Books : Art, Architecture & Photography : Design Studies : Typography

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Books : Art, Architecture & Photography : Design Studies : Typography

• The Non-Designer's Design Book (Non Designer's Design Book)

  Robin Williams

  
  Subtitled Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice, this book is for anyone who has to design a newsletter, job ad, flyer, business card, memo, report or whatever, but has no idea what separates good design from bad. Except, of course, that the first looks clear, professional, sophisticated and right, and the second is an ugly, unreadable mess.

  Robin Williams has an easily readable style and manages to communicate sometimes complex and sophisticated concepts simply and directly. She rightly assumes that, though most people can recognise bad design when they see it, they don't know why it's bad and are therefore powerless to fix the same problems in their own work.

  The bulk of the book is given over to explaining how, by sticking to four basic design principles--contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity--you can eliminate design gremlins from your work. In searching for a memorable and appropriate acronym for this principled approach, Williams admits she was only semi-successful.

  The second half of the book deals with how to use type. Once again the approach is to explain simply, directly and with illustrated examples how the relationship between typefaces is defined.

  As a college teacher, Williams can't resist the temptation to dot little quizzes, tests and mini-projects throughout the text. These are mostly good fun and reinforce what you've read, though even if you decide to ignore them they won't spoil your enjoyment of the book.

  The Non-Designer's Design Book is the kind of book you could read in your lunch break. Its attitude is more "sketch in the margin with a pencil", than "complete the projects on the CD". It would be an ideal primer for anyone starting a design course, as well as those who want to improve the look of their memos. --Ken McMahon

  
   

• Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, and Students (Design Briefs)

  Ellen Lupton

  
  
   

• Type and Typography (Portfolio Series)

  Phil Baines, Andrew Haslam

  
  
   

• Graphic Design: The New Basics

  Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips

  
  
   

• 1,000 Type Treatments: From Script to Serif, Letterforms Used to Perfection

  Wilson Harvey

  
  
   

• Getting It Right with Type: The Do's and Don'ts of Typography

  Victoria Squire, Hans Peter Willberg, Friedrich Forssman

  
  
   

• Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manual

  Timothy Samara

  
  
   

• Making and Breaking the Grid: A Layout Design Workshop

  Timothy Samara

  
  
   

• Layout Index

  Jim Krause

  
  
   

• A Type Primer

  John Kane

  
  
   

• Watching Words Move

  Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar

  
  
   

• Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type (Design Briefs)

  Keir Elam

  
  
   

• Production for Graphic Designers

  Alan Pipes

  
  
   

• New Typographic Design

  
  
   

• Designing for Newspaper and Magazines (Media Skills)

  Chris Frost

  
  
   

• A Guide to LATEX

  Helmut Kopka, Patrick W. Daly

  
  
   

• What Is Typography? (Essential Design Handbooks) (Essential Design Handbooks)

  David Jury

  
  
   

• Typography Workbook: A Real-world Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design

  Timothy Samara

  
  
   

• LATEX: User's Guide and Reference Manual: A Document Preparation System: User's Guide and Reference Manual (Addison-Wesley Series on Tools and Techniques for Computer T)

  Leslie Lamport

  
  
   

• Design Writing Research

  Ellen Lupton, J.Abbott Miller