonderful Book
This book has a wide range of floral images for various projects. The CD is great; saves scanning time and frustration. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A useful resource for graphic artists and others
As someone who grew up in Africa, I find myself drawn to African culture. I have used some of the nearly 400 illustrations in this book for various purposes, from website design artifacts to home decoration. Designs can be used at will. The designs are well categorised. North Africa and East Africa are not as well represented as the other parts of the continent, but you'll still find a good variety an this book's pages. Dates, and an index by region would have been useful.

African Designs from Traditional Sources
Published in 1971, this book is a pictorial archive of African design. Taken largely from carved art in wood and stone, most of the designs are presented as black and white linocut prints, and each design includes a brief description of its geographic and tribal origin. A map of Africa is included as well as source references from museums, collections and publications for each of the artifacts that the designs have been extracted from, more than 200 in all. This is an excellent resource for artists as well as school age children and it is an exceptional value. I'm holding out on that last star only because no dates are given for the works cited. ... Read more

Book Description

Over 150 copyright-free patterns, selected from rare19th-century publications. Florals, foliates, geometrics, many other motifs ready to add period flavor to almost any project. Indispensable for textile, package and graphic designers, artists, craftspeople, many more.
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An excellant source for Arabic designs!
Ms. Wilson presents various elements of Arabic designs drawn mostly in black and white. She includes instruction for reproducing the designs and commentary on time periods and original colors used. The only thing that would have made this book better would have been pictures of the artifacts she refers to in her extensive documentation. A must have for anyone doing Islamic or Arabic arts! ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Victorian Heraldry on its Best... and Worst
A set of over 4,000 crest designs, but what a disappointment! The true heraldic craftsmen drew their inspiration from true heraldic sources, i.e. the Middle Ages. After 1600 or so heraldry went into a steep decline, culminating in the truly awful Victorian concept of depicting the 'real' thing, as opposed to the brutal and wonderful power of the symbolic art of earlier craftsmen. Thus we're stuck with 'real' lions and dragons and any kind of object, complete with shadowing. Well, the book was published in 1859, so I should have known better.... If you're interested in Victorian heraldry, it's a wonderful book. If you're interested in real heraldry it's a waste of money. Try the compilations of Sir Anthony Wagner instead. Now t h a t is true heraldic power.

Good collection of high resolution, black-and-white images.
Enlarged versions of the black-and-white heraldic designs common to most coats of arms and crests. Perfect for scanning and easily adaptable by experienced graphic designers. Originally published in smaller versions in Fairbairn's Book of Crests.

resource book for designing new crests, not finding old ones
This book includes hundreds of components of potential crest designs shown in black and white on plates. It does not include any family names, family crests, or or any type of index to the images included in the book.

Great resource for designing your coat of arms
No text or explanations of the different symbols in this book. If you're looking for a resource to get ideas for your coat of arms, then this is what you want. Very comprehensive array of pictures. I scanned the pictures I needed, imported them into Photoshop and voila! A great looking coat of arms! ... Read more

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Too useful
Terrific collection of illustrations of food, utensils, spices and more! Borders too. Perfect for use with group cookbooks, holiday letters, etc. Just finished Thanksgiving themed letters, used cornucopia graphic. Like the other books in the series (books & reading, animals, Egyptian designs, Indian designs, etc.) you can run them off the CD-ROM without installing them on your hard drive. Collect 'em all kids! ... Read more

Book Description

Magnificently embellished letters of the alphabet—approximately 40 to a page—plus one page of roman and arabic numbers—primarily taken from Jones’s illustrated The Psalms of David. Meticulously crafted Victorian designs range from small to large, simple to spectacular.
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Wonderful reasource
You can't beat a Dover Publication for quality of information, quantity of information, and a fantastic price. This book is filled with well 1001 Illuminated letters. I have gotton many ideas from this book for my own Illuminations. This book is filled with many different painting styles and designs that you can get many ideas from. I definately would recommend this book to anyone trying to see what a wide variety of different painting techniques actually looks like.

calligraphy words
i never have read the book i just need to see it for a school projec ... Read more

Book Description

An expert "op art" designer explains what tessellated patterns are and how they are formed, relates the history of tessellated designs from their beginnings in Rome and shows how to create your own dazzling designs from common geometric shapes. 179 line drawings. 32 full-page plates. Four color illustrations on covers.
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An excellent book for those interested in Celtic Designs.
This is an excellent book for those looking to create celtic designs.

This book teaches about the prehistoric spiral, the megalithic spiral then goes through early & middle celtic spirals. It then follows into the insular and golden age spirals.

The book is best used when accompianied by Aidan's other Celtic Design books. I have 7 of the books in this series and love them all!

