Color is an integral part of any design solution. Design Elements, Color Fundamentals is an essential resource for designers who want to create memorable design and successfully communicate with their audience. It is the second book in Rockport's Design Elements series, which focuses on the core elements of design. With this book, designers will: —Learn how to effectively communicate with color and integrate color with type and image to affect meaning and create order —See how known pairings and selection methods can be used in real-world projects —Explore hundreds of visual examples, illustrating how effective color combinations can be applied to any project, across media, and in diverse, cultural, and geographic situations —Realize the basic tenets of color theory as it is broken down into clear and actionable directives —Uncover tips and techniques for using color in client-based design work Discover the basic rules for working with color as well as when it's OK to break the rules with Design Elements, Color Fundamentals!

The graphic design equivalent to Strunk & White's The Elements of Style This book is simply the most compact and lucid handbook available outlining the basic principles of layout, typography, color usage, and space. Being a creative designer is often about coming up with unique design solutions. Unfortunately, when the basic rules of design are ignored in an effort to be distinctive, design becomes useless. In language, a departure from the rules is only appreciated as great literature if recognition of the rules underlies the text. Graphic design is a "visual language," and brilliance is recognized in designers whose work seems to break all the rules, yet communicates its messages clearly. This book is a fun and accessible handbook that presents the fundamentals of design in lists, tips, brief text, and examples. Chapters include Graphic Design: What It Is; What Are They and What Do They Do?; 20 Basic Rules of Good Design; Form and Space-The Basics; Color Fundamentals; Choosing and Using Type; The World of Imagery; Putting it All Together?Essential Layout Concepts; The Right Design Choices: 20 Reminders for Working Designers; and Breaking the Rules: When and Why to Challenge all the Rules of this Book.

Explore the fundamentals of typography with this practical new guide. An instructional reader rather than historical survey, Design Elements: Typography Fundamentals uses well-founded, guiding principles to teach the language of type and how to use it capably. Designers are left with a solid ground on which to design with type. Limitless potential for meaningful and creative communication exists—this is the field guide for the journey!

The eye, the camera's lens, and the computer screen all treat color differently. This important addition to the designer's reference library helps resolve the differences among the numerous media that contemporary designers work with every day. Comprehensive in scope, it brings together key elements of color theory, practice, and application, addressing a wide range of issues specific to graphic design in both print and digital media. Beyond step-by-step techniques for managing color in modern graphic design practice, Designer's Color Manual also addresses topics which help designers understand color in a variety of disciplines, looking at historical color systems, color in art, and the psychology of color, among dozens of other topics. Author and designer Tom Fraser also takes other graphics-related practices into account -- interior design, digital rendering, packaging and merchandise design -- aiding the designer in mastering the far-reaching effects of color in almost any project. Heavily illustrated with over 1,000 color images, Designer's Color Manual addresses an area that's been gray for too long in the full-color world of contemporary design.

Design Fundamentals: Notes on Type looks like a design student's sketchbook with handwritten notes and full-color, hand-drawn illustrations. But it's more than that. This gorgeously illustrated "notebook" is a full-blown typography course in disguise. Young designers are lured in by the lush graphics and quirky layout only to discover by the end of the book that they've learned all of the key concepts taught in a foundational course on type. They'll learn about the history of letterforms, the anatomy and physiology of type, the basics of measurements and spacing, how to recognize and choose type for design projects, and more. Fun and fast-paced, this creative notebook isn't required reading, it's desired reading; and it's the third in a series of Design Fundamentals books that students will want to keep and enjoy long after they've mastered these basic building blocks of design. This book includes: - Core instruction on the history, anatomy, and structure of type - Direction on the basics of measurement and spacing: leading, kerning, indents, and line lengths both in text and display sizes, and optical measurement considerations. - Examination of the use, mood, and "voice" of type as seen in creative work and professional examples - Exercises and projects for practice and concept development - Strange and delightful illustrations created specifically for this book (to inspire action) - A companion website stocked with additional projects, a bibliography, glossary, and links to additional visual examples.

Introduces students to the various aspects of the graphic design. This title provides a fresh introduction to the key elements of the discipline and looks at the following topics: design thinking, format, layout, grids, typography, colour, image and print and finish.

Design Fundamentals: Notes on Visual Elements and Principles of Composition looks and functions like a student's sketchbook with handwritten notes and illustrations that capture the key concepts and assignments taught in a foundation course on the elements and principles of design. More than just a collection of gorgeously illustrated notes, this "notebook" is an essential guide to the basic elements of composition--dot, line, shape, form, color, texture, and pattern--as well as the principles for composing the elements on flat surfaces (paper, canvas, screens) and in three dimensions. Fun and fast-paced, this creative notebook isn't required reading, it's desired reading; and it's the second in a series of Design Fundamentals books that students will want to keep and enjoy long after they've mastered these basic building blocks of design. This book includes: (Core instruction on the foundational elements of visual design and the principles of composition including hierarchy, unity, balance, and rhythm Exercises and projects for practice and concept development (Strange and delightful illustrations created specifically for this book (to inspire action) A companion website stocked with additional projects, a bibliography, glossary, and links to additional visual examples.