Books

The Elements of Typographic Style

This lovely, well-written book is concerned foremost with creating beautiful typography and is essential for professionals who regularly work with typographic designs. Author Robert Bringhurst writes about designing with the correct typeface; striving for rhythm, proportion, and harmony; choosing and combining type; designing pages; using section heads, subheads, footnotes, and tables; applying kerning and other type adjustments to improve legibility; and adding special characters, including punctuation and diacritical marks. The Elements of Typographic Style teaches the history of and the artistic and practical perspectives on a variety of type families that are available in Europe and America today.

The last section of the book classifies and displays many type families, offers a glossary of typography terms, and lists type designers and type foundries. The book briefly mentions digital typography, but otherwise ignores it, focusing instead on general typography and page- and type-design issues. Its examples include text in a variety of languages--including English, Russian, German, and Greek--which is particularly helpful if your work has a multinational focus.

The Non-Designer's Design Book

So you have a great concept and all the fancy digital tools you could possibly require—what's stopping you from creating beautiful pages? Namely the training to pull all of these elements together into a cohesive design that effectively communicates your message. Not to worry: This book is the one place you can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help.

Illustrating Children's Books: Creating Pictures for Publication

The successful book illustrator starts by understanding his authorÂ’s flight of fancy, then rendering the ideas and actions imaginatively in pictorial terms. This unusual and inspiring book was written for art students and ambitious beginners. It instructs on methods of developing both imaginative powers and the technical artistic skills to produce high quality illustrations that will please authors and childrenÂ’s book editors. Separate chapters focus on:

• Media, materials, and techniques
• Developing different drawing styles to fit specific storytelling methods
• Instilling visual personality traits in story characters
• Creating effective sequential images for storyboards and picture book outlines
• Design, typography, and preparation for print
• Illustrating story books for older children
• Illustrating nonfiction and educational books
• Breaking into the childrenÂ’s book publishing business

Great Book of Celtic Patterns: The Ultimate Design Sourcebook for Artists and Crafters

79 Short Essays on Design

79 Short Essays on Design brings together the best of designer Michael Bierut’s critical writing—serious or humorous, flattering or biting, but always on the mark. Beirut is widely considered the finest observer on design writing today. Covering topics as diverse as Twyla Tharp and ITC Garamond, Bierut’s intelligent and accessible texts pull design culture into crisp focus. He touches on classics, like Massimo Vignelli and the cover of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as newcomers, like McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and color-coded terrorism alert levels. Along the way Nabakov’s Pale Fire; Eero Saarinen; the paper clip; Celebration, Florida; the planet Saturn; the ClearRx pill bottle; and paper architecture all fall under his pen. His experience as a design practitioner informs his writing and gives it its truth. In 79 Short Essays on Design, designers and non-designers alike can share and revel in his insights.

Massive Change

Massive Change is a modern illustrated primer on the new inventions, technologies, and events that are affecting the human race worldwide. The book is a part of a broader research project by Bruce Mau Design intended to provoke debate and discussion about the future of design culture, broadly defined as the "familiar objects and techniques that are transforming our lives."In essays, interviews, and provocative imagery aimed at a broad audience, Massive Change explores the changing force of design in the contemporary world, and in doing so expands the definition of design to include the built environment, transportation technologies, revolutionary materials, energy and information systems, and living organisms. The book is divided into 11 heavily illustrated sections covering major areas of change in contemporary society #151; such as urbanism and architecture, the military, health and living, and wealth and politics. Each section intersperses intriguing documentary images with a general introductory essay, extended captions, and interviews with leading thinkers, including engineers, designers, philosophers, scientists, architects, artists, and writers. Concluding the book is a graphic timeline of significant inventions and world events from 10,000 B.C. to the present.

Idea Index: Graphic Effects and Typographic Treatments

The Book as Art: Artists' Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts

Culled from over eight hundred unique or limited-edition volumes held by the National Museum of Women in the Arts these books explore the form as a container for ideas. Descriptions of the works are accompanied by colorful illustrations and reflections by their makers, along with essays by leading scholars and a lively introduction by the most famous book artist in our culture, best-selling author Audrey Niffenegger. The exquisitely crafted objects in the The Book as Art are sure to provoke unexpected and surprising conclusions about what constitutes a book.

Uncredited: Graphic Design & Opening Titles in Movies

Layout Index: Brochure, Web Design, Poster, Flyer, Advertising, Page Layout, Newsletter, Stationery Index

Idea Index kick-started a revolution in graphic design books, unique in size, feel--and most important--wealth of ideas. Layout Index is the next step, a compendium of layout idea-generators that will help designers explore multiple possibilities for visual treatments each time they turn the page. The visual and textual suggestions are divided into eight major areas, including newsletters, flyers, posters, brochures, advertising, stationery, page layout, and Web pages.

Each of these examples are designed to inspire effective solutions in the viewer's mind, rather than simply give specific answers to design problems. The tone and temperament of the design problems, as well as their solutions, vary from traditional to cutting-edge, from corporate to crazy. Designers will learn to solve their design problems, produce fantastic work and become better, more creative thinkers.

* Both creativity books and layout books are extremely popular
* As proven by Idea Index, the format of this book is a proven winner with designers