Aimed principally at the student market, the book shows where ideas and inspiration come from and helps unlock the reader s creativity, providing numerous strategies to help solve creative briefs and design problems. Using an upbeat, dynamic and easy-to-understand A Z format, the book reveals techniques that can be exploited to deliver ideas with greater impact, with each entry offering a different starting point. Entries include everything from Intuition and Instinct to Happy Accidents and Hidden Messages, and feature a section explaining how to use the idea or technique, providing readers with an infallible tool kit of inspiration. Including hundreds of inspirational quotes from creative people and packed with great examples of advertising campaigns, posters, book and magazine covers, illustrations and editorial images, this indispensable creative primer also includes previously unpublished photographic work.

    But how can you be the person who comes up with those ideas? In this revised and expanded edition of his groundbreaking Thinkertoys, creativity expert Michael Michalko reveals life-changing tools that will help you think like a genius. From the linear to the intuitive, this comprehensive handbook details ingenious creative-thinking techniques for approaching problems in unconventional ways. Through fun and thought-provoking exercises, you’ll learn how to create original ideas that will improve your personal life and your business life. Michalko’s techniques show you how to look at the same information as everyone else and see something different.  With hundreds of hints, tricks, tips, tales, and puzzles, Thinkertoys will open your mind to a world of innovative solutions to everyday and not-so-everyday problems.

    Think about a company. Engineers build the product. Designers make sure it has a great user experience and looks good. Marketing makes sure customers know about the product. Sales get potential customers to open their wallets to buy the product. What more does a company need? What does a product manager do? Based upon Product School’s curriculum, which has helped thousands of students become great product managers, The Product Book answers that question. Filled with practical advice, best practices, and expert tips, this book is here to help you succeed! Product School offers product management classes taught by real-world product managers, working at renowned tech companies like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Airbnb, LinkedIn, PayPal, Netflix and more. The classes are designed to fit into your work schedule, and the campuses are conveniently located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

    Pressfield believes that “resistance” is the greatest enemy, and he offers many unique and helpful ways to overcome it.

    This indispensible and full-color book provides practical guidance on this growing field and shares valuable UX advice that you can put into practice immediately on your own projects. The authors examine why UX is gaining so much interest from web designers, graduates, and career changers and looks at the new UX tools and ideas that can help you do your job better. In addition, you'll benefit from the unique insight the authors provide from their experiences of working with some of the world's best-known companies, learning how to take ideas from business requirements, user research, and documentation to create and develop your UX vision.Explains how to create documentation that clearly communicates the vision for the UX design and the blueprint for how it's going to be developed Provides practical guidance that you can put to work right away on their own projects Looks at the new UX tools and ideas that are born every day, aimed at helping you do your job better and more efficiently Covers a variety of topics including user journeys, task models, funnel diagrams, content audits, sitemaps, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and more Communicating the User Experience is an ideal resource for getting started with creating UX documentation.

    On both economic and psychological grounds, author Matthew B. Crawford questions the educational imperative of turning everyone into a "knowledge worker," based on a misguided separation of thinking from doing. Using his own experience as an electrician and mechanic, Crawford presents a wonderfully articulated call for self-reliance and a moving reflection on how we can live concretely in an ever more abstract world.

