Socio X

Rating:
Summary: X-tremely over rated...
Review: ...sometimes.

Just to get one thing clear, I do like Bridget De Socio's work, I have no bias against her for any reason. This is just an honest review of a book!

Let's begin with the production quality of this volume. I have to say that the paper stock is rather flimsy. It feels cheap and it's got this gross powdery feeling when you touch it. Maybe it will go away in time, maybe it won't. I don't know what she was thinking, I have magazines printed with better paper. The binding of this book is disturbingly flimsy too. She's probably trying to be out of the ordinary, but come on, it looks like it's falling apart. I know it's supposed to look like the spine of a hardcover book when you take the cover off, but this makes the spine weak and consequentially, easy to fall apart. Without a cover, I find the pages get damaged easily. The pages buckle back and forth without a strong spine supporting it. And that sums the book up contentwise too, spineless...

This book is divided up in sections of her work for different clients (Ex: Paper magazine, Vera Wang, Pantone, Hermes, etc...) with various people from the design industry praising her at the beginning of each chapter. Most of the work is wonderful, innovative, top notch stuff, but I can't help but see it as becoming/being dated. It seems to be based on flashy Photoshop work with a little content thrown in to boot.

I admire Bridget De Socio for her innovative use of Photoshop (most notably on the Paper magazine covers) but the rest seems like fluff IMHO. The Vera Wang section had one strong image, but then tends to fall apart after that. The work for Pantone seemed fun at the time, but now that I look at it again it seems over computerized and gaudy.

This is a good reference book to have in a designer's collection but three words sums this book up: one-trick-pony. Don't be caught doing the same thing.