https://designersreviewofbooks.com/Recent content on Designer's Review of BooksHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usAndy Polaine - All rights reservedFri, 20 Feb 2009 11:53:13 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/06/abbott-miller-design-and-content/Fri, 12 Jun 2015 12:16:16 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/06/abbott-miller-design-and-content/The recent monograph, Abbott Miller: Design and Content, provides a wealth of evidence for seeing Miller as one of today’s exemplary designers. In my view, this is not for any set of particular projects or for any distinctive Miller style, but for the way he has oriented himself within the design field.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/05/kickstarter-for-the-reprint-of-ladislav-sutnars-visual-design-in-action/Fri, 01 May 2015 07:28:18 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/05/kickstarter-for-the-reprint-of-ladislav-sutnars-visual-design-in-action/We rarely do editorial posts here, but Steve Kroeter’s site, Designers & Books is obviously close to our hearts. They have just launched a Kickstarter campaign of a type we would love to see more of and we’re happy to tell as many people about it as possible:https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/03/speculative-everything/Sun, 22 Mar 2015 10:40:56 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/03/speculative-everything/Are designers too wedded to a realist vision of today, and of tomorrow’s prospects? Are they complacent about design’s contributions to society? The answer to both is a resounding yes according to Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/01/design-transitions-author-interview/Tue, 20 Jan 2015 14:24:42 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2015/01/design-transitions-author-interview/With its obsession with creating the new and improving the old, design is naturally a field that is in constant flux. In the past decade, design has been grappling with its identity somewhat.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/12/push-start-the-art-of-video-games/Wed, 03 Dec 2014 09:02:43 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/12/push-start-the-art-of-video-games/Review by Andy Polaine I grew up with video and computer games. When I was a young child, I remember my father coming home from the pub telling me about the fantastic game he had played there.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/12/a-logo-for-london/Wed, 03 Dec 2014 08:19:18 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/12/a-logo-for-london/Review by Paul A. Ranogajec London Transport’s logo–known as the roundel, circle and bar, or bulls-eye–easily counts as one of the most successful graphic designs of all time.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/09/the-book-of-trees/Tue, 02 Sep 2014 14:00:20 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/09/the-book-of-trees/Review by Rebecca Kohn In the preface to The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge, author Manuel Lima says that he “could never find a wide-ranging book dedicated to the tree as one of the most popular, captivating, and widespread visual archetypes,” citing this as his motivation to create this book.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/07/out-of-the-blue/Tue, 08 Jul 2014 15:00:57 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/07/out-of-the-blue/Review by Paul A. Ranogajec Everything that may be conjured in your mind by the phrase “Finnish design” is likely to be represented one way or another in Out of the Blue, a collection of biographical vignettes and interviews by Marko Ahtisaari and Laura Houseley.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/06/type-on-screen-5-questions-with-the-author/Fri, 13 Jun 2014 12:30:01 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/06/type-on-screen-5-questions-with-the-author/As a design educator, I find that there is a constant uphill battle to get students an ever increasing amount of information in a continually shrinking amount of time.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/03/philip-grushkin-a-designers-archive/Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:00:05 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/03/philip-grushkin-a-designers-archive/Review by Sophia Angelis Philip Grushkin, the long-forgotten but latterly-celebrated book jacket designer, was born to Jewish-Russian immigrants in Brooklyn, New York, in 1921. Trained at the Cooper Union, Grushkin studied calligraphy and lettering under the great George Salter before going on to design jackets for many of New York’s leading publishing houses.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/01/critiqued-5-questions-with-the-author/Mon, 13 Jan 2014 13:30:52 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2014/01/critiqued-5-questions-with-the-author/When fellow Designers Review of Books author Christina Beard contacted me about her new book I was of course very interested to see what one of our own had come up with.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/11/confessions-of-a-generalist/Fri, 15 Nov 2013 13:30:40 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/11/confessions-of-a-generalist/Thoughtfully designed, and encased in a conceptual cover that exhibits the interwoven intricacies of human involvement and existence, _Confessions of a Generalist _is an all-encompassing tale of the magnificent life and times of the renowned American industrial designer, Niels Diffrient.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/11/graphic-icons-5-questions-with-the-author/Fri, 01 Nov 2013 12:30:47 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/11/graphic-icons-5-questions-with-the-author/As the creator of the site Design Is History, I have a particular interest in the history of graphic design. It was with that interest in mind that I jumped at the chance to interview John Clifford, author of the new design history title Graphic Icons: Visionaries Who Shaped Modern Design, about his catalog of some of the notable designers who have shaped what graphic design is today.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/10/ken-garland-structure-and-substance-review-and-interview/Mon, 14 Oct 2013 11:20:21 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/10/ken-garland-structure-and-substance-review-and-interview/The smell of Cow Gum rubber cement and the fascination of stacked Letraset trays form a large part of my childhood memories of afternoons spent at my father’s graphic design and advertising agency.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/09/the-vintage-classic-style-guide/Mon, 09 Sep 2013 07:57:01 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/09/the-vintage-classic-style-guide/In order to deal with the ever-growing pile of design books on my desk, I have become more choosy about what to review. Some design books are simply gorgeous design objects, others contain insightful content.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/08/a-way-to-learn-to-see-the-new-interaction-of-color-ipad-app/Fri, 16 Aug 2013 12:30:57 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/08/a-way-to-learn-to-see-the-new-interaction-of-color-ipad-app/Reviewed by Carolina de Bartolo In my 2010 review of Josef Albers’s Interaction of Color, I summarized this most excellent volume as “an eternal gift to the world of design.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/08/an-interview-with-noah-scalin-and-michelle-taute-on-the-design-activists-handbook/Mon, 12 Aug 2013 12:30:45 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/08/an-interview-with-noah-scalin-and-michelle-taute-on-the-design-activists-handbook/As part of a DROB series of interviews with authors, Jenny Venn interviews Noah Scalin and Michelle Taute about co-authoring the useful and inspiring book The Design Activists Handbook and about the emerging niche of designing for social change.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/05/design-anthropology/Mon, 27 May 2013 11:34:01 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/05/design-anthropology/Design Anthropology: object culture in the 21st century, edited by Alison J. Clarke Publisher: Springer, Vienna, 2011. Review by Maria Blyzinsky 'This book describes a seismic shift in the way experts and users conceptualize, envisage, and engage in object culture.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/04/draw-your-own-fonts-30-alphabets-to-scribble-sketch-and-make-your-own/Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:30:09 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/04/draw-your-own-fonts-30-alphabets-to-scribble-sketch-and-make-your-own/As a graphic designer who can barely draw, I have always envied those who can incorporate hand drawing to make their designs look unique. When I saw Draw Your Own Fonts: 30 Alphabets to Scribble, Sketch and Make Your Own, by Tony Seddon, I was intrigued.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/03/looking-at-type-a-pictorial-review-of-four-type-reference-books/Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:30:58 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/03/looking-at-type-a-pictorial-review-of-four-type-reference-books/Photographed and Reviewed by Carolina de Bartolo How many type reference books do you need in your library? If you love looking at letters like I do, I’d say the more the merrier.