books: some odds and ends..
Four random books this week. Sadly none of them have been languishing too long in the stash. I wish I had planned far enough ahead to write the proper reviews they each deserve.
Meg Swansen’s Knitting 30 Designs for Handknitting
*DROOL* I don’t think I’d wear all of these, but wow a few years ago I don’t think I would have believed that one could hand knit these. I happened to come across this in the library last week and of course took it out. I want to go through it again and again and again. Many techniques are reviewed with really nice color pictures. I really want to try the stockings with form fitted arch. I hope to one day be able to purchase enough wool to knit well, actually if i got the colours “right” I think I would probably knit everything, though possibly with some shaping (the Medallion Cardigan screams of days gone by) but I think the “picture knits” would be better as totes these days.. ;) (sorry Meg, I’m not a huge fan of them, though they are quite beautiful designs on their own).
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
I started reading this by way of daily lit but my ‘berry won’t download the entire chapter by default so I became very frustrated and checked the hard copy out from the library. It’s an interesting book to say the least. It reminded me a lot about high school in some bizarre connected way.
Impact of Ecommerce on Consumers And Small Firms edited by Salvatore Zappala and Colin Gray
While perhaps slightly dated for the bleeding edge American markets, this is a good academic survey of the steps to adoptions of eCommerce and what that might mean. It focuses mainly on Italy and England (as the editors teach in those countries), but there are some nice points it raises, which to me, validated what I had known and will hopefully help me in my client work (new website launching.. soon!).
Designing Brand Identity: A Complete Guide to Creating, Building, and Maintaining Strong Brands by Alina Wheeler
As some of the amazon reviews have said, this is definitely about identity. I’m working on branding me. It wasn’t going so well, but I recently teamed up with Corrie and Dave and they are great sounding boards and I will eventually be whipped into shape and then we’ll develop a nice logo and complete identity package. I am going to owe them a TON by the end of this, so please go check them out and hire them if it sounds like a fit! They are two really great awesome people.