Claire Langju Lee

Ms Lee is an expert on visual merchandizing, that aspect of actor network theory that contends that we are almost helpless to withstand the siren call of meaningful design.

Well, Ms Lee may be an inspirational speaker but she is not a much of a writer, or maybe the fault lies more with the translator Sung Ryu.

Ms Lee seems to have taken her PowerPoint slides and some tapes of her lectures and reconfigured them into this tiny book. I am very interested in visual design and how it affects us but I found myself uninterested in what she has to say.

Someone should have told Ms Lee and her editors that prose style is even more important to readers.

I received a review copy of "Secrets Behind Things That Look Good: How Small Changes in Design Lead to a Big Jump in Sales" by Claire Langju Lee translated by Sung Ryu (Influential Inc.) through NetGalley.com.… (mehr)

Laws of Visual Attraction is a guide to merchandising and retail design. It contains chapters on the use of colour, lighting, arrangement and philosophy of business. I received an ebook ARC to read and review so my review reflects the limitations of that format. I thought this book was very thorough. The author explored different aspects of merchandising and display in good detail. I appreciated the detailed bibliography, but would have liked more footnotes to back up assertions made by the author in the text. I found that the author digressed from the point of the individual chapters on occasion, mostly to discuss more general topics which would have been better in an introductory chapter. The book also ended abruptly and would have benefited from a summary and concluding chapter. Many of the examples and photos were from South Korean retailers which have a somewhat different aesthetic than retailers in Western Canada. Regardless, I think most of the information imparted would be useful to family members who own retail businesses as well as others who work in graphic design and app creation. I found the photos too small in this format, and sometimes even missing, to be useful. Also, the book could use a good copy editor, especially for the misuse of idioms which betrays, I think, that the author’s first language may not be English.… (mehr)