Freewave
While on the DO forums (that’s Designate Online), the topic of recommended design books came up. The one that caught my eye straight away was this little book called Freewave. I read the amazon review, thought about it for like 10 seconds and quickly ordered. Yes Amazon is very lucky to have people like me, suckers for books, even bigger suckers for experimental books.
So what sets Freewave apart from the other design books out there, that have literally pages upon pages of design and illustration within their covers? A very simple idea. All the FILES that make up the images within the book are included on a DVD that comes together with book. Run that through your head a little. 248 pages, each page is made up of several files, all there for you to analyse and see how they were made, and here’s the great part, it’s all under (as far as I can tell from the legal jargon they’ve decided to use on the front of the page) a form of creative commons license. So you’re free to use the images and files in anyway you see fit.
Now you might think that the book would be filled with utter shit. Fortunately that’s not the case. The book’s got some brilliant designers contributing to it’s pages and what’s great is how they’re all grouped into specific areas of design.
- Fontware
- Vectoreware
- Humanware
- Sub-Humanware
- Non-Humanware
- Scratchware
Honestly I’d love to contribute to something like this in the future. If you’re a designer, buy the book. ISBN 1-86154-273-9
All I can say is wow…
I’ll definitely be picking up a copy of this book, not just for the learning value, but some great art as well. Thanks for the great suggestion!
4/3/2005
Glad I could help in your quest for design knowledge :)
5/3/2005
Cool! Thanks for the suggestion and links. I might pick up a copy for myself.
8/3/2005
I’m glad you like the book! We are woring on our second book with DVD ‘Human?’ and are looking for designers to be involved in submitting thier work. For more information send us an email and your url link to By invitation only.
Best wishes Alison Roscoe
(Co-author of Freewave).
22/3/2005