    -- Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to GreatnessPixar is one of the most creative organizations in the world. Read Innovate the Pixar Way and explore the true beauty in how they sustain the environment. Who knows, maybe a little Pixar dust will fall on you! -- John Christensen, coauthor of Fish! and playground director AKA: CEO, ChartHouse LearningCreativity makes it possible for our dreams to become real--my life is my proof. This book puts all those possibilities in the hands of the reader . . . for those who will be creating the future. -- Carol Lawrence, singer, dancer, actress, and national spokesperson for the Opening Minds Through the Arts student achievement programWith great and useful tips from beginning to end, this book will inspire workplaces to have more fun AND more success. I guarantee it! -- George Zimmer, founder and CEO, Men's WearhouseThis insightful work is a great primer for leaders who are looking to unleash creative potential and instill a sense of joy and playfulness in their organizations. -- Brian Walker, president and CEO, Herman Miller, Inc.Animate your team and unleash their creative power . . . The Pixar WayCreativity doesn't follow titles; it just comes from where it comes from. -- Ed Catmull, Pixar cofounder, Pixar and Disney Animation Studios presidentIn movies from Toy Story to The Incredibles to WALL-E to Up, Pixar Studios continues to set new standards for commercial and critical achievement. Pixar is a place where collaboration sets the tone for "artists and geeks to work side by side in a spirit of mutual respect and trust. The key lies not just in who--writers, animators, directors, tech wizards, and others--makes Pixar outstanding, but in how Pixar creates the ultimate haven where creativity overflows.In this eye-opening book, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, authors of The Disney Way, reveal how Pixar has reawakened the innovative spirit of Walt Disney. They explore how president Ed Catmull and chief creative officer John Lasseter and the rest of Pixar's brain trust have built an organization on the simple philosophy that quality is the best businessplan. It makes no difference if you are making a movie that takes four years or serving a customer that takes four minutes, you have only one chance to deliver that magical, magnetic, enchanting experience for your customer.In this concise, accessible book, Capodagli and Jackson offer examples of how it's done--and explain what it takes to get your people to achieve greatness by unleashing their power toDream like a child . . . Have a vision, and be able to clearly communicate your objectives and goals.Believe in your playmates . . . Hire creative people, trust in their skills and judgment, and inspire them to trust their colleagues.Dare to jump in the water and make waves . . . Challenge the status quo. Encourage risktaking, but permit your people to fail, get back up, and try again.Unleash your childlike potential . . . Focus on the details; make quality work your business's highest priority.Learn not only from Pixar but also from how other leading organizations--Google, Griffin Hospital, Men's Wearhouse, OMA (Opening Minds Through the Arts) student achievement program, Nike, Target, and the Internet shoe giant Zappos--unshackle their people's imaginations and do outrageously great things. And by motivating your team to Innovate the Pixar Way you, too, can discover the magic that will help your business stay ahead of the competition, attract the best talent, and fatten the bottom line.In 1993, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson cofounded Capodagli Jackson Consulting in West Olive, Michigan. They have helped scores of organizations revamp their customer service experiences and develop innovative products, and they also have developed performance strategies to impact organizational change using Walt Disney's Dream, Believe, Dare, Do success credo. Bill Capodagli is the most requested keynote speaker on the creative cultures of both Disney and Pixar.Visit the authors at capojac.com

    The result is described as “a thought-provoking visual feast”.

    How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul addresses the concerns of young designers who want to earn a living by doing expressive and meaningful work, and who want to avoid becoming hired drones working on soulless projects. Written by a designer for designers, it combines practical advice with philosophical guidance to help young professionals embark on their careers. How should designers manage the creative process? What's the first step in the successful interpretation of a brief? How do you generate ideas when everything just seems blank? How to be a graphic designer offers clear, concise guidance for these questions, along with focused, no-nonsense strategies for setting up, running, and promoting a studio, finding work, and collaborating with clients.The book also includes inspiring interviews with ten leading designers, including Rudy VanderLans (Emigre), John Warwicker (Tomato), Neville Brody (Research Studios), and Andy Cruz (House Industries). All told, How to be a graphic designer covers just about every aspect of the profession, and stands as an indispensable guide for any young designer.

    And yet the day-to-day work of product management remains largely misunderstood. In theory, product management is about building products that people love. The real-world practice of product management is often about difficult conversations, practical compromises, and hard-won incremental gains.In this book, author Matt LeMay focuses on the CORE connective skills-- communication, organization, research, execution--that can build a successful product management practice across industries, organizations, teams, andtoolsets.For current and aspiring product managers, this book explores: ? On-the-ground tactics for facilitating collaboration and communication? How to talk to users and work with executives? The importance of setting clear and actionable goals? Using roadmaps to connect and align your team? A values-first approach to implementing Agile practices? Common behavioral traps that turn good product managers bad

