Graphic Design

There used to be a time when designers were trained in the history of composition. Now you just buy a f#$kin' piece of software and now you've become a designer. "Art Chantry . . . Is he a Luddite?" asks a Rhode Island School of Design poster promoting a Chantry lecture. "Or is he a graphic design hero?" For decades this avatar of low-tech design has fought against the cheap and easy use of digital software. Chantry's homage to expired technology, and his inspired use of Xerox machines and X-Acto blade cuts of printed material, created a much-copied style during the grunge period and beyond. Chantry's designs were published inSome People Can't Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry (Chronicle Books), exhibited at the Seattle Art Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, and the Louvre. Chantry has drawn upon his extraordinary collection of twentieth-century graphic art to create compelling histories of the forgotten and unknown on essays he originally posted on his Facebook page. These essays might lionize the unrecognized illustrators of screws, wrenches, and pipes in equipment catalogs. Other posts might reveal how some famous artists were undeservedly recognized. Art Chantry Speaks is the kind of opinionated art history you've always wanted to read but were never assigned.

The Designer's Dictionary of Color provides an in-depth look at 30 colors key to art and graphic design. Organized by spectrum, in color-by-color sections for easy navigation, this book documents each hue with charts showing color range and palette variations. Chapters detail each color's creative history and cultural associations, with examples of color use that extend from the artistic to the utilitarian--whether the turquoise on a Reid Miles album cover or the avocado paint job on a 1970s Dodge station wagon. A practical and inspirational resource for designers and students alike, The Designer's Dictionary of Color opens up the world of color for all those who seek to harness its incredible power.

Esquire. Ford Motors. Burton Snowboards. The Obama Administration. While all of these brands are vastly different, they share at least one thing in com­mon: a teeny, little bit of Aaron James Draplin. Draplin is one of the new school of influential graphic designers who combine the power of design, social media, entrepreneurship, and DIY aesthetic to create a successful business and way of life. Pretty Much Everything is a mid-career survey of work, case studies, inspiration, road stories, lists, maps, how-tos, and advice. It includes examples of his work--posters, record covers, logos--and presents the process behind his design with projects like Field Notes and the "Things We Love" State Posters. Draplin also offers valuable advice and hilarious commentary that illustrates how much more goes into design than just what appears on the page. With Draplin's humour and pointed observations on the contemporary design scene, Draplin Design Co. is the complete package for the new generation of designers.

This book serves as an introduction to the key elements of good design. Broken into sections covering the fundamental elements of design, key works by acclaimed designers serve to illustrate technical points and encourage readers to try out new ideas. Themes covered include form, narrative, color, type and image, ornament, simplicity, and wit and humour. The result is an instantly accessible and easy to understand guide to graphic design using professional techniques.

Effective layout is essential to communication and enables the end user to not only be drawn in with an innovative design, but to digest information easily. Making and Breaking the Grid is a comprehensive layout design workshop that assumes that in order to effectively break the rules of grid-based design, one must first understand those rules and see them applied to real-world projects. Basics include composing typographic space, format determination, and sequencing and systemization. Various types of grids manuscript, column, modular, hierarchical are also covered. Text reveals top designers' work in process and rationale. Projects with similar characteristics are linked through a simple notational system that encourages exploration and comparison of structure ideas. Each project is shown comprehensively so readers can see its structure revealed over several pages, at a size that allows for inspection of detail. Also included are historical overviews that summarize the development of layout concepts, both grid-based and non-grid based, in modern design practice.

This book serves as an introduction to the key elements of good typographic design. Broken into sections covering the fundamentals of typography, the book features inspiring works by acclaimed typographic designers from across the world. Each section illustrates technical points and encourages readers to try out new ideas of their own. The subjects covered include typographic rebus, abstract form, overlapping, using grids, metaphoric construction and illumination. The result is an instantly accessible, jargon-free guide to typographic design using professional techniques.