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/03/cause-and-effect-visualizing-sustainability/Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:30:26 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/03/cause-and-effect-visualizing-sustainability/Lester Brown, an American environmental analyst and founder of the Worldwatch Institute said: The communications industry is the only agency possessing the capacity to convey the knowledge necessary for sustainable development to the required extent and in the timeframe we have at our disposal.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/02/an-interview-with-andrew-shea-on-designing-for-social-change/Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:30:02 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/02/an-interview-with-andrew-shea-on-designing-for-social-change/Identified as a “place to start” by renowned designer and social entrepreneur, William Drenttel, Designing for Social Change by Andrew Shea, is an insightful guidebook and designer’s co-pilot containing a compilation of case studies that illustrate project concepts, funding resources, processes, strategies, and outcomes.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/01/comparison-review-graphic-design-theory/Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:30:10 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/01/comparison-review-graphic-design-theory/For those interested in graphic design theory, there are two compelling books on the market with nearly identical titles: Graphic Design Theory: Readings From the Field, by Miami University professor Helen Armstrong, and Graphic Design Theory: Graphic Design in Context by NC State professor Meredith Davis.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/01/design-axioms/Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:30:24 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/01/design-axioms/(Click to enlarge) Have you ever wanted to learn interface design in a single day? Well, you won’t be able to, at least not thoroughly.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/01/the-sketchnote-handbook/Mon, 07 Jan 2013 13:30:12 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2013/01/the-sketchnote-handbook/Hear. See. Think. Draw. This is the approach to visual note taking that author Mike Rohde, illustrator of the wildly popular book Rework, outlines in The Sketchnote Handbook.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/12/little-big-books/Mon, 24 Dec 2012 13:30:43 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/12/little-big-books/The holidays are a time for family and that includes children, of all ages. With that in mind I thought it would be great to take time out and review Little Big Books, a great new collection of illustrations for children’s picture books published by Gestalten.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/12/holiday-wish-list/Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:30:49 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/12/holiday-wish-list/Here at the Designers Review of Books we all have lengthy Amazon wish lists. While the holidays are a time of giving, they are also a good excuse to pick out one or two of the top books on our list and reward ourselves for another year of hard work, study and accomplishment.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/11/elegantissima-the-design-and-typography-of-louise-fili/Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:30:05 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/11/elegantissima-the-design-and-typography-of-louise-fili/Designers, typographers, illustrators and letterers the world over will already be familiar with the work of Louise Fili. Her book covers, restaurant identities, food packaging labels and lettering have defined excellence in typography since the mid-1980s.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/11/los-logos-6/Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:30:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/11/los-logos-6/Gestalten recently released the sixth book in the infamous Los Logos series. This is actually the first of the series that I have had the pleasure of owning, and it definitely does not disappoint.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/10/generative-design-visualize-program-and-create-with-processing/Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:30:29 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/10/generative-design-visualize-program-and-create-with-processing/If you are wondering what generative design is, or curious about the potential impact it may have on your practice, grab this book and read the appendix first.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/10/the-icon-handbook/Mon, 22 Oct 2012 11:30:10 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/10/the-icon-handbook/What do hieroglyphs, washing machines, clothes, tweeting and satellites all have in common? At one point or another they have made use of icons to communicate one thing or another.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/bracket/Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:30:32 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/bracket/Brackets, when writing, are usually used to contain extra information that may support one subject or another. The publication Bracket takes a look at some very serious issues that are often neglected in our every day lives and usually overlooked when writing about designers, illustrators and artists.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/avant-garde-applied/Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:30:11 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/avant-garde-applied/I have read a fair amount about avant garde design, as any self-respecting designer should, but I’ve never come across a text as thorough or well produced as The Avant Garde Applied (1890-1950).https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/eric-gill-notes-on-postage-stamps/Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:30:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/eric-gill-notes-on-postage-stamps/The second book in the Kat Ran Essays in Philatelics series, _ Eric Gill: Notes on Postage Stamps_, provides interesting insight into the history of Gill’s not-so-successful career as a stamp designer.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/shaping-text/Fri, 03 Aug 2012 12:30:25 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/08/shaping-text/Shaping Text by Jan Middendorp boldly and concisely describes itself right on its front cover. This book will show you how shaping text can help you grab, hold, direct and manipulate the reader’s attention.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/07/a-smart-guide-to-utopia/Fri, 06 Jul 2012 12:30:01 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/07/a-smart-guide-to-utopia/There’s a horrible cardboard car on a rubber band wrapped around this lovely book. Ewww. What’s that doing there? Never mind, I’ll chuck that and just get on with admiring an exquisitely designed thing.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/jazz-covers-from-the-1940s-to-1990s/Fri, 22 Jun 2012 12:30:35 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/jazz-covers-from-the-1940s-to-1990s/If you’re a fan of jazz music or design in any shape or form it is worth your time to take a look at Jazz Covers, a recent release from Taschen.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/the-print-handbook/Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:30:26 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/the-print-handbook/(Click to enlarge) In the world of graphic design there comes a point when your skills are really put to the test, and that’s when your work comes rolling off the press completing the transition from digital to tactile.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/sleepwalkers/Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:30:17 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/sleepwalkers/(Click to enlarge) Sleepwalkers was a multimedia art experience created by Doug Aitken and presented at the MOMA in 2007. The exhibition was comprised of a series of 8 moving images that were broadcast on the exterior of the MOMA buildings and consisted of the stories of 5 individuals who represented every day citizens of New York City.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/an-interview-with-david-sherwin-on-creative-workshop-and-success-by-design/Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:00:15 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/06/an-interview-with-david-sherwin-on-creative-workshop-and-success-by-design/As part of a new series of interviews with authors, Andy Polaine interviews David Sherwin about the background to the writing of his successful and extremely useful book, Creative Workshop and the development of his new book, Success by Design to be published in November, 2012.