New and better than ever, Launching the Imagination treats design as both a verb and a noun - as both a process and a product. Design is deliberate - a process of exploring multiple solutions and choosing the most promising option. Through an immersion in 2-D concepts students are encouraged to develop methods of thinking visually that will serve them throughout their studies and careers. Building on strengths of the previous five editions Launching the Imagination 6e is even more: Concise. Content has been refined so that maximum content can be communicated as clearly and concisely as possible. Colorful. In addition to the full color used throughout the book, the writing is livelier than that in most textbooks. Analogies expand communication, and every visual example has been carefully selected for maximum impact. Comprehensive. Launching the Imagination is the only foundational text with full sections devoted to critical and creative thinking and to time-based design. The photo program is global, represents a myriad of stylistic approaches, and prominently features design and media arts as well as more traditional art forms. Contemporary. More than half of the visual examples represent artworks completed since 1970, and over 100 represent works completed since 2000 Compelling. Interviews with exemplars of creativity have always been an important feature of this book. Three of the best past profiles have been revised and a new profile has been added. Now inserted into the body of the text, each interview deliberately builds on its chapter content. In Chapter Five, designer Steve Quinn describes the seven-step sequence he uses in developing websites, logos, and motion graphics. In Chapter 8, Jim Elniski describes The Greenhouse Chicago, an innovative home that is both highly energy efficient and elegant. In Chapter 11, ceramicist David MacDonald describes his influences and work process. And, in the new profile in Chapter 6, artist Sara Mast describes an ambitious art and science collaboration begun in celebration of the ideas of Albert Einstein. We have also added a new feature called Success Stories. These short interviews explore connections between foundational coursework and career success. In Chapter Five, Elizabeth Nelson discusses her wide-ranging design work at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Jason Chin's interview in Chapter Seven connects directly to his self-designed project in the Self Assignment feature earlier in the chapter. As a freshman at Syracuse University, he completed this ambitious illustration project as the final project in a Two-Dimensional Design course. He describes his current work as a professional illustrator. Almost fifty new images have been added, representing major contemporary artists and designers including Wolfgang Buttress, Do Ho Suh, Garo Antresian, Janet Ballweg, Phoebe Morris, Alain Cornu, and Natalya Zahn.

With Barry Flanagan is a vivid account of a friendship that evolved into a working relationship when Richard McNeff became 'spontaneous fixer' (Flanagan's description) of the sculptor's show held in June 1992 at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Ibiza, where they were both living. McNeff was to gain a privileged insight into the sculptor's singular personality and eccentric working methods, learning to decipher his memorably surreal turns of phrase and to parry his fascinating, if at times unsettling, pranksteresque quirks . In September 1992 Flanagan and McNeff took the show to Majorca, resulting a lively visit to the celebrated Spanish artist Miquel Barcelo. The following year McNeff was involved in Flanagan's print- making venture in Barcelona and in his Madrid retrospective. Flanagan rescued him from a rough landing in England in 1994 by commissioning a tour of stone quarries there. Subsequently McNeff ran into a fourteen- year-old profoundly deaf girl who turned out to be his unknown daughter. She had a talent for art and the superbly generous sculptor was instrumental in helping with her studies. Late in 2008 Barry was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. By June 2009 he was wheelchair- bound. Two months later he died, and McNeff read the lesson at his funeral. Fleshed out with biographical detail, much of it supplied by the sculptor himself, supplemented by photographs and details of the work, this touching memoir is the first retrospective of a major Welsh-born artist. With Barry Flanagan captures the spirit of this remarkable Merlinesque figure in a moving portrait that reveals a true original.