Learn design theory and practical know-how from the award-winning author/design team, Robin Williams and John Tollett! Robin Williams introduced design and typographic principles to legions of readers with her best-selling Non-Designer's book series. Now she and designer/co-author John Tollett take you to the next level of creative design with practical advice and lessons in composition, visual impact, and design challenges. Presented in Robin and John's signature style—writing that is so crystal clear, it's accessible to absolutely anyone—and illustrated with hundreds of full-color design examples, the ideas in this book tackle design theory, visual puns, and layout and graphics strategies for real-world projects. Developing designers will appreciate the authors' imaginative approach and well-chosen examples. Discover practical and effective design principles and concepts—and how to apply them to virtually any project. Learn why some designs are attention-getting and others are not. Learn how to choose just the right look—corporate or casual, classic or trendy—for specific types of projects, such as business cards, letterhead and envelopes, newsletters and brochures, logos, advertising, and more. Test your design acumen by comparing before-and-after examples. Find a wealth of inspiration for your own design projects. Gain insight into the design process by studying the work of guest designers, who offer their personal commentary and insights.

Provides information on creating an effective digital presentation, covering such topics as animation, plot, contrast, software, and handouts.

Annotation Many designers and photographers own the entire suite of Adobe creative products, but they manage to learn only one or two of the applications really well. This volume includes many individual exercises designed specifically to teach the tools and features in Illustrator that designers (as opposed to illustrators) need to use.

Have you ever struggled to complete a design project on time? Or felt that having a tight deadline stifled your capacity for maximum creativity? If so, then this book is for you. Within these pages, you'll find 80 creative challenges that will help you achieve a breadth of stronger design solutions, in various media, within any set time period. Exercises range from creating a typeface in an hour to designing a paper robot in an afternoon to designing web pages and other interactive experiences. Each exercise includes compelling visual solutions from other designers and background stories to help you increase your capacity to innovate. Creative Workshop also includes useful brainstorming techniques and wisdom from some of today's top designers. By road-testing these techniques as you attempt each challenge, you'll find new and more effective ways to solve tough design problems and bring your solutions to vibrant life.

This guide provides a simple, step-by-step process to better design. Techniques promise immediate results that forever change a reader's design eye. It contains dozens of examples.

Simple yet indispensable typographic advice is offered by a leading graphic design and typography expert. This edition has 20 new pages including a fonts chapter updated to reflect current typography and software/hardware standards.

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.