Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design

The layout of this book is like none I have ever seen. I am not a designer by trade but you don't need to be one to appreciate the originality of the look of the book. The stories are ripe and interesting and right from the heart. It is a very unique combination of design and personal experience and emotion.

I think this book was not only written incredible well, but I loved the artistic design in each chapter. I highly recommend reading this! It is a feast for the eye as well as the mind.

What is it that makes people buy? This is the one burning question all of us want to know the answer to. We all are selling something, and we want to know what will make people buy whatever it is that we happen to be selling. Fortunately or unfortunately, if you ask a hundred people this question, they'll give you a hundred different answers as well. Nobody, it seems, can agree on what the right answer is. To be expected, the best (if not the right) answer (or the solution) has something to do the tool being wielded by the one who's answering it. And in the case of Debbie Millman, author of //Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design//, the answer is, naturally, design. Millman knew the answer even when she was a young girl in her father's pharmacy, enchanted by the barrette packaging displayed along the aisles and wondering what the girl on the Carefree feminine products box was looking at in a distance. She has since parlayed her answer (which is, design) into actually making us buy stuff. And the thought-provoking personal essays she wrote in //Look Both Ways// will convince you--through desire, envy, optimism, embarrassment, and love, why design is the answer to the question of what it is that makes people buy. Reviewed by Dominique James

An astonishment of riches, this jewel of the bookmaker's art is a dazzle that leaps out at the reader once the spine is cracked. Every hand-crafted page, joined with the gorgeous design, makes this a special endeavor indeed. This is a book about design that is for more than just designers, for it speaks of life--its small wars won, and the daily humiliations overcome. Empathy leaps from the text, a reflection of what is contained within the writer's heart. Millman's book casts a mirror upon the everyday, and tells us something about ourselves. For this, we should all be thankful.

I thumbed through the pages of Millman's book, my eyes lusting after the visuals, and my mind feeding upon the intelligent essays. Easy on the ear, and never a burden to the brain, the book, with effortless prose that flows meaningfully with the magnificent design, is one I will open each time I require inspiration. With all the many hats that Millman already wears--executive, professor, lecturer, leader-- it is a wonder to note how easily she has managed to refashion herself into yet another guise: that of Muse.