The Collage Ideas Book

This book is a goldmine of inspiration. Each page offers a fresh, creative prompt or technique that makes you want to drop everything and start experimenting. It’s not just for beginners, there are plenty of unique ideas even seasoned artists will find exciting. I love how it mixes digital and traditional methods, and the range of styles covered is super broad. It’s small but mighty, and honestly one of the most energizing art books I’ve picked up in a while. Total must-have for collage lovers!

I first saw this book at the gift shop in the Tate Modern museum of art in London, but I didn’t want to buy it then because I was traveling and didn’t want to carry an extra book all over Britain. When I returned home to the U.S., I was happy to see it was available on Amazon. The collages featured in this book are delightful and ingenious. I am no artist, but anyone who IS an artist or who has been tempted to try to make a collage will love this book. It is filled with inspiring ideas and each collage is either lovely, haunting, mesmerizing or all of those things. The author did a wonderful job putting this book together.

So I settled on 4 stars. Before I go on to describe the book (and gripe about the size), I have to say that I really love the way the book is set up and the inclusion of so many artists, with such a wide range of styles. First, I have to get this out of the way- the size of this book is just not cutting it. Seriously, it's 5 1/2" x 6 1/2" (14cm x 16.5cm). I find it incomprehensible that any book designer would think, "How can we improve this? Ooh, I know, let's make it smaller!". It's so small that I find myself squinting to make out the details. Most of the images are even smaller than you'd think, with multiple images on some pages surrounded by plenty of white border space- this on a 5.5 inch page. I'm guessing it was designed by the young and eagle-eyed. I honestly don't remember seeing the size when I pre-ordered it, but I assumed it was standard sized. Ok, on to what I like about the book. I like the way the author has set up the book, more like prompts for inspiration than instructions for techniques. On one page, there's an example (or several) of an artist's work. On the facing page, there's a short paragraph regarding the author and the work featured, with some brief commentary by the artist or the author on techniques used or ideas for materials, etc. These pages are titled with ideas like "Create with found materials", "Mix vintage and contemporary", etc. There are subtitles that don't have any explanation/context, i.e., "creating texture #2", "inspiration #7". The book has at least 82 featured artists with 1-4 images of their work, be they ever so tiny. It's printed on matte paper and is 175 pages long. I find that the matte paper makes the images less crisp/well defined, a drawback when you consider how small the images really are. On the whole, I really like the contents of the book. This is definitely meant for inspiration and not for any serious discussion of techniques. That's why the size of the book bothers me so much- you just can't see the work all that well, especially not on the matte paper. I'd still recommend this book, it's full of ideas and is fun to pick up and leaf thru while you're waiting for inspiration to strike.

Inspirational, it gave me a lot of ideas with great photos

Didn’t love the book. It wasn’t what I was expecting. Other’s may love it.

This collage book was full of great ideas for mixed media and collage artists. It wasn't as instructional as it was inspirational, but I considered this to be a good thing. It is small in size and has many, many illustrations and wonderful ideas for collage. All of the work in the book seems advanced, and it isn't a 'crafty'. It arrived in perfect condition and was packaged so that it sustained no damage at all during shipping. I received it very quickly as well. Really happy to have this as a reference book and recommend it for any aspiring or accomplished collage artist.

This is a lovely, small book. Small in inches, but packed with a showcase of contemporary examples of a great array of established collage artists. No, it is not a "how-to" book per se, it's more of a visual inspiration, each page on the right with an image and the left page giving a well thought out (but not overly lengthy) highlight of the artist and their methods, inspiration, ideology, etc. It's a great accompaniment to any artist's library because it conveys such a wide breadth of collage work without being weighed down with either tutorials or abstract theory and heavy criticism. Also important, is the stylistic differences covered herein, it's not just a bunch of different artists with work that has a similar aesthetic. The only binding factor here is that the work is indeed collage. It is visually and textually light, in the sense that it is a collection of snippets. It's small size is not a setback, it is liberating. Many art books are physically large and heavy, making it cumbersome to breeze through. This book was well planned out and executed, it's approach to showcasing so many important pieces of collage work meets successfully with the portability of a small size. I am disheartened to see so many people detract in reviews of this book because they bought it without taking a mere few seconds to note the inches of the book they were buying. It's not a scam, some publishers and authors just have unique ideas that break from tradition. In this case, I see why it was done and I applaud that choice.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this little book full of useful ideas to make one's collage pieces shine, despite criticisms about the physical size of the book itself and its illustrations. While it can be difficult to make out fine details on many of the smaller photos, there are plenty of full page versions the book to refer to. As a collage artist I found the many ideas presented by the author to be a great help in introducing variety to dozens of bookmarks and other products I'm creating for an upcoming show. The Collage Ideas Book may be small in physical size but it's a mighty resource to turn to for inspiration when you're aiming for your work to break free of the predictable.

I love collage and love this book! Highly recommend!

Un complimento alla casa editrice che ha saputo raggruppare artiste ed artisti in questo libro. Molto interessanti le linee guida per svolgere attività in proprio. Consigliato.

Das Buch ist sehr klein, was mich in dem Fall überhaupt nicht stört. Ich habe es bei Projekten immer auf meinem Schreibtisch liegen um mir regelmäßig Inspirationen daraus zu holen.

El libro no es una guía de cómo hacer un collage. Es una revisión de diferentes estilos, visiones, temáticas de cómo abordar un collage y este te servirá como inspiración para realizarlo. Excelente, me gustó.

Muito bom. Bem ilustrado e aponta muitas referências.