A funny, colorful, fascinating tour through the work and life of one of today’s most influential graphic designers. Esquire. Ford Motors. Burton Snowboards. The Obama Administration. While all of these brands are vastly different, they share at least one thing in com­mon: a teeny little bit of Aaron James Draplin. Draplin is one of the new school of influential graphic designers who combine the power of design, social media, entrepreneurship, and DIY aesthetic to create a successful business and way of life. Pretty Much Everything is a mid-career survey of work, case studies, inspiration, road stories, lists, maps, how-tos, and advice. It includes examples of his work—posters, record covers, logos—and presents the process behind his design with projects like Field Notes and the “Things We Love” State Posters. Draplin also offers valuable advice and hilarious commentary that illustrates how much more goes into design than just what appears on the page. With Draplin’s humor and pointed observations on the contemporary design scene, Pretty Much Everything is the complete package.

The legendary graphic designer shares a retrospective of his most influential and unforgettable work in this career-spanning memoir. Brand by Hand documents the work, career, and artistic inspiration of graphic designer extraordinaire Jon Contino. A born-and-bred New Yorker, Jon’s upbringing comes through in the way he talks—and, most importantly, in the way he designs. He is the founder and creative director of Jon Contino Studio, and for more than two decades, he has built a massive collection of award-winning graphic-design work for high-profile clients such as Nike, 20th Century Fox, and Sports Illustrated. Over the course of his career, Jon has gone to design hell and back, facing obstacles like fear, self-doubt, and bad luck. Brand by Hand documents the evolution of his work, exploring his lifelong devotion to the guts and grime of New York and cementing his biggest artistic inspirations, from hardcore music to America’s favorite pastime. Brand by Hand showcases Jon’s minimalist illustrations and unmistakable hand-lettering. It also shares how he took a passion for pen and ink and turned it into an expanding empire of clients, merchandise, and artwork.

This book serves as an introduction to the key elements of good design. Broken into sections covering the fundamental elements of design, key works by acclaimed designers serve to illustrate technical points and encourage readers to try out new ideas. Themes covered include narrative, colour, illusion, ornament, simplicity, and wit and humour. The result is an instantly accessible and easy to understand guide to graphic design using professional techniques.

This book offers a rare chance to read what graphic designers feel about their education and profession. Fifty influential designers give the low-down about their student days and their professional lives. A piece of their college work is shown alongside an example of current work. Each designer also offers a key piece of advice and a warning, making this a must-read for anyone embarking on a career in design. The book looks at the process a designer goes through in finding their 'voice'. Topics addressed include how ideas are researched and developed; design and other cultural influences, then and now; positive and negative aspects of working as a designer; motivations for becoming a designer; and whether it's really possible to teach design. Contributors include Stefan Sagmeister, James Goggin, Karlssonwilker, Studio Dumbar, Cornel Windlin, Daniel Eatock, Spin, Hyperkit and Christian Küsters.

We design to elicit responses from people. We want them to buy something, read more, or take action of some kind. Designing without understanding what makes people act the way they do is like exploring a new city without a map: results will be haphazard, confusing, and inefficient. This book combines real science and research with practical examples to deliver a guide every designer needs. With it you’ll be able to design more intuitive and engaging work for print, websites, applications, and products that matches the way people think, work, and play. Learn to increase the effectiveness, conversion rates, and usability of your own design projects by finding the answers to questions such as: What grabs and holds attention on a page or screen? What makes memories stick? What is more important, peripheral or central vision? How can you predict the types of errors that people will make? What is the limit to someone’s social circle? How do you motivate people to continue on to (the next step? What line length for text is best? Are some fonts better than others? These are just a few of the questions that the book answers in its deep-dive exploration of what makes people tick.

“I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size.” —Jon Stewart Although his career as a bestselling author and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was founded on fake news and invented facts, in 2016 that routine didn’t seem as funny to John Hodgman anymore. Everyone is doing it now. Disarmed of falsehood, he was left only with the awful truth: John Hodgman is an older white male monster with bad facial hair, wandering like a privileged Sasquatch through three wildernesses: the hills of Western Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth; the painful beaches of Maine that want to kill him (and some day will); and the metaphoric haunted forest of middle age that connects them. Vacationland collects these real life wanderings, and through them you learn of the horror of freshwater clams, the evolutionary purpose of the mustache, and which animals to keep as pets and which to kill with traps and poison. There is also some advice on how to react when the people of coastal Maine try to sacrifice you to their strange god. Though wildly, Hodgmaniacally funny as usual, it is also a poignant and sincere account of one human facing his forties, those years when men in particular must stop pretending to be the children of bright potential they were and settle into the failing bodies of the wiser, weird dads that they are.

The Graphic Design Handbook will ease your work by providing you lots of structured information and practical advices on the following topics: ● Color Theory ● Color Psychology ● Shape Psychology ● Typography ● Branding ● Logo Design ● Charts with brochure folding options ● and lots of tables with standard dimensions for flyers, brochures, papers, banners etc. The Graphic Design Handbook will: ● save your time by bringing all the important information at your fingertips ● ease your work with lots of practical advices ● increase your productivity ● help you better understand what’s in your client’s mind and what are their real expectations