With his first book, Flash Web Design, Hillman Curtis quickly earned Flash guru status, and deservedly so. Like the coolest mentor one could ever hope to find, he struck a chord with his audience by sharing not just the nuts and bolts behind his Flash creations, but his ideas on good design methodology.

MTIV expands on that. Here he shares his respect and excitement for new media, gives a blueprint for design challenges of all types, taps into the myriad visual and literary inspirations that fuel his imagination, and shows readers how to get past their own moments of "designer’s block."

Curtis is a fine storyteller. He takes anecdotes of coffee breaks, book tour lectures, work, life, and art, and weaves them around design maxims. For every morsel of advice, there are three or four personal stories that illustrate how he arrived at it and puts it to use. He shows how books, movies, print ads--just about anything--can be used in the search for creative solutions.

The seven steps in "Process" compose the bulk of the book. These are the exact steps Curtis’s design team applies to each project. Without giving too much away, they are Listen, Unite, Theme, Concept, Filter, Justify, and Eat the Audience. (Well, you’ll just have to get the book to find out about that last one.)

In "Inspiration," we learn that Curtis draws from Hemingway, Mies van der Rohe, Sidney Lumet, David Mamet, Leonard Cohen, Mark Rothko, and Joseph Müller-Brockman, among others. And the book finishes with a bang in the third chapter, "Practice," a collection of helpful tips in typography, color theory, XML, grids, and much more, from experts like Joseph Lowery (author of the Dreamweaver Bible) and usability authority Steve Krug.

MTIV is not just an easy read, it’s fun, warm, encouraging, and, yes, inspiring. A self-taught artist, Curtis has made MTIV the perfect Boy Scout manual for those who have stumbled on design as a new career or just languished through too many uninspired afternoons in front of the computer. --Angelynn Grant


From Book News, Inc.
Outlines and explains the seven steps in the process used by the author's graphics design company to produce digital media projects. The book also provides color photographs of paintings and film stills for creative inspiration, and shares some basic principles about color, typography, web layout, XML, usability, broadcasting, and print design.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Book Description
MTIV (Making the Invisible Visible) is an indispensable guide for the new age of media design. This book is about HOW to achieve the results that bring in profits and make you a better designer. This beautifully written and designed book unveils the methods behind Hillman Curtis' phenomenal success as a new media designer. In well-crafted narrative and instructional form, Hillman outlines his systematic approach for working with clients to develop clear, cogent, and creative communication - three "musts" for successful design. Through trial and error, Hillman and his company honed a seven-step process for creating concepts, and developing and designing new media. Often overlooked or unknown by designers, the methods in this book are distilled from years of experience and enhanced by Hillman's years as a leader in the design field. Divided into three parts - "Process," "Inspiration," and "Practice" - the book offers a practical methodology for successful artistic and professional work and also offers technical advice for translating this to the web (color, XML, streaming media, and other topics are discussed). Written with a subtle sense of humor and narration that really flows, this book is a joy to read, with great advice that helps designers with their own design work.


From the Publisher
MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer is an indispensable guide about HOW to approach commercial design and become a better designer. This beautifully written and designed book unveils the methods behind Hillman Curtis' phenomenal success as a New Media designer. In well-crafted narrative and instructional form, Hillman outlines his systematic approach for working with clients to develop clear, cogent, and creative communication - three "musts" for successful design. Through trial and error, Hillman and his company honed a seven-step process for creating concepts, developing and designing New Media. Often overlooked or unknown by designers, the methods in this book are distilled from years of experience, and enhanced by years as a leader in the design field. Divided into three parts – Process, Inspiration and Practice – the book offers a practical methodology for successful artistic and professional work. Hillman poignantly explores the works and ideas of writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians that influence his own creative mind and offers insight into how others may learn to identify their influences as well. The third section, "Practice," is a diverse collection of instructional essays from design experts, covering cutting-edge technologies, color theory, and font use, to name a few. Lined with a subtle sense of humor and narration that really flows, this book is a joy to read and offers great advice to help designers with their own design work.


