Phil Patton

In September 2015 the world lost Phil Patton--prolific design writer, teacher and tantalizing wordsmith. Patton's insatiable curiosity, sense of humor and keen eye made for the most compelling reads. Whether he was chronicling design minutia, quirky anecdotes or bizarre tales, Phil's hundreds of books, columns, articles and posts always delivered a new account. As his editor at I.D. magazine, Chee Pearlman, said, "His insight takes the reader beyond the object to an understanding of its broadest sociological context." No topic eluded him, and for a large part of his 40-year career he championed automobiles, technology and product design. Roger Black, designer, writer and longtime colleague and friend of Patton's wrote, "He taught The New York Times--by example--to cover design. The domino effect, the rest of the media followed." With an introduction by Edward Tufte and foreword by Caroline Baumann, this volume compiles 40 selections representing the wide range of interests and fascinations that occupied his thoughts. Punctuated by images of ideas and lists from notebooks he carried everywhere, Top This and Other Parables of Design is an intimate and portable companion for those who choose to always have a witty, informed friend around.

Top this and other parables of design

A Celebration of the American Highway

Open Road

Traces the history of the Volkswagen Beetle, from its first introduction as a Nazi propaganda tool and its postwar status as a countercultural icon to its successful revision in 1998.

The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile

Bernd Polster

America's Endless Dream

Highway

Traces the history of Area 51, testing grounds for the government's most secret new aircraft, and focus of UFO believers

Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51

Dreamland

There is a place in the Nevada desert the size of Belgium that doesn't officially exist. It is the airbase where test flights of our top-secret experimental military aircraft are conducted and --not coincidentally--where the conspiracy theorists insist the Pentagon is hiding UFOs and aliens. This is Dreamland--or Area 51. For Phil Patton, the idea of writing a travel account of a place he couldn't actually visit was irresistible. What he found was a world where Chick Yeager and the secret planes of the Cold War converged with the Nevada Test Site and alien landings at Roswell. A think tank for aviation engineering, Dreamland can be seen from a summit outside the base's perimeter, a hundred miles north of Las Vegas. On Freedom Ridge, groups of airplane buffs gather with their camouflage outfits and binoculars. These are the Stealth chasers, the Skunkers, guys with code names like Agent X and Zero, hoping for a glimpse of the rumored raylike shapes of planes like Black Manta and "the mother ship." The most mysterious craft is Aurora, the successor to the legendary U-2, said to run on methane and fly as fast as Mach 6. Scanning the same horizon, the UFO buffs are looking for the hovering lights and doughnut-shaped contrails of alien aircraft. Are they looking at something sinister and mysterious? Imagined? Or more terrestrial than they think? Dreamland shows how much we need mystery in the information age, and how the cultures of nuclear power and airpower merge with the folklores of extraterrestrials and earthly conspiracies. Patton found people who found themselves in the mysteries of the place. John Lear, the son of aviation pioneer Bill Lear--who gave his name to the jet--served as a pilot for the CIA's Air America, but back home, he became fascinated by UFOs and eventually believed in it all: the underground bases, the alien-human hybrids, the secret treaties. But was he a true believer, or part of a disinformation campaign? Bob Lazar seems to know when the saucers will come, and has made three clear sightings at night along Dreamland's perimeter, but is his story real, or a vision of what's possible? Dreamland is an exploration of America's most secret place: the base for our experimental airplanes, the fount of UFO rumors, an offshoot of the Nevada Test Site. How this "blackspot" came to exist--its history, its creators, its spies and counterspies--is Phil Patton's tale. He tunnels into the subcultures of the conspiracy buffs, the true believers, and the aeronautic geniuses, creating a novelistic tour de force destined to make us all rethink our convictions about American know-how--and alien inventiveness.

Jim Heimann

Este livro oferece ao leitor uma história visual do automóvel, organizada por décadas e com base em mais de 500 anúncios retirados da coleção de Jim Heimann. A introdução e texto por Phil Patton, um jornalista especializado no New York Times, descreve as inovações tecnológicas, as maiores fábricas e marcas, os principais acontecimentos históricos que têm afetado a produção e a influência da cultura popular sobre o design de automóveis.

100 ANOS DE PUBLICIDADE AUTOMOVEL - ITA/ESP/PORT

20TH CENTURY CLASSICS CARS

Jeffrey T. Brouws

The growth of highways in the U.S. during the early 20th century marked the beginning of an unprecedented American mobility. The democratic, open nature of the road redefined the American way of life and forever changed the way the average American perceives this country. This collection of original full-color photos and historical essays examines the landscape and roadside culture of America's great highways. 137 photos, 100 in color.

An entertaining and informative history of how certain products made their mark in the US market, and how the often conflicting forces of culture, politics, and the determined entrepreneur create a kind of hidden conspiracy for the market's attention. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Secret Histories of the Things that Made America

Made in U.S.A.

Jeana Yeager

Dick Rutan

The pilots who designed and flew the "Voyager" around the world tell of the cramped quarters, constant noise, turbulent trip, and other struggles they faced in realizing the dream of their historic flight

Phil Patton

About

Books

Join the club