You Are an Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation


Sarah Urist Green - 2020
    The result is You Are an Artist, a journey of creation through which you'll invent imaginary friends, sort books, declare a cause, construct a landscape, find your band, and become someone else (or at least try). Your challenge is to filter these assignments through the lens of your own experience and make art that reflects the world as you see it.You don't have to know how to draw well, stretch a canvas, or mix a paint colour that perfectly matches that of a mountain stream. This book is for anyone who wants to make art, regardless of experience level. The only materials you'll need are what you already have on hand or can source for free.You Are an Artist brings together more than 50 assignments gathered from some of the most innovative creators working today, including Sonya Clark, Michelle Grabner, The Guerrilla Girls, Fritz Haeg, Pablo Helguera, Nina Katchadourian, Toyin Ojih Odutola, J. Morgan Puett, Dread Scott, Alec Soth, Gillian Wearing, and many others.

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things


Donald A. Norman - 2003
    Emotional Design will appeal not only to designers and manufacturers but also to managers, psychologists, and general readers who love to think about their stuff.

The End of Print: The Graphic Design of David Carson


Lewis Blackwell - 1995
    His tortured typography prompted a vocal camp of critics to accuse him of being flippant and of destroying the communicative basis of design. But now the techniques of David Carson (and those of his countless imitators) dominate advertising, design, the Web, and even motion pictures. With 35,000 copies of the original sold, this revised edition of The End of Print includes a striking new cover and first chapter that puts Carson's work in context. The rest is vintage Carson—cutting edge and explosive. The End of Print tracks his career from skateboard and surf magazines, to the landmark Beach Culture magazine and his groundbreaking grid-breaking work for Ray Gun, and finally to handling major corporate identity accounts. The End of Print marks a turning point in design that ushered in the look of today.

Wall and Piece


Banksy - 2005
    Not only did he smuggle his pieces into four of New York City's major art museums, he's also "hung" his work at London's Tate Gallery and adorned Israel's West Bank barrier with satirical images. Banksy's identity remains unknown, but his work is unmistakable with prints selling for as much as $45,000.

Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change


Victor Papanek - 1972
    Translated into twenty-three languages, it is one of the world's most widely read books on design. In this edition, Victor Papanek examines the attempts by designers to combat the tawdry, the unsafe, the frivolous, the useless product, once again providing a blueprint for sensible, responsible design in this world which is deficient in resources and energy.

Make Your Own Luck: A DIY Attitude to Graphic Design


Kate Moross - 2014
    But it hasn’t always been a smooth ride. In this informative memoir and guide Kate Moross offers true insider’s tips on how to make it in a highly competitive field. Written in an approachable, forthright and refreshingly honest tone, Make Your Own Luck features chapters on how to thrive in art school, developing your own style, how to self-promote, collaboration with other artists, how to deal with “copycats,” and when to consider working for free. Kate Moross also touches on the fine points of music packaging and videos, how to find an agent, and looks back on the touchstone moments that helped shape her career. Designed to mimic Moross’s signature bold, brightly coloured style, this book is filled with dozens of examples of her work for companies such as Google, Adidas, and Nokia, as well as musicians including Simian Mobile Disco, Jessie Ware, Zomby, and Pictureplane. Irreverent and packed with enormously helpful tips for designers of all stripes, Make Your Own Luck is certain to become an indispensable guide for anyone interested in graphic art as a vocation or hobby.

Understanding Color: An Introduction for Designers


Linda Holtzschue - 1994
    Learn how to use color more comfortably, creatively, and effectively than ever before. Take your work to the next level by exploring how different light sources affect color rendition, how placement changes colors, how to avoid costly color mistakes, and how to resolve the color problems that frequently confront design professionals. Order your copy today!

A Primer of Visual Literacy


Donis A. Dondis - 1973
    The subject is presented, not as a foreign language, but as a native one that the student knows but cannot yet read.Responding to the need she so clearly perceives, Ms. Dondis, a designer and teacher of broad experience, has provided a beginning text for art and design students and a basic text for all other students; those who do not intend to become artists or designers but who need to acquire the essential skills of understanding visual communication at a time when so much information is being studied and transmitted in non-verbal modes, especially through photography and film. Understanding through seeing only seems to be an obviously intuitive process. Actually, developing the visual sense is something like learning a language, with its own special alphabet, lexicon, and syntax. People find it necessary to be verbally literate whether they are writers: or not; they should find it equally necessary to be visually literate, artists or not. This primer is designed to teach students the interconnected arts of visual communication. The subject is presented, not as a foreign language, but as a native one that the student knows but cannot yet read. The analogy provides a useful teaching method, in part because it is not overworked or too rigorously applied. This method of learning to see and read visual data has already been proved in practice, in settings ranging from Harlem to suburbia. Appropriately, the book makes some of its most telling points through visual means. Numerous illustrated examples are employed to clarify the basic elements of design (teach an alphabet), to show how they are used in simple syntactic combinations (See Jane run.), and finally, to present the meaningful synthesis of visual information that is a finished work of art (the apprehension of poetry...).

