Friday, January 30, 2009

Style-ish book worth getting

A long time ago (some time before 322 BC) Aristotle wrote his Poetics.

Wait! Wait! Don't stop reading, even though I'm delving into dead Greeks....

In Poetics, you see a fine, fine mind carefully noting the playwriting practices of his day. Aristotle categorizes the conventions of his day and makes some incredibly astute observations on how plot lines develop.

Since then, directly or indirectly, Poetics has helped millions understand works of fiction... all because a bright guy could make sense of a welter of contemporary practics.

It turns out that the Greek plays observed by Aristotle express the more or less universal need to pursue a pattern of living through experiences, thoughts and emotions to reach some sort of resolution or conclusion.

Same Same for Scrapbooks
On a smaller scale and around a much more circumscribed universe, Kitty Foster and Wendy McKeehan did a similarly fine job of categorization of the welter of scrapbook approaches and types that are floating around us.

Their book is Find Your Groove, A Guide to Discovering Your Scrapbook Style (ISBN-10: 1599630060; ISBN-13: 978-1599630069).

The book presents 7 basic styles:
  • clean lines
  • graphic
  • eclectic
  • classic
  • shabby or Old World
  • hip & trendy
  • anything goes.
There is an eighth, journalistic, which is more an approach than a visual style, and can partake of any of the previous graphic styles.

The whole tome is a veritable graphics arts and design course in miniature, and it's really helpful if (like me) you know what you like but you don't know where to begin assembling layouts.

You can get this book used (or even new) at very low prices, and you should. And that's even though there's a bit of confusion around the differences between classic and shabby/Old World.

I like it so much that I'm going to reference Foster + McKeehan styles in any scrapbook kits or embellishments I produce... the first a random collection of Valentines goodies that together fit several styles: eclectic, hip & trendy, and anything goes.

The collection should be my next post.

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