    As newly appointed captain of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine, he was responsible for more than a hundred sailors, deep in the sea. In this high-stress environment, where there is no margin for error, it was crucial his men did their job and did it well.But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention in the fleet. Marquet acted like any other captain until, one day, he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. When he asked why the order wasn't challenged, the answer was "Because you told me to." Marquet realized he was leading in a culture of followers, and they were all in danger unless they fundamentally changed the way they did things. That's when Marquet took matters into his own hands and pushed for leadership at every level. Turn the Ship Around! is the true story of how the Santa Fe skyrocketed from worst to first in the fleet by challenging the U.S. Navy's traditional leader-follower approach. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control. Before long, each member of Marquet's crew became a leader and assumed responsibility for everything he did, from clerical tasks to crucial combat decisions. The crew became fully engaged, contributing their full intellectual capacity every day, and the Santa Fe started winning awards and promoting a highly disproportionate number of officers to submarine command.No matter your business or position, you can apply Marquet's radical guidelines to turn your own ship around. The payoff: a workplace where everyone around you is taking responsibility for their actions, where people are healthier and happier, where everyone is a leader.

    More than a series of fascinating case studies, To Engineer Is Human is a work that looks at our deepest notions of progress and perfection, tracing the fine connection between the quantifiable realm of science and the chaotic realities of everyday life."Alert, inquisitive, unspecialized, wholly human...refreshingly eclectic." --The Spectator"Henry Petroski is an ardent engineer, and if he writes more good books like this, he might find himself nominated to become the meistersinger of the guild. [This is] a refreshing plunge into the dynamics of the engineering ethos...as straightforward as an I-beam."--Science

    In 1925, he had started drawing alphabets and printing books, and in 1931, this plainspoken little book was a fustian and forceful argument for common sense in design, composed for anyone remotely interested in the subtle and evolving challenge of the typographic arts. Set rag right, with tight word spacing, it is a model of composition. The text, like most of Gill's, is exasperating, exorbitant, and exciting. But Gill was, above all, a craftsman, whose work always reflected his philosophy and whose hand always followed his moral convictions.

    Offering indispensle lessons, practical advice, facts, anecdotes and inspiration, this book is a timeless creative bible for all those looking to succeed in life, business and creativity. These are key lessons derived from the incomparle life of 'Master Communicator' George Lois, the original Mad Man of Madison Avenue. Written and compiled by the man The Wall Street Journal called "prodigy, enfant terrible, founder of agencies, creator of legends," each step is borne from a passion to succeed and a disdain for the status quo.Organised into inspirational, bite-sized pointers, each page offers fresh insight into the sources of success, from identifying your heroes to identifying yourself. The ideas, images and illustrations presented in this book are fresh, witty and in-your-face. Whether it's communicating your point in nanosecond, creating an explosive portfolio or making your presence felt, no one is better placed than George Lois to teach you the process of creativity.Poignant, punchy and to-the-point, Damn Good Advice (For People With Talent!) is a must have for anyone on a quest for success.

    Although each instance of creativity is singular and specific, Kyna Leski tells us, the creative process is universal. Artists, architects, poets, inventors, scientists, and others all navigate the same stages of the process in order to discover something that does not yet exist. All of us must work our way through the empty page, the blank screen, writer's block, confusion, chaos, and doubt. In this book, Leski draws from her observations and experiences as a teacher, student, maker, writer, and architect to describe the workings of the creative process.Leski sees the creative process as being like a storm; it slowly begins to gather and take form until it overtakes us--if we are willing to let it. It is dynamic, continually in motion; it starts, stops, rages and abates, ebbs and flows. In illustrations that accompany each chapter, she maps the arc of the creative process by tracing the path of water droplets traveling the stages of a storm.Leski describes unlearning, ridding ourselves of preconceptions; only when we realize what we don't know can we pose the problem that we need to solve. We gather evidence--with notebook jottings, research, the collection of objects--propelling the process. We perceive and conceive; we look ahead without knowing where we are going; we make connections. We pause, retreat, and stop, only to start again. To illustrate these stages of the process, Leski draws on examples of creative practice that range from Paul Klee to Steve Jobs, from the discovery of continental drift to the design of Antoni Gaud�'s Sagrada Familia.Creativity, Leski tells us, is a path with no beginning or end; it is ongoing. This revelatory view of the creative process will be an essential guide for anyone engaged in creative discovery.The Creative ProcessUnlearningProblem MakingGathering and TrackingPropellingPerceiving and ConceivingSeeing AheadConnectingPausingContinuing