Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Mixed up	Customer Rating:
Being a professional design teacher for new design students I think this book lacks structure and depth in the topics it treats. There are many inspirational pictures and examples of mixed techniques the may inspire, and the book is well made and presented therefore an extra star

Excellent introduction to contemporary design methods

Customer Rating:

This book works, not because it shows one how to master any particular technique in detail, but, because it shows how a vast array of contemporary design tools and techniques can be bought together to communicate design intent. Alan Pipes has sourced some astounding examples of modern technical illustration and has put together some very revealing case studies. I do agree with the previous reviewer that some techniques are not covered in enough detail to develop mastery and that there are sections where it is a little hard to understand who exactly the author is thinking of when he wrote them. However the book's real value is showing how traditional skills as well as computer based methods an be used with equal value. How a sketch with a bic biro, a conventional orthographic drawing, a ray traced 3d solid model and a photoshop manipulated image all have value in the product design process. The only notable omission for me was any real investigation of Computer Aided Manufacturing, one might be left with the impression that the only value of a cad model was to produce hyper realistic illustrations. This said Alan Pipes should be congratulated on this and excellent reference volume and at the amazon price suberb value for money.

Not sure what it's aim is...

Customer Rating:

As a fussy professional designer I am forever trying to improve all of my skills, and although a competent and descriptive sketcher, I thought buying this book might have some more indications as to areas I can do exercises in to improve my sketching even further; please note this is not the case, this is NOT a 'tutorials' book. I'm a bit confused by this book, I'm not sure what it's aiming to do! It was a toss up between this book and 'Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers' (yes, I realise sketching is different to drawing). Too much text, not enough visuals which I wasn't really expecting. What was/is interesting is seeing the difference of drawing from the Italian designers (i.e. Perry King) and current American designers (Michael DiTullo). I feel the information sometimes goes way off course (i.e. describing what a computer is, what RAM is, what a hard drive is... is this really essential?) and I wonder how many pages would actually be in the book if they were to take out the seemingly useless information. Basically, I think Pipes has missed his market, I think there is too much text which feels like 'filler', and not enough visuals to whet the appetite and make me enthusiastic and energetic about drawing/sketching.