Donis A. Dondis

Essential reading for those interested in art. The important aspects of being literate, in the visual sense, are covered in astounding detail and accuracy. It's a technical text, for the most part, but there are philosophical ramifications throughout that keep the balance between textbook and investigative inquiry.

Recommended.

So. I purchased this at the beginning of the year because it was one of the texts for the RGD Ontario test. When I had just started making my way through this text, the test requirements changed, as did some of the books that were recommended to be read, and this was no longer on the list. Le sigh.

I kept reading anyway. And I will admit that this was not the most entertaining read. It was educational and informative, yes. But it was rather like reading a text book, which explains why it took show more me more than two months to read a book that is less than 200 pages long. (I will admit that I kind of fell asleep in it a couple of times.)

The book begins with the very basics of visual images (dots, lines, colours, etc), gets into the history of design and visual literacy, and then into application as it is today. As the book was written in the 1970′s, I felt like this last portion was a bit out of date… I rather wish the book had been reissued with updates in that respect, especially for an inclusion of the Internet. This is such a huge factor in the way people communicate now that it is such a shame that it hasn’t been included.

I can see why this book was originally recommended for the RGD test. And not only did it refresh some things that I had already known and hadn’t thought much about in a few years, but it also taught me some new things. I didn’t really study art history in school, so I found the brief information of different art movements most interesting – and actually rather wish those portions had actually been more in depth.

The Bottom Line
There was good information here. There really was. It was just written in a very dry manner. Read it if you’re interested in the topic, but don’t expect to be entertained while learning. show less

This book helped me organize my way of thinking about visual art. It changed, updated my worldview.