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/05/make-space-how-to-set-the-stage-for-creative-collaboration/Fri, 25 May 2012 05:30:15 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/05/make-space-how-to-set-the-stage-for-creative-collaboration/As a designer, I’m always thinking about how spaces function and how they affect the way we interact with each other. When I visit design studios, I curiously observe the space and I’m typically surprised by the lack of spatial design.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/05/mobile-web-design-by-cameron-moll/Mon, 21 May 2012 05:30:20 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/05/mobile-web-design-by-cameron-moll/Mobile the user; not mobile, the device. Mobile is more than just being wireless. Mobility transcends freedom from wires; it suggests an entirely different user experience.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/04/the-journey-of-larks-life-and-punctuation/Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:07:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/04/the-journey-of-larks-life-and-punctuation/I have been delaying reviewing User Design’s – aka Thomas Bohm’s – series of self-published illustrated books, The journey of larks, Life and Punctuation..?. Partly this has been a lack of time, but partly it is because I’m not quite sure where to situate them.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/04/design-is-a-job-by-mike-monteiro/Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:30:05 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/04/design-is-a-job-by-mike-monteiro/You are not doing design, you are selling design, which is a valuable service. If you don’t want to charge for your services, you can pick up Design Is a Hobby on aisle three of Michael’s between the balsa wood and yarn.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/04/the-designers-review-of-books-has-a-new-editor-dominic-flask/Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:19:20 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/04/the-designers-review-of-books-has-a-new-editor-dominic-flask/Newly minted Editor, Dominic Flask, surveys his kingdom. Or visits a gallery. Regular readers will know that they haven’t had all that much to regularly read recently.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/03/organic-from-kapitza/Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:56:50 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/03/organic-from-kapitza/Organic is the second release from the London-based Kapitza studio, run by sisters Nicole and Petra Kapitza. The book is 224 pages filled with colorful patterns inspired by the Kapitzas’ love of chance and randomness in the natural world.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/03/characters-cultural-stories-revealed-through-typography/Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:37:20 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/03/characters-cultural-stories-revealed-through-typography/Review by Veronica Grow Like most typo cognoscenti, Stephen Banham is fondly known for being somewhat fanatical and nerdy on the subject of type and letters.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/02/function-restraint-and-subversion-in-typography/Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:30:26 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/02/function-restraint-and-subversion-in-typography/If you are a fan of minimalism, modernism or brutalism you will find Function, Restraint, and Subversion in Typography especially intriguing. The book, by J. Namdev Hardisty, surveys contemporary examples of the styles by detailing the work of many modern design studios.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/01/turning-off-comments/Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:32:21 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/01/turning-off-comments/Photo: Marc Wathieu on Flickr. Over the past year or so I’ve been getting a pretty high spam to real comment ratio on The Designer’s Review of Books, some of which are attempts to hack the blog install.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/01/take-a-line-for-a-walk-a-creativity-journal/Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:30:12 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2012/01/take-a-line-for-a-walk-a-creativity-journal/This isn’t your typical sketchbook. Robin Landa, Professor of Design at Kean University in New Jersey, collaborated with some of the nation’s top creative experts to bring readers a brainstorm session in the form of a journal.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/magpie-studios-christmas-book-honours-the-postie/Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:00:22 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/magpie-studios-christmas-book-honours-the-postie/A nice little book from Magpie Studios honoring the postmen and women – in the UK we say “posties” – who are working so hard at this time of year (we hope):https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/just-design-socially-conscious-design-for-critical-causes/Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:00:05 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/just-design-socially-conscious-design-for-critical-causes/“Designers are the mediators of our daily experience. The easier my compost bucket is to use, the more appealing my reusable grocery bag, the more likely I am to participate in environmentally sound practices.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/thoughts-on-interaction-design-second-edition/Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:09:03 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/thoughts-on-interaction-design-second-edition/How often do you read a design text that impacts your life dramatically? As someone relatively new to the field of Interaction Design, John Kolko’s Thoughts on Interaction Design, Second Edition has allowed me to understand so much about the way I think, and the approach I’ve taken towards designing over the years.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/steve-jobs-by-walter-isaacson/Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:18:19 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/steve-jobs-by-walter-isaacson/This is going to be a short review because there have been so many reviews and commentaries about the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson (Amazon: US|UK|DE) that it seems there is almost nothing left to say.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/40-off-rosenfeld-media-books-until-friday-16th-dec/Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:23:25 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/12/40-off-rosenfeld-media-books-until-friday-16th-dec/I don’t often plug products and services on The Designer’s Review of Books, but this one is too good to miss and from my publisher, the excellent Rosenfeld Media who publish “short, practical, and useful books and webinars on user experience design.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/11/a-history-of-graphic-design-for-rainy-days/Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:45:39 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/11/a-history-of-graphic-design-for-rainy-days/Who can resist a book that provides a paper doll of Saul Bass? Jam-packed, whirlwind, and charming are the three best words to describe_ A History of Graphic Design for Rainy Days_ from Gestalten Press.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/10/how-to-think-like-a-great-graphic-designer/Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:00:19 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/10/how-to-think-like-a-great-graphic-designer/“I often get questions like this from students, and whenever I do, I get the sense that they are fishing for a recipe to become a successful designer.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/10/creative-personal-branding/Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:27:41 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/10/creative-personal-branding/Do you wonder what’s next? Your next job, the next big opportunity for your business, the next technological development that could change everything for you?https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/09/just-my-type-more-than-a-book-about-fonts/Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:26:40 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/09/just-my-type-more-than-a-book-about-fonts/If every typography book were written like Just My Type: A Book About Fonts (Amazon: US|UK|DE), more people would care about the subject. British author and journalist Simon Garfield’s tone is so accessible, it feels like he lived through 600 years of history and just popped by to talk about it.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/09/dieter-rams-double-review-less-and-more-as-little-design-as-possible/Fri, 02 Sep 2011 07:00:41 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/09/dieter-rams-double-review-less-and-more-as-little-design-as-possible/Double review of Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams and Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible Review by Carolina de Bartolohttps://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/08/designers-dont-have-influences-by-austin-howe/Fri, 26 Aug 2011 08:09:54 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/08/designers-dont-have-influences-by-austin-howe/I had better start by owning up to not having read Designers Don’t Read by Howe - I had seen lots of press for it but never got round to picking up a copy.