ZAG follows the ultra-clear "whiteboard overview" style of the author's first book, THE BRAND GAP, but drills deeper into the question of how brands can harness the power of differentiation. The author argues that in an extremely cluttered marketplace, traditional differentiation is no longer enough--today companies need "radical differentiation" to create lasting value for their shareholders and customers. In an entertaining 3-hour read you'll learn:- why me-too brands are doomed to fail- how to "read" customer feedback on new products and messages- the 17 steps for designing "difference" into your brand- how to turn your brand's "onliness" into a "trueline" to drive synergy- the secrets of naming products, services, and companies- the four deadly dangers faced by brand portfolios- how to "stretch" your brand without breaking it- how to succeed at all three stages of the competition cycleFrom the back cover: In an age of me-too products and instant communications, keeping up with the competition is no longer a winning strategy. Today you have to out-position, out-maneuver, and out-design the competition. The new rule? When everybody zigs, zag. In his first book, THE BRAND GAP, Neumeier showed companies how to bridge the distance between business strategy and design. In ZAG, he illustrates the number-one strategy of high-performance brands--radical differentiation.ZAG is an AIGA Design Press book, published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA. For a quick peek inside ZAG, go to www.zagbook.com.

    Practical and hands-on in approach, this book/exercise manual speaks clearly to beginning graphic designers and others involved with type about the complex meeting of message, image, and history surrounding typography.

    Theory and practice in the design of data graphics, 250 illustrations of the best (and a few of the worst) statistical graphics, with detailed analysis of how to display data for precise, effective, quick analysis. Design of the high-resolution displays, small multiples. Editing and improving graphics. The data-ink ratio. Time-series, relational graphics, data maps, multivariate designs. Detection of graphical deception: design variation vs. data variation. Sources of deception. Aesthetics and data graphical displays. This is the second edition of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Recently published, this new edition provides excellent color reproductions of the many graphics of William Playfair, adds color to other images, and includes all the changes and corrections accumulated during 17 printings of the first edition.

    In 1989 Fili founded her own graphic design studio, Louise Fili Ltd, and branched out into the fields of restaurant and food packaging design. Her lavish and elegant typography, often hand drawn, helps advertise and market such well-known brands as Sarabeth's, Bella Cucina, Jean-Georges, and Good Housekeeping, among many others. Known for her intense attention to detail, her fresh reinterpretation of vintage sources, and her passion for all things Italian, Fili has won numerous awards. Elegantissima, the first monograph on her work, covers the breadth of her nearly forty-year design career and is a must-have for graphic design students and professionals, as well as anyone interested in advertising, food, restaurants, Italy, and books.

    Each category includes a short introduction, with expanded captions providing information on who the symbol was designed for, who designed it, when, and where appropriate, what the symbol stands for. These sections are interspersed with short case studies on both classic examples of symbols still in use, and exceptional examples of recently designed symbols.

    Taken from a Dutch collection, this exuberant selection traverses the evolution of the printed letter in all its various incarnations via exquisitely designed catalogs displaying not only type specimens in roman, italic, bold, semi-bold, narrow, and broad, but also characters, borders, ornaments, initial letters and decorations as well as often spectacular examples of the use of the letters. The Victorian fonts, sumptuous and sometimes unbelievably outrageous, are accorded a prominent place in this book. In addition to lead letters, examples from lithography and letters by window-dressers, inscription carvers, and calligraphers are also displayed and described. Featuring works by type designers including: William Caslon, Fritz Helmuth Ehmcke, Peter Behrens, Rudolf Koch, Eric Gill, Jan van Krimpen, Paul Renner, Jan Tschichold, A. M. Cassandre, Aldo Novarese, Adrian FrutigerIn order to include a vast amount of material, we have divided this text into two volumes. The first volume displays pre 20th Century type specimens, and the second covers the period from 1900 to the middle of the century. In the first volume, editor Cees de Jong and collector Jan Tholenaar write about single specimens and types; in the second, Alston Purvis outlines the history of types.

    This classic study shows how humans express thought through graphic means and why certain shapes and configurations of dot and line are perceived and remembered more easily than others.

