Product Details
Yes/No Design: Discovering Your Decorating Style with Taste-Revealing Exercises and Examples

Yes/No Design: Discovering Your Decorating Style with Taste-Revealing Exercises and Examples
By Diane Love

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Product Description

Acclaimed designer and artist Diane Love shows you how, in this beautifully photographed volume, to discover and define your personal taste, then demonstrates how to build a decor that is functional, aesthetically pleasing, and truly reflective of your personality.

Within the pages of this beautifully photographed book, acclaimed designer and artist Diane Love presents a truly innovative approach to interior design by equipping you with an understanding of your unique taste and the ability to use it to create your personal decorating style. Through easy, fully illustrated, step-by-step exercises and examples, she helps you to discover and define your taste, then demonstrates how you can use this knowledge to create a functional and aesthetic decor that is a true reflection of your personality.

PART I: WHAT IS YOUR TASTE? Seven exercises, comprised of simple activities and questions, and free of self-conscious personal evaluation, help you to better define and articulate your taste. The exercises begin by asking you to select from magazines rooms that you love (your YESs) and those you don't (your NOs), then they help you to find words to express your impressions about a room's decoration, to distinguish the common denominators always present in the rooms you choose, and to pinpoint your likes and dislikes through your reactions to elements of a room's design, from architectural elements to furnishings to the color palette.

PART II: EXERCISE YOUR TASTE Eleven methods taken in sequence explain the step-by-step process of decorating a room and show you how to incorporate what you have learned about your taste in Part I in order to create a decor that is comfortable and aesthetically pleasing to you. Topics covered include: using space efficiently, evaluating architectural elements, renovating economically, making a furniture plan, achieving visual balance, arranging objects and pictures, choosing lighting, and working with mirrors.

QUESTIONNAIRE AND WORKBOOKS A questionnaire specially conceived to assist you in analyzing your decorating style enables you to track your aesthetic attitudes, reactions, and preferences. The two workbooks-one of which is separate from the book and easily portable.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1395989 in Books
  • Published on: 2000-03-02
  • Released on: 2000-03-02
  • Original language: English
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 144 pages

Editorial Reviews

From Amazon.com
Facing a new home or upcoming remodel? Ah, a blank canvas that you can paint to reflect your singular personality and unique tastes. But what if you're not exactly sure what your tastes are? Yes/No Design will help you recognize your aesthetic attitudes and sensibilities.

An interior decorator and artist, author Diane Love understands that your home is your castle and that any castle's decor should jive with the personality of the reigning monarch. Using a list of adjectives, you evaluate your emotional reactions to a series of photographs. Be honest and you'll discover your true decorating sense (you do have one, no matter how buried it is), and there's no right or wrong. For example, I find the book-lined library cozy, comfortable, and unpretentious. You may think it's dark, cluttered, and predictable. We're both right! Through a series of exercises, you'll discover your decorating likes and dislikes. Do you prefer sophisticated and ornate? Casual and bohemian? Read about furniture styles, color combinations, and architecture, and then listen to your intuition--you'll be on your way to creating a personal space unique to you. Included are two workbooks (one portable) so you can jot down notes and ideas. --Dana Van Nest

About the Author

Diane Love began her work as a designer by arranging flowers for her home and jewelry for herself, which soon led her to open her own store, Diane Love, Inc., on New York's Madison Avenue. Originally created for the shop, her decorative objects, silk flowers, home fragrance, and jewelry have been sold through her boutiques at major retail stores. The author of Flowers Are Fabulous for Decorating and a former flower arranger for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she has lectured extensively on flower arranging and interior design. Her jewelry was included in Jewels of Fantasy, a retrospective of twentieth-century jewelry designers that was on exhibition at museums worldwide. After twenty years, she closed her business to work as a painter and now shows her work through galleries. She is also a professional actor and photographer. A passionate believer that all artistic pursuits work together to enhance a person's creativity, she lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Intuitive & Personal5
A wonderful resource and a delightful read, Yes/No Design is an unique combination of tasteful "how-to", interior design consultant, and chic best friend. Through a series of pictorial and descriptive examples and thoughtful exercises, the author encourages the reader to recognize her own taste and to trust her own sense of style. The lessons learned and new awareness are meaningful and applicable in all areas --from interior design to personal styling. Yes/No Design is a book you'll want on your bedside table as well as on your coffee table. A great gift!

The journey home.5
Not only is this book intelligent, but it calls on the reader to find her own creativity. So often we are told what to like and where to buy it. While these things can be helpful, if what you really want is to express yourself in your surroundings, then Yes/No Design will lead you within to uncover and create.

Living in a consumer culture, it is easy to get out of touch with our own expressive sides, and I really like how Ms. Love encourages us to take that journey back to our most original selves. If you are willing to complete the exercises and look at them as a whole, what you can find is nothing short of your self.

I think Yes/No Design is a text on how to distill out the essence of design as an act of personal creation. Rather than paying Ms. Love to tell us what to like, we are gaining something far more valuable with the purchase of this book -- a guide to our own creativity which we can then use to decorate our homes and every other area of our lives.

most useful to novices2
Unlike some of the other people who reviewed this book, I did not find the quiz to be helpful. However, the benefit of the quiz may depend upon how knowledgeable you are about interior decoration and/or how fixed you are in a particular style. The reviewers who seemed to be helped the most were novices. That is why I gave this book 2 stars instead of 1. On the other hand, I think the basic tips provided by this book have been covered better in other books, and the pictures are only so-so.

At one point the author says "listen to your intuition." That is what I suggest people do instead of buying this book.

However, if you don't yet trust yout intuition the following are some good books:

Color Your Home Beautiful: Ideas and Solutions
- It has beautiful photos, a variety of well-chosen color combinations in a variety of styles, dozens of color swatches, useful tips, and quotes from designers.

Ultimate Home Style Guide by Katherine Sorrell
- Almost all styles are represented here with enough details on colors, fabrics, and other style elements to create the look your self.

Better Homes & Gardens: New Remodeling Book
- Despite the fact that remodeling is in the title, this is a good basic book about interior design. I like it better than BH&G: New Decorating Book.