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/06/white/Tue, 21 Jun 2011 09:00:32 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/06/white/A small part of the book White is about color: “it is ‘all colors’ and ‘no colors’ at the same time. This identity as a color that can ‘escape color’ makes white very special.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/06/i-heart-design/Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:30:46 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/06/i-heart-design/I Heart Design. No, really I do. I design every day, spend my spare time obsessing about typography, and could never imagine doing anything else. Design holds a near and dear spot in my heart.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/05/the-elements-of-graphic-design-second-edition/Thu, 26 May 2011 14:14:27 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/05/the-elements-of-graphic-design-second-edition/As a design educator I am always looking for new ways to teach the unavoidable “Introduction to Graphic Design” course. I have read and used many textbooks over the years, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/05/explorations-in-typography/Mon, 09 May 2011 12:30:39 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/05/explorations-in-typography/Explorations in Typography: Mastering the Art of Fine Typesetting by Carolina de Bartolo is a marvelous book that explains some of the most commonly used typesetting devices.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/04/thinking-with-type/Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:30:29 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/04/thinking-with-type/I’m not the first one to say this, and I definitely won’t be the last, but the statement is worth repeating. Thinking With Type is a book that should be in the collection of every designer, writer, editor, publisher and typographer.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/04/toy-cameras-creative-photos-high-end-results-from-40-plastic-cameras/Sun, 10 Apr 2011 16:50:09 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/04/toy-cameras-creative-photos-high-end-results-from-40-plastic-cameras/I would think that most designers with an eye on the lo-fi will be familiar with the aesthetic of toy cameras. As an arty type with an interest in lo-fi technology and photography I have a couple of toy cameras myself, so when the opportunity came about to review Kevin Meredith’s book on toy cameras, Toy Cameras, Creative Photos: High-end Results from 40 Plastic Cameras, I was keen to get my hands on it and see what other plastic fantastic cameras are out there.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/04/women-of-design/Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:30:34 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/04/women-of-design/Women Of Design: Influence And Inspiration From The Original Trailblazers To The New Groundbreakers is one of four books that have been written by the husband and wife team of Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/03/bibliographic/Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:30:09 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/03/bibliographic/While graphic design does not have as long of a history as some of the other visual mediums, say sculpture or painting, it has certainly come a long way in establishing itself through the work, writings and published thoughts of the designers, typographers, artists and writers involved in its evolution.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/designing-type/Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:00:00 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/designing-type/Karen Cheng’s Designing Type is the answer to the needs of a multitude of type designers from all over the world. It is probably the first book ever to analyse, discuss and explain process of designing letterforms so thoroughly.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/studio-culture-the-secret-life-of-the-graphic-design-studio/Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:53:29 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/studio-culture-the-secret-life-of-the-graphic-design-studio/What the public eye sees most often is the finished design work – beautifully printed posters, books, websites, packaging, and signage. But little is known or said about the studios that labor day and night to deliver something creative and coherent, beautiful yet functional, all while earning enough money to survive.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/the-graphic-eye/Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:59:02 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/the-graphic-eye/Are you a designer because you’re a timid photographer? That seems unlikely. But if you are a designer, you probably carry a camera with you much of the time and have a flourishing Flickr account.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/euro-deco-graphic-design-between-the-wars/Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:35:37 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/02/euro-deco-graphic-design-between-the-wars/(Click to enlarge) My initial reaction to the book Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the Wars was disappointment. But it wasn’t because of the book itself, it was because of my own ignorance.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/01/born-modern-the-life-and-design-of-alvin-lustig/Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:00:38 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/01/born-modern-the-life-and-design-of-alvin-lustig/Having only recently been exposed to the work of Alvin Lustig I was very excited to learn of the publication of the monograph Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig chronicling his life as a designer, teacher and author.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/01/junichiro-tanizaki-in-praise-of-shadows/Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:52:34 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2011/01/junichiro-tanizaki-in-praise-of-shadows/I came across this slim book (which is more an extended essay) while looking into texts on aesthetics. I was particularly interested in books about the differences in perception.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/12/we-me-them-it/Wed, 29 Dec 2010 11:59:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/12/we-me-them-it/We, Me, Them & It by John Simmons can be summed up by an endorsement on its front cover: “For weeks, [the book] rested with many others, then something intrigued me about the title.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/11/emigre-70-the-look-back-issue/Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:11:35 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/11/emigre-70-the-look-back-issue/In order to understand what Emigre 70: The Look Back Issue is, you need to know what it is not. This is not a “new” issue of Emigre with interviews, letters, theories and experimentations that one would expect to find in a publication that claims to be an issue of Emigre.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/10/thoughts-of-a-hangman-wooducts-by-bill-hamper-aka-billy-childish/Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:00:11 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/10/thoughts-of-a-hangman-wooducts-by-bill-hamper-aka-billy-childish/Review by Peter Polaine When you pick up Thoughts of a Hangman: Wooducts by Bill Hamper aka Billy Childish book you could be forgiven for thinking that you had come across some new German Expressionist woodcuts or imitations.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/10/interaction-of-color-by-josef-albers/Tue, 19 Oct 2010 07:00:00 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/10/interaction-of-color-by-josef-albers/Review by Carolina de Bartolo I’ve long thought of Josef Albers’s Interaction of Color as the one and only book you’ll ever need to understand how to use color as a designer.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/10/victore-or-who-died-and-made-you-boss/Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:27:49 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/10/victore-or-who-died-and-made-you-boss/James Victore has never been one to mince words or images in his goal to communicate, and this book is no different. He starts by telling us that this book is not about graphic design, it is about ideas and opinions, more specifically, his ideas and his opinions.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/09/jost-hochuli-detail-in-typography/Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:35:44 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/09/jost-hochuli-detail-in-typography/Or to give it it’s full title: Detail In Typography, Letters, Letter spacing, words, word spacing, lines, line spacing, columns. (Amazon UK US) Detail in Typography… is one of the more recent publications by HyphenPress, the imprint set up by Robin Kinross; typographer, author & critic.