Graphic Design: The New Basics (2nd Edition)

This book is a perfect foundation for a person looking to get into graphic design. It provides visual and written feedback in a perfect synthesis, although there is minor things I wish it did better.GOOD: It touches on essential graphic design principles.Whether you're a marketer or a undercover artist, this book provides a basic understanding of the graphic design field. It touches on typography, heiararchy, colors, layers and more! The introduction is engaging and sets the tone of the rest of the book, and the literature is well versed and informative without having to worry about not knowing graphic design lingo.GREAT: It provides wonderful examples that will inspire your inner artist.I like to pick up this book and look for inspiration. The art covers everything from user interface design (UI) to print design. While you may not know what your style is as a graphic design artist, this book will shed light on styles that may interest you.IMPROVEMENTS: It could go more in depth in certain areas.This book was a pleasure to read, but it was almost as if the section ended right when I wanted to dive into a topic more. That is the problem with having a book that covers the basics; It will occasionally fail to provide detailed information in certain areas. Suggesting it as an improvement does my opinion more justice rather than saying it's a downfall. This book has the basics covered.Conclusion: I don't know how many graphic design books I've been through that had horrible graphic design in them, but this book was a beautiful blend of information and visual examples. Maybe you're not an artist or maybe you are, this book will help you interpret the art you see in a world where graphic design is ubiquitous.

Excellent intro book to graphic design. Covers key elements and principles of graphic design. Author uses real world, professional examples as well as unique work by their master’s students.Chapters are short and to the point. Most take 20 min to read… the images and examples are excellently curated by the author.Makes a great reference book for vocabulary and examples for teachers, professionals, and students.

This book is wonderful. I use it as a guide to teach my students the foundations of design. There are many wonderful projects and visual inspirations included. It is a great balance of text an image and makes for light reading that is impactful and to the point, and provides a range of projects, concepts, and visuals related to each topic. An absolute must for the bookshelf of a young designer and just as wonderful as refreshing inspiration for a seasoned vet!

My goal for this book was to apply to web design the concepts within toward pursuing the idea of "what a good website looks like". In other words, my goal was mostly web design related. It's helpful in understanding and visualizing important details on a conceptual level. It wasn't quite what I needed in the sense of hand-holding but what I did take away from this book was a clearer understanding of the integrated parts of design. It's one thing to say something is heavy, and another, to do as the author does with the work of students and demonstrate it by an image where everything of a certain color is bunched in a corner. The demonstration across various mediums was nice and made for some interesting meditations on presentation-- what looks like absolute garbage on one medium might look great in another. What works is ultimately a combination of factors and considerations which come about from questions.Overall I'm satisfied with the book because it forced me to look for what was already in front of me and submissively observed. Where I might not have had the vocabulary to describe something, now I have a reference point for terminology that professionals use.It added meaning and words beyond "this looks like crap" because those ideas and words I learned helped define "what is crap" and what contributed to it being "crap".

This is a very good introduction to many of the basic concepts of contemporary design. Each section (be it texture, hierarchy, color, rhythm and balance,...) is a relatively short overview of the concept, followed by many diverse and well crafted examples to compare and contrast. If you're looking for an general design book to start with, this one is pretty solid. From this you can figure out what topics you want to launch into more in depth. Maybe Gestalt principles are inspiring you. Or possibly the Grid.

I bought this book because other reviews said it was required for a college class and I wanted to get a taste for what formal instruction of graphic design entails. This book did exactly that, breaking design down into separate aspects of art and showing lots of examples of it. It helps with getting comfortable with design "lingo" too. A great introduction for people who don't want to spend thousands on college courses.

Helpful for background knowledge

This book is not a tutorial on learning graphic design. It is more like a reference book for someone who has been trained in graphic design. One more note about this book, is the elements that are shared in it, can be learned from composition for drawing or paiting. However, I have not read the entire book yet, but have gotten through 25% of it.What I was looking for was a tutorial, a book to train me in graphic design. What I found was a reference manual.As a reference manual, it is very good with excellent picture examples.