The Designer's Review of Books — Books for the creative mind.

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. After thumbing through it for several days and then making my way back through more thoroughly, I understand why the books [...]

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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. Head straight to page 460 and read about the new methods and processes that generative design offers. With this information fresh in your mind, go back to [...]

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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. Whether it’s what temperature water to wash your t-shirt in or how to find earth amidst the other planets in the galaxy, icons are amazing [...]

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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. It takes a look at these in-between issues [...]

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The 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). The book was created as a companion to an exhibition of the same name curated by the Fundación Juan March in Madrid, [...]

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Eric Gill: Notes on Postage Stamps

< p>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. The essay is relatively short, spanning about 20 pages, but does an excellent job of illustrating Gill’s stamp designs, as well as his [...]

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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. Within its pages you will find a wealth of information about reading behaviour, design strategies, typefaces, typesetting, technical challenges and possibilities [...]

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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. The sort of printed thing with so much attention to detail (well hello there yellow page edges) and physicality (and hello [...]

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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. The huge two volume set contains an immense amount of visual and historical information about a wide variety of jazz album cover art created [...]

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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. Hopefully things go great and everything looks just as it did on screen and exactly as [...]

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