From the Author
Why I wrote this book I have a really varied background. I studied creative writing and film theory in school. Dropped out to tour the UK in a rock band...hitched across America alone after reading On the Road by Kerouac (paperback edition from Penguin USA)...and worked every job you can imagine, from dishwasher to housepainter to waiter to nightclub bartender to warehouse worker...so from studying writing and film I gained the ability to recognize themes, but from the horrible jobs I gained this ability to recognize a blessing when I see one...and being a designer is, for me, a blessing. So I honor and respect it and think about it all of the time. I think about ways to improve how I design, how I concept, and how I can more efficiently communicate those invisible themes. What I want to accomplish with this book is this: I want to share our proven process, and I want to impart the respect and excitement I feel for New Media design. Also I want to pack it full of inspirational images...I want it to be a book that designers open while blocked, while looking for ideas, or while questioning their worth as New Media designers. In other words I want to write a book for myself...hopeful that I'm not alone.


From the Back Cover
MTIV (Making the Invisible Visible) is an indispensable guide for the new age of media design. This book is about HOW to achieve the results that bring in profits and make you a better designer. This beautifully written and designed book unveils the methods behind Hillman Curtis' phenomenal success as a new media designer. In well-crafted narrative and instructional form, Hillman outlines his systematic approach for working with clients to develop clear, cogent, and creative communication - three "musts" for successful design. Through trial and error, Hillman and his company honed a seven-step process for creating concepts, and developing and designing new media. Often overlooked or unknown by designers, the methods in this book are distilled from years of experience and enhanced by Hillman's years as a leader in the design field. Divided into three parts - "Process," "Inspiration," and "Practice" - the book offers a practical methodology for successful artistic and professional work and also offers technical advice for translating this to the web (color, XML, streaming media, and other topics are discussed). Written with a subtle sense of humor and narration that really flows, this book is a joy to read, with great advice that helps designers with their own design work.


About the Author
Hillman Curtis is the Principal and Chief Creative Officer of hillmancurtis, inc., an all-medium digital design firm in New York City. His expert and innovative design solutions have garnered him and his company the Communication Arts Award of Excellence, the One Show Gold, Silver and Bronze, the South by Southwest Conference "Best Use of Design" and Best of Show" awards, the New Media Invasion bronze, a Web Award, HOW magazine's Top 10, and the Web Award. Hillman was named as on of the top ten designers of 2000 by the IPPA, included in the "ten most wanted" by IDN magazine, as well as one of the "World's Best Flash designers" by cre@teonline. He has appeared as the keynote and featured speaker at design conferences worldwide, and his work has been featured in a variety of major design publications. A former art director at Macromedia, Hillman was a pioneer of Flash and became a primary influence in expanding the possibilities of web and motion graphic design. Hillman's first book, Flash Web Design (New Riders), sold over 100,000 copies and has been translated into 12 languages.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Inspiration cannot be systematized, productized, canned, or sold. However, you can systematize everything that surrounds inspiration and all too often suffocates it. (For instance, communicating with clients, working toward a concept.) And you can nurture the spark of inspiration, feed it, and honor it. Do all that, and inspiration is far more likely to occur on its own, without Herculean pain and strain. And that￯﾿ﾽs what this book is about.

In MTIV (Making the Invisible Visible): The Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer, Hillman Curtis shares his own processes, techniques, and approaches for cultivating brilliance.

If you￯﾿ﾽre a new-media designer, you already know Hillman Curtis (or should). He wrote and designed the remarkable Flash Web Design, which has made it into the library of one out of every six Flash designers. He￯﾿ﾽs the founder and leader of Hillmancurtis, Inc., whose clients have included everyone from Adobe and Macromedia to MTV, not to mention many of the world￯﾿ﾽs top ad agencies.