All in all this is a great book for someone looking to create celtic designs.

History and construction of Celtic Sprial Patterns
Meehan is not only the most proflific writer of celtic pattern books, but one of my favorite to read. A warning here, these are fairly serious books for people that are truly caught by the art of the Celts and wish to know more about it. These are not clip art books nor stencils. Meehan does a beautiful job of joining historical information and the construction. In reading books you know that he loves this subject. His books are full of tantalizing hints into another world that throws around terms like 'the Waldalgesheim pattern'. Which he does explain, but leaves one with the desire to run out and find a book specific to that subject and learn more. Short of doing what I suspect might be doctoral work on the subject, reading Meehan's books are the way to go. He also has a useful appendix of terms in the back. My favorites in this book however are the discussion on the triskele, the triple sprial patterns, which are not considered knotwork per se, and are therefore not to be found in the standard books on knotwork. This book also covers some of the more freeform curving designs that do not come under the knotwork category. Well worth the read. ... Read more

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Fanciful wit and dark humor make this book a masterpiece.
Machinery and Mechanical Devices, isn't just a clip-art book. This sixty-page presentation of copyright free illustrations from the 1800's is a humorous personal expression of the wonderment and fear associated with functionally obscure mechanical devices. Unlike other clip-art books which present the material as individual objects separated by a lot of white space, this book is brought to much higher levels of interest. The way Rowe does this is by creating collages of illustrations on each page - not simply displaying them piece-by-piece. He even goes so far as to make up names for many of his concoctions, and adds other details such as twinkling stars and abstract patterns. The result is a highly entertaining picture book useful not only for the art it displays, but also as a catalog of visual and humorous ideas. Enjoy! ... Read more

Book Description

Edited by Carol Belanger Grafton. Copyright-free treasury of 393 full-color, 654 black-and-white illustrations. Authentic heraldic arms, lions, eagles, dragons, shields, crests, windows, etc. Also, arms of cities and towns, arms of Edward the Black Prince, Milton, Maximilian I, others. Add aristocratic flair, noble bearing to almost any graphic project. Publisher’s Note. Captions.
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Reviews (2)

Artists book not for researchers
If you want to know what different styles of family emblems people have had this is a great book. If you want to know anything about the individual designs (whos it was, where it is from, age of origin), this is not the book. The book is 70% black and white and 30% color. It would be great for an artist, not a researcher.

A feast for the eyes
Like all Dover publications, I was not disappointed when I picked up this book. The illustrations themselves are rich and detailed, truly a feast for the eyes, for any artist or craftsperson. The helpful text and detailed descriptions make the book easy to use and very enjoyable. This book makes a fantastic suplement to the "Design Your Own Coat of Arms" by Rosemary A. Chorzempa (Dover), because it gives you a great wealth of ideas from which to work. I highly reccommend this book to anyone who has an interest in heraldry, you won't be disappointed. ... Read more

Book Description

authentic, solid-silhouette designs printed in colors: phoenix, chrysanthemum, lotus, plumblossom, butterfly, fish, boat, etc. Provides rare source of ideas and direct reproduction wherever Oriental flavor is needed. "One of the most aesthetically pleasing books to cross our desk in a long time!"—Kliatt Paperback Book Guide. 300 plates.
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Reviews (2)

Good Design Source
I have used this book numerous times for the somewhat non-traditional purpose of tattoo designs. My complaint is minor, and it has to do with how the book is formatted. The designs are white on a red or black background. This makes it a little difficult to photocopy for use; especially on the red pages.

Beautiful designs, nicely explained
I ran across this title in a small shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. I was running short on cash, and was kicking myself within 24 hours for not purchasing this book. Hawley provides 300 cut paper designs used in traditional Chinese embroidery. Each design is in white on a solid color background (red, blue, black, brown, or purple). The designs are clear and easy to see and enjoy. A brief introduction gives a little background (I would have liked more) on this folk art, and an index at the beginning allows users to look up symbols of specific interest. Do that, but browse the rest of the book as well!

An eight-page supplement at the end illustrates 160 symbols (including ideograms, trigrams from the I Ching, and pictoral symbols) used in traditional decorative arts along with their meanings. Fascinating!

For those interested in learning more about Chinese art, or for those who just enjoy beautiful designs, this is an excellent choice. ... Read more

Book Description

Selected from vintage periodicals, nearly 700 silhouettes cover a broad range of subjects in a rich variety of shapes and sizes: seasons and holidays, family life, men and women, children at play, sports, outdoor life, food, kitchen chores, cats and dogs, wild animals, more. A special section of silhouettes for children to cut out and arrange into scenes and stories of their own makes the book not only a practical archive of illustrations for graphic designers, but a delightful art activity book for youngsters.
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