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/08/talent-is-not-enough-business-secrets-for-designers-2/Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:25:05 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/08/talent-is-not-enough-business-secrets-for-designers-2/“Long term success requires both creative ability and business acumen.” In one succinct sentence, Shel Perkins gets to the point. Author of Talent is Not Enough: Business Secrets for Designers, Perkins is a design educator, chairman of the AIGA Center for Practice Management, and has more than twenty years of experience managing the operations of creative firms in the U.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/06/graphic-design-a-users-manual/Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:59:53 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/06/graphic-design-a-users-manual/Graphic Design: A User’s Manual is a book I wish I had when I started out as a designer. In the follow-up to his previous work, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, Adrian Shaughnessy focuses less on the nuts and bolts of the studio and is more contemplative, drawing upon his significant experience as a working designer to offer equal parts direction and discussion.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/05/sketchbooks-the-hidden-art-of-designers-illustrators-creatives/Fri, 28 May 2010 07:30:00 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/05/sketchbooks-the-hidden-art-of-designers-illustrators-creatives/Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators and CreativesReview by Jennifer New Repository, Incubator, Laboratory, Sketchbook I had to chuckle when I read DRoB Editor Andy Polaine’s recent take on the creative process his review of Designers Don’t Read:https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/05/the-transformer-principles-of-making-isotype-charts-by-marie-neurath-and-robin-kinross/Mon, 24 May 2010 19:48:29 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/05/the-transformer-principles-of-making-isotype-charts-by-marie-neurath-and-robin-kinross/Transforming (Tranformator) – “The process of analysing, selecting, ordering, and then making visual some information, data, ideas, implications…” I have been waiting for the publication of The transformer: principles of making Isotype charts (Amazon) for a while now.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/05/seeking-contributors-for-the-drob/Fri, 07 May 2010 13:27:34 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/05/seeking-contributors-for-the-drob/I could use some help. When I started the Designer’s Review of Books, I had a bit of time on my hands and managed to keep a steady flow of weekly reviews.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/03/design-is-the-problem/Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:05:32 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/03/design-is-the-problem/Review by David Sherwin “Would you like a paper or plastic bag for your groceries?” Seems like a simple question, doesn’t it? Paper should be a better choice, because it will biodegrade.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/01/fully-booked-cover-art-design-for-books/Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:00:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/01/fully-booked-cover-art-design-for-books/Prepare for this review to become rather meta. Gestalten’s Fully Booked: Cover Art and Design for Booksis a design book about book design also containing six essays, three apiece by Katherine Gillieson and Maria Fusco, one of which is an essay about the difficulty of producing a book on books.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/01/designers-dont-read/Thu, 07 Jan 2010 05:33:45 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2010/01/designers-dont-read/I wanted to read Austin Howe’s Designers Don’t Readjust to be contrary. I read a great deal, as you might imagine writing these reviews. Indeed, one of the main reasons for starting The Designer’s Review of Books was a complaint about the paucity of writing in many design books.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/green-graphic-design/Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:31:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/green-graphic-design/Review by Virginia Sasser We know that sustainability is an urgent design issue, despite the fact that some of us are tired of mainstream “greenness” blanketing our consumer landscape with tree frogs and leaf icons.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/glimmer/Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:08:22 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/glimmer/Review by David Sherwin The further I’ve progressed in my career as designer, the harder it’s become to share with others exactly what I do.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/sponsor-an-event-apart-san-francisco/Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:57:10 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/sponsor-an-event-apart-san-francisco/My thanks to An Event Apart San Francisco for sponsoring The Designer’s Review of Books again through October. The list of speakers is long, but Dave Shea‘s They’re Letting Designers Code Now?https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/meggs-history-of-graphic-design/Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:00:00 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/11/meggs-history-of-graphic-design/Review by Patrick Holt Because the design industry is populated not only by the well-educated, but also by the self-taught and the self-tutored-after-a-mediocre-education (I fall into the latter), it’s likely that many of us missed an opportunity to read Philip Meggs’ A History of Graphic Design (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE), now in its fourth edition, during our formative years.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/daniel-eatock-imprint/Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:00:00 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/daniel-eatock-imprint/I have been wanting to write the review of Daniel Eatock’s book, Imprint, (Amazon: US| CA| UK| DE) for some time. It has lain on my desk for weeks and I have delved into it over an over, but the truth is that I have struggled to really work out how to describe it.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/camoupedia/Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:14:56 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/camoupedia/Review by Daniel Gray Within minutes of picking up Roy R. Behren’s Camoupedia (Amazon link), I was regurgitating fascinating bits of camouflage-related trivia at anyone who would listen, like some kind of third-rate Stephen Fry.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/19-books-for-core77s-hack2work/Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:18:44 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/19-books-for-core77s-hack2work/I did a bit of moonlighting for Core77’s Hack2Work event, which is a collection of essential tips and tricks for the design professional. My contribution is a fairly arbitrary selection of 19 Books Every Design Professional Should Own.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/i-am-my-family/Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:40:55 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/09/i-am-my-family/Review by Andrew Shea We all want to know what our ancestors were like 50, 100 or even 200 years ago. Rafael Goldchain’s new book, I Am My Family: Photographic Memories and Fictions (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE), answers these questions by dressing up as his deceased relatives and taking black and white photographs that represent his scattered and forgotten family history.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/08/sponsor-an-event-apart-chigago/Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:46:37 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/08/sponsor-an-event-apart-chigago/My thanks to An Event Apart – Chicago for sponsoring The Designer’s Review of Books this month, especially with Design Disasters being the major post of the month.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/08/design-disasters/Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:59:32 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/08/design-disasters/Disasters. We’ve all had them. The wonderful Fail Blog is a daily source of distraction and cautionary tales of idiocy. The #fail Twitter tag turns up a treasure trove of frustrations, usually with bad design or decisions.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/07/designing-web-interfaces/Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:28:42 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/07/designing-web-interfaces/Review by David Little Theresa Neil’s and Bill Scott’s Designing Web Interfaces (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE) catalogues and describes seventy five design patterns – solutions to common problems – for building rich interactions on the Web.