Bond by Design: The Art of the James Bond Films

by Meg Simmonds

Featuring the work of legendary Bond film designers such as Ken Adam, Peter Lamont, and Syd Cain, Bond by Design brings the James Bond art department's story right up to date with behind-the-scenes artwork from the latest film, SPECTRE. With two exclusive prints and authoritative text by EON's own archivist, Meg Simmonds, Bond by Design provides unique, spectacular, and fascinating insights into this hugely successful film franchise.

1962-2015 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation. All rights reserved.

"James Bond", 007, and related James Bond Trademarks are trademarks of Danjaq, LLC, licensed by EON Productions Limited.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Film, Espionage

320 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2015

Reviews

[Art of the Film · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are interested in James Bond on film, then "Bond by Design" is going to blow you away. It's the single best Bond-related book I've ever seen.

The book features hundreds of pieces of artwork from the Bond movies, from "Dr. No" through "Skyfall". The latest film "Spectre" is also represented with a single spread; there's only one (magnificent) piece of art given that the film had yet to be released at the time of publication.

With 21 installments in the franchise (spanning over 50 years and featuring six different production designers), you can be sure that there is a large variety of art on display. Most of the pieces were done with pencil, pen, or watercolors; although in the later films it's interesting to see the shift toward graphic design and digital illustrations.



Here are a few of the pieces that I found fascinating:
- Thunderball: costume design artwork for Fiona Volpe
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Blofeld's coat of arms; and static matte painting of the Alps used in compositing of the film shot.
- Goldeneye: aerial battle plan of a dogfight later cut out of the script.
- Quantum of Solace: a complete digital schematic of the Siena rooftop chase.
- Spectre: concept art of the Day of the Dead parade.
- plus multiple pieces of art relating to the Aston Martin car and it's gadgets.



This is a very large and heavy book; it measures about 10x14 inches and has over 300 pages of artwork. The size allows plenty of room for imagery - when printed full-page, the detail of some of the art is incredible. The book also comes in a very nice outer slipcase.

Two pieces of concept art are removable and can be displayed or framed -- one from "You Only Live Twice" and "The Spy Who Loved Me". They're not particularly memorable pieces, although it's a nice bonus that I'm glad was included.

There's not much text other than a brief 3-5 paragraph summary of each film (the text discusses the notable production design elements in that installment). Therefore, this is not the book to buy if you're wanting to learn about the making of the films. If you want a making-of book, you should look into DK's "Bond on Set" publications.

Bottom Line: If you are into Bond and enjoy looking at artwork, then I give this my highest recommendation.

Review from MovieArtBook.com

* Thanks to DK Publishing for providing me a review copy of the book.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay what to say about this book. First of all you have to be a Bond fan, no its not exclusive but without having seen and enjoyed the films all you are seeing are a lot concept art and story boarding - and without the films you do not appreciate what these people created or in some cases how the film evolved.

Now I appreciate that there is a lot of work that goes in to the films and a lot more detailed work than just these few images of various villains lairs and action scene sets but reading the commentary and looking at the pictures you really do get the atmosphere they are trying to convey (hence references back to the films).

The book is huge there is no other way to describe it and the fact that it comes in its own slip case just adds to that - now I think this is perfect for the book. You see I have a lot of concept and film art books - I love and envy their creativity - and my biggest complaint is that something is compressed to fit on a page or worse still spread over two where you cannot see down the spine without damaging the book. Not here no the size and format mean that you get to see the full glory of the picture without losing quality or detail.

So if you enjoy the films (as I sure do, I have many fond memories of going to see the films at the cinema with my parents as a treat) this book is a wonderful celebration of the people who helped create that style and image over all those years (and to come)

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beast of a book - I could only read it propped against my knees in bed (Ian Fleming would have approved; he thought Bond should be read in bed). Bonus: the two prints I discovered tucked inside the cover.

Gorgeous illustrations and behind the scenes glimpses from all 24 James Bond films - costume designs, vehicles, weapons, sets - celebrate the dedication and expertise of the production teams as much as the films themselves.

I also learned a lot about storyboarding, set design, and how technology has moved forward to the point where you can 3D print an Aston Martin and then set fire to it.

[M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The James Bond film franchise was on hiatus during my teen years, so I never latched on to the title character as a hero; he's a violent sociopath with a penchant for one liners in my book.

But earlier, watching the older films on TV as an elementary school kid, I fell in love with the set designs and the visual aesthetic established by Ken Adam. That is expertly rendered here, through reproductions of set designs, storyboards, and costume sketches.

The text descriptions for the reproduced items are written in the style of museum captions that presume one has seen the film in question. I got a little lost going through the material related to the films I've only seen once. Familiarity is recommended.

[David Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're into the process of drawing board to movie, this is a great book highlighting all the Bond movies up to Spectre, although, sadly, only 2 pages are devoted to this, when this book was first published. Awesome art throughout

[Wade Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of those pretty entertaining, while massively proportioned DK books. It's basically an art book composed of pre-production concept art for the Bond series (through Skyfall). Each chapter covers one film, in order of release. Each chapter begins with a few paragraphs of text discussing the film and it's production designer. While the book certainly doesn't cover all the design of a film or even all of the major design features, what it does include is quite impressive. For the most part it shows concept sketches and paintings of sets and props, but there are a few technical drawings, the coolest for me being that of the Little Nellie gyrocopter from You Only Live Twice. There are a number of action storyboards as well. Not a lot of attention is given to costume design, but there are few memorable pages of sketches.

Anyway, this one is a score for any fan of Bond films who also loves the process of film art direction.

[Mr Shahabi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains exclusive beautiful sketches from the Bond Movies, highly recommended for any Fan or Collector

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun tour through all key pieces of pre-production art from all 24 EON Bond movies. Recommended for movie aficionados and Bond fans alike.

[Alexander Fontana]

Barely covered the newer / way better Bond films.