2D

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. They may be a bit rougher but they have the same appeal where the artist almost forgets [...]

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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. Originally published in 1963, Yale University Press published a lovely revised and expanded edition in 2006, which is 3.25 cm (1.25 in) taller [...]

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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. For better or for worse. “At a [...]

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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 Hyphen Press, the imprint set up by Robin Kinross; typographer, author & critic. Published for the first time in English in 2008, [...]

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Talent is Not Enough: Business Secrets for Designers

“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 [...]

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Graphic Design: A User’s 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 [...]

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Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators & Creatives

Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustraors & Creatives

Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators and Creatives Review 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: “Over my own years of writing, I have learned a great deal more about the [...]

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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. I first became aware of the Isotype (System Of TYpographic Picture Education) work of Otto Neurath while [...]

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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. Plastic will go on forever in landfills and choke our oceans. Well, my answer isn’t very well informed. There are major trade-offs in [...]

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Fully Booked: Cover Art & Design for Books

Prepare for this review to become rather meta. Gestalten’s Fully Booked: Cover Art and Design for Books is 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. Phew. As with all [...]

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