79 Short Essays on Design


Michael Bierut - 2007
    Bierut is widely considered the finest observer on design writing today. Covering topics as diverse as Twyla Tharp and ITC Garamond, Bierut's intelligent and accessible texts pull design culture into crisp focus. He touches on classics, like Massimo Vignelli and the cover of The Catcher in the Rye, as well as newcomers, like McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and color-coded terrorism alert levels. Along the way Nabakov's Pale Fire; Eero Saarinen; the paper clip; Celebration, Florida; the planet Saturn; the ClearRx pill bottle; and paper architecture all fall under his pen. His experience as a design practitioner informs his writing and gives it truth. In Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design, designers and nondesigners alike can share and revel in his insights.

Making Color Sing: Practical Lessons in Color and Design


Jeanne Dobie - 2000
    Readers are shown how the interplay of complementary hues can trigger vibrations; how the push and pull of warm and cool colors can create a feeling of space; how to disguise one color in a scene to accent another; and many more tidbits of colorful advice.

Understanding Color in Photography: Using Color, Composition, and Exposure to Create Vivid Photos


Bryan F. Peterson - 2017
    Here he explores his signature use of color in photography for the first time, showing readers his process for creating striking images that pop off the page. He addresses how to shoot in any type of light, and looks at color families and how they can work together to make compelling images in commercial and art photography. He also helps readers understand exposure, flash, and other stumbling blocks that beginning and experienced photographers encounter when capturing images, showing how to get the most out of any composition. With its down-to-earth voice and casual teaching style, Understanding Color in Photography is a workshop in a book, helping any photographer take their images to the next level.

Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design


William Lidwell - 2003
    Because no one can be an expert on everything, designers have always had to scramble to find the information and know-how required to make a design work - until now. Universal Principles of Design is the first cross-disciplinary reference of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this book pairs clear explanations of the design concepts featured with visual examples of those concepts applied in practice. From the 80/20 rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Ockham's razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, 100 design concepts are defined and illustrated for readers to expand their knowledge.This landmark reference will become the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their design expertise.

The Little Black Book of Design


Adam Judge - 2009
    Like an Art of War for design, this slim volume contains guidance, inspiration, and reassurance for all those who labor with the user in mind. If you work on the web, in print, or in film or video, this book can help. If you know someone working on the creative arena, this makes a great gift. Funny, too.Look for fresh aphorisms on our Facebook page.

The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity


Julia Cameron - 1992
    An international bestseller, millions of readers have found it to be an invaluable guide to living the artist’s life. Still as vital today—or perhaps even more so—than it was when it was first published one decade ago, it is a powerfully provocative and inspiring work. In a new introduction to the book, Julia Cameron reflects upon the impact of The Artist’s Way and describes the work she has done during the last decade and the new insights into the creative process that she has gained. Updated and expanded, this anniversary edition reframes The Artist’s Way for a new century.

Graphic Design: A New History


Stephen J. Eskilson - 2007
    Organized chronologically, the book illuminates the dynamic relationship between design and manufacturing as well as the roles of technology, social change, and commercial forces on the course of design history. The layout of each chapter reflects the unique style of the period it describes, and some 450 illustrations throughout the volume provide a visual record of more than one hundred years of creative achievement in the field.Under the influence of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement in the late 19th century, a new era began for design arts. Fueled by popular Art Nouveau advertising, the work of graphic designers became central in the growing consumer goods economy. This book traces the emergence of varied modernist design styles in the early 20th century and then examines the wartime politicization of regional styles through American government patronage and revolutionary Soviet ideas. Richly contextualized chapters chronicle the history of the Bauhaus and the rise of the International Style, followed by the postmodern movement of the 1970s and '80s. After highlighting recent developments in graphic design around the globe, the author discusses the impact of inexpensive, powerful design software and the challenges facing designers now.