Of the huge amount of pattern design books being published at the moment, The Pattern Sourcebook: A Century of Surface Design stands out from the crowd. It's partly because of its size: 350 illustrations are crammed into 304 pages. But it's also because of its approach. The author, Drusilla Cole, has selected patterns from the last hundred years, from fabrics, wallpapers, ceramics and other mediums which are ordered within the book by aesthetic, rather than chronological, reasons. This means contemporary creations sit next to retro designs and it's a lesson in inspiration, not history.
Artistic legends such as Henry Moore and Eduardo Paolozzi sit alongside Retro To Go favourites like Marimekko, Angie Lewin and Mark Hearld of the St Judes Gallery, whose work is used on the cover. Something to dip into time and time again, amazingly the book only costs £13.97 on Amazon.
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