How to Have Great Ideas is the essential guide for students and young professionals looking to embrace creative thinking in design, advertising and communications. It provides 53 practical strategies for unlocking innovative ideas. Strategies include improvisation techniques, changing the scenery, finding hidden links, looking to nature for inspiration, combining unusual systems, challenging set boundaries and many more. Each strategy is packed with great examples of successful contemporary and historical designs – from a designer dress made out of an old typewriter to ticket machines powered by recycled bottles in China, via the reimagining of famous brand logos and mis-use of photocopiers. Packed with practical projects to kick-start inventive thought in idea-blocked moments, this book explores creative thinking across all visual arts disciplines.
Hailed as The Awl’s 2012’s novel to anticipate, this glorious debut stars hippie detectives, a singular city, and an MFA student on the run. On a residential Bay Area block struggling with the collision of gentrifier condos and longtime residents, stymied recent MFA grad Philip Kim is sleeping the night away when bullets fly through a window in his apartment building and end up killing one of his neighbors. Philip only learns about the murder the next day when bored and Googling himself. But when he gets caught up in the investigation and becomes the focus of an elaborate, violent scheme, he will learn far more than he ever wanted to about his former four-eggs-at-a-time borrowing neighbor Dolores Stone, aka “The Grey Beaver,” and her shocking connections to an underworld only a city like this one could create. Siddhartha “Sid” Finch, a homicide detective bitter about everything except his gorgeous wife, and his phlegmatic, pock-marked partner Jim Kim, land the case. Sid and Jim race after Philip through a menacing, unknowable San Francisco fending off militant surfers, vaguely European cafes, and aggressive Advanced Creative Writing students as they all try to figure out just who’s causing trouble in this city they love to hate. Exceedingly unique, pulsing with vigor and heart, and loaded with fierce, fresh language, The Dead Do Not Improve confirms Jay Caspian Kang as a true American original as obsessed with surfing and surviving as with the power of unforgettable storytelling.
With more than 30 million books sold, the My Weird School series really gets kids reading! In this second book in the My Weirder School series, everything seems to be on the fritz, including the teachers! Luckily, Mr. Harrison, the tech guy at Ella Mentry School, can fix anything: computers, phones, pencil sharpeners. He can also build anything, like a solar-powered umbrella! But when the power goes out in the school, everyone is yelling and screaming and freaking out in the dark. Can Mr. Harrison save the day before there’s total chaos? Perfect for reluctant readers and word lovers alike, Dan Gutman’s hugely popular My Weird School series has something for everyone. Don’t miss the hilarious adventures of A.J. and the gang.
"A pleasure. ... Suitable for beach reading or for mainlining before a dinner party." —Dan Piepenbring, New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) "Absorbing. ... As thoughtfully written as it is nuts." —Chicago Tribune A collection of the world’s most mind-boggling, thought-provoking, and downright hilarious theories by the co-host of the hit podcast No Such Thing as a Fish, Dan Schreiber. Why are we here? Do ghosts exist? Will we ever travel back in time? Are we being visited by extraterrestrials? Will we ever talk to animals? Are we being told the truth? Are mysterious creatures roaming the Earth? And why, when you’re in the shower, does the shower curtain always billow in towards you? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions (that includes the shower-curtain one, which is a mystery that has eluded scientists for decades, and which they are still trying to solve). But don’t worry, no matter what questions you have, you can bet on the fact that there is someone (or something) out there, investigating it on your behalf—and Dan Schreiber collects their latest findings. From the Silicon Valley tech billionaires currently trying to work out whether or not the universe is one giant video game simulation to the self-proclaimed community of Italian time-travelers who are trying to save the world from destruction; The Theory of Everything Else will act as a handbook for those who want to think differently.
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 A Bloomberg Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2020 A Human Behavior & Evolution Society Must-Read Popular Evolution Book of 2020 A bold, epic account of how the co-evolution of psychology and culture created the peculiar Western mind that has profoundly shaped the modern world. Perhaps you are WEIRD: raised in a society that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. If so, you’re rather psychologically peculiar. Unlike much of the world today, and most people who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, self-obsessed, control-oriented, nonconformist, and analytical. They focus on themselves—their attributes, accomplishments, and aspirations—over their relationships and social roles. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically distinct? What role did these psychological differences play in the industrial revolution and the global expansion of Europe during the last few centuries? In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church. It was these changes that gave rise to the WEIRD psychology that would coevolve with impersonal markets, occupational specialization, and free competition—laying the foundation for the modern world. Provocative and engaging in both its broad scope and its surprising details, The WEIRDest People in the World explores how culture, institutions, and psychology shape one another, and explains what this means for both our most personal sense of who we are as individuals and also the large-scale social, political, and economic forces that drive human history. Includes black-and-white illustrations.
From bestselling author Anh Do comes the hilarious hit chapter book series, WeirDo. These illustrated books will keep readers laughing as Weir and his friends navigate the trials of elementary school. Weir's back and even weirder!But it's not just Weir who's weird, it's his whole family. Not even their pet bird is normal!How will he keep cool with a school trip to the zoo coming up AND the birthday party of his biggest crush?! It won't be easy . . . but it will be funny!
Winner of American Library Association Schneider Family Book Award! Bobby Phillips is an average fifteen-year-old-boy. Until the morning he wakes up and can't see himself in the mirror. Not blind, not dreaming-Bobby is just plain invisible. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to Bobby's new condition; even his dad the physicist can't figure it out. For Bobby that means no school, no friends, no life. He's a missing person. Then he meets Alicia. She's blind, and Bobby can't resist talking to her, trusting her. But people are starting to wonder where Bobby is. Bobby knows that his invisibility could have dangerous consequences for his family and that time is running out. He has to find out how to be seen again-before it's too late.
This book is a travel guide of sorts to New York's local legends and best kept secrets, filled with crazy characters, cursed roads, abandoned sites, and bizarre roadside attractions that the author feels reflect the shared modern folklore of our time.