For an example of Curtis￯﾿ﾽs work, visit the revamped adobe.com, which incorporates three main areas that work together seamlessly, including Adobe Studio, Adobe￯﾿ﾽs new online creative hub, and DesignTeam, a new Adobe online application where designers and clients can come together to review designs and manage projects. No mean accomplishment, this. In other words, when Curtis speaks, he￯﾿ﾽs worth listening to.

Now to this stunning, full-color book. What does Curtis mean by ￯﾿ﾽmaking the invisible visible￯﾿ﾽ? From the standpoint of the new media designer, it￯﾿ﾽs finding inspired ways to bring together the many disparate elements available in new media, using them to transcend literal meaning, and to communicate emotions and themes with newfound power. Curtis recalls the 1930s propaganda posters whose ￯﾿ﾽdesigners spoke to a people￯﾿ﾽs pride and their need for answers in a most unstable time through nothing more than a typeface, an image, and a simple color scheme.￯﾿ﾽ

But it￯﾿ﾽs more than that. As Curtis rushes to point out, ￯﾿ﾽOften the most invisible aspect of any design job is your client￯﾿ﾽs desires. I have heard often from new media designers that their clients ￯﾿ﾽdon￯﾿ﾽt know what they want.￯﾿ﾽ In my experience that is never the case. It is simply not possible. Part of the process of making the invisible visible is pulling that often seemingly invisible desire out of the space between what the client says and what we hear.￯﾿ﾽ

Curtis shows how to listen to any client, and tease out the story that￯﾿ﾽs hidden in any product and service: a story you can bootstrap into great work. He shows how to move towards the right concept through a process of sketching, storyboarding, and ongoing collaboration; and how to ￯﾿ﾽeat the audience￯﾿ﾽ: truly make it a part of you.

In Part II, Curtis turns to inspiration itself: ￯﾿ﾽIn my experience you don￯﾿ﾽt generate ideas -- you beg, borrow, and steal them. Sounds cynical. It isn￯﾿ﾽt.... By developing the ability to see inspiration everywhere and to use that inspiration, regardless of its source, to influence your own work, you make yet another ￯﾿ﾽinvisible￯﾿ﾽ -- idea/inspiration -- visible.￯﾿ﾽ So he presents a catalog of inspiration: truly breathtaking images and work from the filmmakers, poets, painters, and new media professionals that have inspired him.

Part III focuses on the nuts-and-bolts practice of new media design. Form follows function no less in new media than in Bauhaus furniture. Curtis (with help from other great designers) shares cutting-edge ideas on typography, color, layout, site architecture, XML, streaming media, and more -- all designed to help you create work that￯﾿ﾽs both wondrous to gaze upon and wondrously effective. Like this book. (Bill Camarda)

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

MTIV (Making the Invisible Visible) is an indispensable guide for the new age of media design. This book is about HOW to achieve the results that bring in profits and make you a better designer. This beautifully written and designed book unveils the methods behind Hillman Curtis' phenomenal success as a New Media designer. In well-crafted narrative and instructional form, Hillman outlines his systematic approach for working with clients to develop clear, cogent, and creative communication - three "musts" for successful design. Through trial and error, Hillman and his company honed a seven-step process for creating concepts, developing and designing New Media. Often overlooked or unknown by designers, the methods in this book are distilled from years of experience, and enhanced by years as a leader in the design field. Divided into three parts-Process, Inspiration and Practice-the book offers a practical methodology for successful artistic and professional work and also offers technical advice in translating this for the web (color, XML, streaming media, and other topics are discussed). Lined with a subtle sense of humor and narration that really flows, this book is a joy to read, with great advice that helps designers with their own design work.

SYNOPSIS

Outlines and explains the seven steps in the process used by the author's graphics design company to produce digital media projects. The book also provides color photographs of paintings and film stills for creative inspiration, and shares some basic principles about color, typography, web layout, XML, usability, broadcasting, and print design. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

ACCREDITATION