    This book is about everything that happens while you’re reading – in front of your eyes and inside your head – and about what type designers, typographers and graphic designers bring to a page to make it happen.Renowned type designer Gerard Unger distills decades of design experience into a playful, accessible text that reflects the range of his professional projects, from designing the fonts read daily by millions in USA Today to being responsible for the look of the highway and metro signs in the Netherlands.For Unger, regardless of the application, designers should always consider two important questions: How is it possible to read without seeing any letters? To what extent do all readers possess hidden typographic knowledge? Keeping these two core ideas in mind, Unger explores such topics as legibility, invisible typography, pattern recognition, the reading process, the ergonomics of letterforms, the universe of signs, negative space and typographic illusions.The most seasoned typographers and designers will find as much value in this fresh, first-ever English translation as beginners and the curious who have always wondered how reading happens.

    With easy-to-understand instructions and guidelines, plenty of inspirational examples, and hundreds of hand sketches and illustrations, Martina Flor shows readers how to transform their initial lettering concepts and handdrawn sketches into a well-shaped, exquisite piece of digital lettering that can be sold and published. Readers learn how to train their "typographic eye" by studying lettering samples and the anatomy of letters; explore concepts of hierarchy, composition, and flourishes; and discover the many different ways of creating letter shapes. In addition, Flor explains the process of creating a lettering project step by step— from start to finish, from analog to digital—and gives valuable tips about how to make a career as a lettering artist.

    These fundamentals of design, once the exclusive domain of professional typographers, have become an essential starting point for anyone looking for a fresh way to communicate. Practical information about creating letters and type often amounts to a series of guidelines for executing a particular process, font program, or style. But what makes lettering and type endlessly fascinating is the flexibility to interpret and sometimes even break these rules. Lettering & Type is a smart-but- not-dense guide to creating and bending letters to one's will. More than just another pretty survey, it is a powerful how-to book full of relevant theory, history, explanatory diagrams, and exercises. While other type design books get hung up on the technical and technological issues of type design and lettering, Lettering & Type features the context and creativity that shape letters and make them interesting. Authors and designers Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals examine classic design examples as well as exciting contemporary lettering of all stripes—from editorial illustrations to concert posters to radical conceptual alphabets. Lettering & Type is ideal for anyone looking to move beyond existing typography and fonts to create, explore, and use original or customized letterforms. This latest addition to our best-selling Design Briefs seriesfeatures a foreword by Ellen Lupton and hundreds of images and examples of work by historical and contemporary designers, artists, and illustrators, including Marian Bantjes, Stefan Sagmeister, Matthew Carter, Christoph Niemann, Steve Powers (ESPO), House Industries, Christian Schwartz, Margaret Kilgallen, James Victore, Abbott Miller, Sibylle Hagmann, Ed Fella, and many more. Throughout the book interviews with type designers, artists, and graphic designers provide real-world perspective from contemporary practitioners.

    Subjective feelings and objective color principles are described in detail and clarified by color reproductions.

    See everything, from Hische's rough sketches to her polished finals for major clients such as Wes Anderson, NPR, and Starbucks. The result is a well of inspiration and brass tacks information for designers who want to sketch distinctive letterforms and hone their skills. With more than 250 images and metallic silver ink printed throughout to represent her penciled sketches, this highly visual book is an essential—and entirely enjoyable—resource for those who practice or simply appreciate the art of hand lettering.

    This comprehensive guide is intended to advance the progress of designers seeking to deepen their typographic expertise. Typography Essentials is a practical, hands-on resource to distill, organize, and compartmentalize—but not to oversimplify—the many complex issues surrounding the effective use of typography. It is for designers of every medium in which type plays a major role, and is organized and designed to make the process enjoyable and entertaining, as well as instructional.This book is divided into four easy-to-use sections: The Letter, The Word, The Paragraph, and The Page. Each of the 100 principles has an explanation and examples representing the principle in action.

    Effective layout is essential to communication and enables the end user not only to be drawn in with an innovative design but to digest information easily. Making and Breaking the Grid is a comprehensive layout design workshop that assumes that in order to effectively break the rules of grid-based design, one must first understand those rules and see them applied in real-world projects.Text reveals top designers' work in process and rationale. Projects with similar characteristics are linked through a simple notational system that encourages exploration and comparison of structure ideas. Also included are historical overviews that summarize the development of layout concepts, both grid-based and non-grid based, in modern design practice.

    Plus, get inspired by--and learn from the mistakes of--artists/business owners such as Jonathan Adler, Lotta Jansdotter, Denyse Schmidt, Jill Bliss, and many more.