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/07/parenthesis-issue-16/Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:46:39 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/07/parenthesis-issue-16/Okay, I admit it. I expected Parenthesis, the twice-yearly journal of the Fine Book Association to be somewhat boring. I imagined dusty discussions of the nerdy joys of owning crumbling first editions and not a great deal to do with design.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/card-sorting-designing-usable-categories/Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:10:03 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/card-sorting-designing-usable-categories/Review by Matthew Sanders Donna Spencer’s debut Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories (Amazon US) distills several years experience applying card sorting techniques to web projects into a highly practical guide on card sorting.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/naive-modernism-and-folklore-in-contemporary-graphic-design/Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:14:50 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/naive-modernism-and-folklore-in-contemporary-graphic-design/[Naïve - Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE) is a recent release from Gestalten, edited by Robert Klanten and Hendrik Hellige. It explores the “extraordinary renaissance of Classic Modernism, from the 1940s to 1960s, in contemporary graphic design” and collects together the work of many of the contemporary designers working in this style today.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/the-designful-company/Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:17:19 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/the-designful-company/Review by David Sherwin “If you wanna innovate, you gotta design. – Marty Neumeier From the airy confines of interior design to the tailored minutae of the type designer, the varied disciplines of our profession continue to rush outwards like galaxies fleeing the Big Bang.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/stanley-marvin/Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:58:33 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/stanley-marvin/If you liked Victor & Susie, the short, small and sweet story created entirely from typography, check out the new one from the folks at Brighten the Corners.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/imposters/Mon, 08 Jun 2009 12:52:14 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/06/imposters/Hollywood Boulevard is filled with people dressed us famous characters all trying to make a buck from having their photos taken with tourists. Some consider them part of the local colour, some panhandling nuisances.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/the-rhetoric-of-modernism-le-corbusier-as-a-lecturer/Fri, 29 May 2009 13:28:07 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/the-rhetoric-of-modernism-le-corbusier-as-a-lecturer/(Guest review by Becky Quintal) ‘You only have to see his notes to feel the emotion of the speaker. It is evident that this kind of discourse, even if expressed only in the intimacy of his notebook on the train, reveals a therapeutic aspect of the lecture for someone like Le Corbusier.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/a-practical-guide-to-designing-for-the-web/Fri, 22 May 2009 10:51:57 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/a-practical-guide-to-designing-for-the-web/(Guest Review by Shannon Smith) Mark Boulton just saved me a ton of money on design school. His new book, A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web, is meant to help Web designers who haven’t been to design school ‘learn the basics of graphic design and apply them to their Web designs – producing more effective, polished, detailed and professional sites.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/designing-for-people/Fri, 15 May 2009 09:42:02 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/designing-for-people/Guest review by Phillip Hunter “Design is a silent salesman… contributing not just increased efficiency… but also assurance and confidence.” So asserts American Industrial Designer Henry Dreyfuss (1904 - 1972) near the beginning of his 1955 memoir, Designing for People (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE).https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/art-of-the-modern-movie-poster-translating-hollywood/Fri, 08 May 2009 12:54:36 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/05/art-of-the-modern-movie-poster-translating-hollywood/(Guest review by Daniel Gray) As commercial art produced to sell another form of commercial art, film posters can often be crass, repetitive, disposable. They’re just adverts to convince you to sit in a dark room for a couple of hours, right?https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/the-advertising-concept-book/Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:44:30 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/the-advertising-concept-book/What makes a good ad? What makes an award-winning creative idea? These days its easy to get distracted by fancy art direction and technological novelties, but when you strip all that away, does the idea still stand up?https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/uppercase-magazine/Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:01:07 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/uppercase-magazine/I am cheating here because UPPERCASE is a magazine and not a book, but rules are made to be broken. How could a web site that bills tags itself with “books for the creative mind” turn down a review of the first issue of a magazine that bills itself as a “magazine for the creative and curious”?https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/information-architecture-blueprints-for-the-web/Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:15:14 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/information-architecture-blueprints-for-the-web/(Guest review by Steve ‘Doc’ Baty) For people who approached information architecture via Rosenfeld & Morville’s “Polar Bear” book Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, there was a gap left between an understanding of what was meant by information architecture versus how to actually do information architecture.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/how-to-be-a-rockstar-freelancer/Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:56:12 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/how-to-be-a-rockstar-freelancer/(Guest review by Shannon Smith) If you are a fan of FreelanceSwitch the freelancing blog started by Collis and Cyan Ta’eed, their spin-off How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer is written in the same, blog-like style.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/cars-freedom-style-sex-power-motion-colour-everything/Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:38:41 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/04/cars-freedom-style-sex-power-motion-colour-everything/The car sums up the contradictions of industrialised age more than any other design object. Simultaneously a symbol of desire, design and engineering brilliance and of over-consumption of resources and destruction of the environment.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/paul-rand-conversations-with-students/Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:28:02 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/paul-rand-conversations-with-students/What would Paul Rand have been like as a teacher? He was renowned for his stinging critiques ornery manner, yet in Paul Rand: Conversations with Students (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE) Philip Burton chooses the word ‘compassionate’ to describe him.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/thank-you-an-event-apart/Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:53:19 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/thank-you-an-event-apart/Thank you to An Event Apart Seattle who have sponsored The Designer’s Review of Books throughout March. If you enjoyed the review of Luke Wroblewski’s Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks you can see him live there along with Jared Spool, the man Zeldman, Eric Meyer (who looks slightly shocked in his photo) and a whole host of other great speakers.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/subject-to-change/Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:38:05 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/subject-to-change/(Guest Review by David Sherwin) Underwhelmed. We’ve all had this reaction when encountering a product or service that just didn’t cut it. Take, for example, the alarm clock next to my bed.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/designing-design/Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:55:13 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/designing-design/“Creativity is to discover a question that has never been asked. If one brings up an idiosyncratic question, the answer he gives will necessarily be unique as well.