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Rating: 
Summary: Very Helpful tutorial, refreshing approach to Design
Review: As a designer, I have only dabbled in Flash. I picked up this book because there were four tutorials in it that I thought would be helpful. I had seen the sites of the designers and was intrigued with their work- Hey, why not improve my Flash skills with a tutorial by people I have heard of? ...The tutorials were extremely helpful and interesting. I found the authors insightful with admirable know-how for combining Flash and Photoshop. I found the details of their creative process inspiring, and the detailed technical process very educational. Using the Friends of Ed website ... to reinforce what I was learning was fabulous. There I was able to explore options with the files the designers used to create their masterpieces.
Rating: 
Summary: More about the design process than the actual techniques....
Review: I bought the book hoping to learn some great techniques for making images in Photoshop, then exporting them for use in Flash. Instead I got a walkthrough of the mental processes of four artists asked to work on a central theme. It was interesting to see how they approached the project, and then implemented their vision, but "groundbreaking" or "new" technique was not to be found. This book is more for "inspiration", something quickly made apparent by the artsy, but disjointed, layout. (While I like this approach for small leaflets or brochures, it made reading the long format book a chore.) Then again, even as a tool for jump-starting the imagination, the book could have been trimmed down in some areas, and fattened in others. The remix section (where the artists look at one another's projects) was filled with useless chatter as opposed to examples of what they would have done with the same source material. That material is also denied to the reader, as no CD-Rom supplement is included. Some - any! - files for the reader to play with would have been a welcome addition. The screenshots of the work in progress were well done, but it neither makes this book unique, nor rescues it from poor content in other parts. I really like the idea of the 4x4 series, but I found this book lacking in quality. If you'd like a design-oriented computer book for your collection, it *might* be worth checking out, but for instruction or technique, your book money is better spent elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Unique and Inspritational
Review: Plain and simple, this book is fun! The tutorials are helpful and the design concepts are unique. The artists are amazingly creative and informative. I believe this book was created to help give digital artists a push into a some sort of direction. If curious as to how and what other digital artist are doing, check this book out!
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