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/designing-universal-knowledge-the-world-as-flatland-report-1/Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:06:55 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/designing-universal-knowledge-the-world-as-flatland-report-1/[Given that it is a book about classification, Designing Universal Knowledge: The World as Flatland - Report 1 (Amazon: US|CA|UK|DE) by Gerlinde Schuller is oddly difficult to classify.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/the-design-entrepreneur-turning-graphic-design-into-goods-that-sell/Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:49:19 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/the-design-entrepreneur-turning-graphic-design-into-goods-that-sell/Guest review by Colin Ford Clients blow. Designers the world over know this to be the unfortunate truth. Clients come to you for your artistic vision and then try to drag your design back into mediocrity by insisting that 12-point Times New Roman be used for all body copy, or that their second cousin thinks chartreuse would be a better color for the packaging.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/how-do-you-like-it/Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:12:34 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/03/how-do-you-like-it/Eggs. Everyone likes them different and each of us eats them in a certain way, just like blogs. Okay, so you don’t fry blogs, but humour me with the metaphor for a moment.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/designing-the-mentoring-stamp/Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:13:47 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/designing-the-mentoring-stamp/In an age of Twitter, texting, e-mail and barcodes, the humble postage stamp is in danger of dying out. Yet the stamp has been a tiny canvas for artists and designers to disseminate their work to one of the largest and certainly the broadest of audiences for decades.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/canadian-store/Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:53:13 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/canadian-store/Since this site is now in archive mode, there are no DRoB stores. Sorry.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/designers-review-of-books-canadian-store/Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:44:12 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/designers-review-of-books-canadian-store/It’s clear from my Mint server logs that The Designer’s Review of Books has a few visitors from Canada. So I have a question for you – would you like me to set up a Canadian Amazon Store, which would also include the relevant links at the bottom of reviews?https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/tauba-auerbach-5050/Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:22:19 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/tauba-auerbach-5050/(Click to enlarge) Guest review by Andrew Shea. Tauba Auerbach manages to distill the content of her latest book, 50/50, into one brief summary: 100 Pages 100 Patterns, 50% Black 50% White.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/kenya-hara-preview/Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:31:03 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/kenya-hara-preview/I have been doing some moonlighting over at Eye magazine’s blog for their The Form of the Book series. The Form of the Book is about what books look like – how they are designed, produced and feel more than the content itself.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/victor-susie/Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:00:12 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/victor-susie/Brighten the Corners sent me a copy of their very cute book, Victor & Susie. It is a short story book about a girl, Susie, who meets a snail called Victor that has a hole in his shell and isn’t feeling too well.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/buy-books-help-australian-bushfire-victims/Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:49:40 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/buy-books-help-australian-bushfire-victims/Sitepoint, the Melbourne-based publisher on all things web, currently has a Five for One PDF book offer in order to help victims of the terrible Australian bushfires.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/tangible-high-touch-visuals/Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:56:38 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/tangible-high-touch-visuals/“Remember the small, cheeky, hand-scribbled notes that were reproduced on a photo or poster design? Those with the simple message: “I was here!” Indicating that someone actually worked with the photo and that these are their thoughts.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/designing-gestural-interfaces/Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:49:59 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/designing-gestural-interfaces/Dan Saffer has a knack for writing the right book at the right time. His first book, Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devicespulled together various disparate approaches and aspects to interaction design into one volume.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/sizes-may-vary-a-workbook-for-graphic-design/Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:29:55 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/02/sizes-may-vary-a-workbook-for-graphic-design/(Click to enlarge) If you are the kind of person who walks into stationery shop and pauses to inhale the smell of fresh paper or spends hours trying to find the ultimate sketching pens, then you will enjoy opening up Mark Boyce’s book, Sizes May Vary: A Workbook for Graphic Design, published by Laurence King.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/three-books-on-colour-part-two-an-eye-for-color/Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:10:11 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/three-books-on-colour-part-two-an-eye-for-color/(Click to enlarge) An Eye for Colorby the fantastically-named Olga Gutierrez de la Roza is the second in our Three Books on Colour series following on from Kelvin: Colour Today, which we reviewed in Decemeber.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/web-form-design/Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:27:37 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/web-form-design/I hate forms. Germany is full of bureaucrats that love them, but their forms are amongst some of the most poorly designed I have ever encountered.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/the-back-of-the-napkin/Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:28:53 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/the-back-of-the-napkin/The subtitle of Dan Roam’s best-selling book, The Back of the Napkinis “Solving problems and selling ideas with pictures” – a reasonable description of what designers do for a living.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/back-on-the-grid/Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:55:20 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/back-on-the-grid/I have been off the gridall last week in the Australian bush (see above) and then in the air for the excruciatingly long flight back to Germany, so I felt a little editorial news was in order.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/this-rimy-river-vaughn-oliver/Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:00:14 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/this-rimy-river-vaughn-oliver/Guest review by Tobias Grime This Rimy River: Vaughn Oliver and Graphic Works 1988-94is probably the most worn out and dog-eared design book I have.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/indexed/Sun, 04 Jan 2009 05:43:53 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/indexed/Before we begin, I should admit that I think Jessica Hagy is pretty cool and her blog Indexed is not only a regular read, but also one of the things on my far-too-long a list of “things I wish I had thought of”.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/shapes-for-sounds/Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:28:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2009/01/shapes-for-sounds/Guest Review by David Sherwin A is for Aleph. B is for Beit. G is for Gimel… When I was a child, Hebrew was beaten into me by a series of well-meaning teachers.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/winner-of-for-the-love-of-vinyl-competition/Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:09:05 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/winner-of-for-the-love-of-vinyl-competition/The For The Love of Vinyl competition has a winner. What a difficult choice! They were all good suggestions and I was impressed by Colin and Gregory’s analysis of the several covers they chose.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/coming-up-in-2009/Mon, 22 Dec 2008 22:07:26 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/coming-up-in-2009/Apart from announcing the winner of the For The Love of Vinyl competition, we will be taking a some time off over the holiday season.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/uncredited-graphic-design-opening-titles-in-movies/Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:30:06 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/uncredited-graphic-design-opening-titles-in-movies/Before motion graphics there was broadcast graphic design and before that title design for film. It is a vibrant area of design that has remained strangely undocumented.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/101-things-i-learned-in-architecture-school/Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:48:22 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/101-things-i-learned-in-architecture-school/Guest Review by Max Gadney Architecture is a discipline that draws together principles typical of many design disciplines – clients, briefs, research, materials, form and function.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/win-a-copy-of-for-the-love-of-vinyl/Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:21:59 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/win-a-copy-of-for-the-love-of-vinyl/The holidays are nearly here and the DRB will be, well, catching up with some holiday reading. As Christmas is also the time of goodwill and generosity we are giving away a copy of the superb book, For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosis, that we reviewed last week because we liked it so much.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/three-books-on-colour-part-one-kelvin-colour-today/Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:56:22 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/three-books-on-colour-part-one-kelvin-colour-today/Books on colour must be the new black. We were sent two in a row recently – Kelvin: Colour Todayand An Eye for Color. We decided to do a series over the next month or two and include Victoria Finlay’s Color: A Natural History of the Palette.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/for-the-love-of-vinyl-the-album-art-of-hipgnosis/Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:47:17 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/for-the-love-of-vinyl-the-album-art-of-hipgnosis/For the Love of Vinyl: The Album Art of Hipgnosisby Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell is quite simply the most engaging and entertaining design book I have read all year.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/coroflot-8th-design-salary-survey/Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:00:37 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/coroflot-8th-design-salary-survey/A quick note to say that Coroflot’s 8th Annual Design Salary Survey closes December 10th and they need as much data as they can get, especially for Design Management.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/universal-principles-of-design/Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:01:16 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/universal-principles-of-design/Reviewed by Rob Tannen. Although Universal Principles of Designwas published in 2003, I am embarrassed to admit that I only learned about it several years later via Amazon’s related books feature.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/how-do-you-design/Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:50:30 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/how-do-you-design/Hugh Dubberly from Dubberly Design Studios is writing a book called How Do You Design?, which examines design processes that they have collected over the years.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/process-50-product-designs-from-concept-to-manufacture/Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:27:36 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/12/process-50-product-designs-from-concept-to-manufacture/When I was a child I visited a Rembrandt exhibition with my father and remember being more fascinated by his sketches than the final paintings. Seeing the creative process in the quick lines of a pen and ink sketch somehow made the finished article more personal.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/geometric-from-kapitza/Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:20:58 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/geometric-from-kapitza/[Update: Abduzeedo are giving away a copy of Geometric to the person who leaves the best comment on their site.] If you are thinking of designing and printing your own uber cool Christmas wrapping paper, look no further.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/the-user-is-always-right/Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:02:03 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/the-user-is-always-right/Reviewed by Will Evans – the first of several guest reviews to come on the DRB. See the end of the review for Will’s bio.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/share-your-design-book-disappointments/Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:54:30 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/share-your-design-book-disappointments/Most of the book reviews on the DRB so far have been very positive. The simple reason is that it’s more pleasant to seek out and review books that I think I’m going to like than to wade through a pile of stinkers.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/data-flow/Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:03:50 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/data-flow/If there is one resource we’re not short of these days it is data. We’re swimming in the stuff and generating it all the time. Making visual sense of all that data requires a fine balance between complexity and simplicity.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/apostrophe/Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:49:45 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/apostrophe/Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed or commented with positive feedback about the launch of The Designers Review of Books. By far the most common question has been, “I don’t mean to be picky, but shouldn’t there be an apostrophe in the title?https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/the-little-know-it-all/Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:29:07 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/the-little-know-it-all/The Little Know-It-Allfrom Gestalten is either a desk reference or a toilet book, depending on your reading preferences. With the tag-line of “Common Sense for Designers” it’s a book full of all the things you didn’t bother to pay attention to in design school and wish you had.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/jon-burgerman-pens-are-my-friends/Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:39:34 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/jon-burgerman-pens-are-my-friends/Three years ago I interviewed Jon Burgerman after I stumbled across his web site and was immediately sucked into his bizarre world of characters. Like quite a few illustrators and animators I know, Burgerman appears to have an inexhaustible supply of oddities inside his head and an equally unstoppable urge to draw them.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/de-store/Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:08:33 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/de-store/Since this site is now in archive mode, there are no DRoB stores. Sorry.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/uk-store/Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:04:48 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/uk-store/Since this site is now in archive mode, there are no DRoB stores. Sorry.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/contact/Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:45:15 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/contact/The Designer’s Review of Books is on permanent hiatus and no longer accepting any books for review. Thank you to all of those authors, publishers and reviewers who have contributed in the past.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/welcome-to-the-designers-review-books/Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:17:38 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/2008/11/welcome-to-the-designers-review-books/Welcome to The Designer’s Review of Books - a selection of books for the creative mind. For sometime I have been looking for a site that only reviewed books on design and related areas rather than a blog or site that also reviewed books.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/store/Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:31:13 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/store/Since this site is now in archive mode, there are no DRoB stores. Sorry.https://designersreviewofbooks.com/about/Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:32:42 +0000https://designersreviewofbooks.com/about/Closed The Designer’s Review of Books is on permanent hiatus and no longer accepting any books for review. My day job simply takes up too much time.