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.

Over the course of the last several years, the DIY market has exploded spawning magazines, books, movies and fueling the growth of the online, handmade marketplace. In Robin Williams Handmade Design Workshop: Create Handmade Elements for Digital Designs, best-selling author Robin Williams and Carmen Sheldon take designers away from their computers and show them, step-by-step, how to use traditional artist's tools to create handmade elements for their digital artwork. The authors provide a wealth of new ideas to jump-start creativity and get graphic designers thinking in new ways. Each how-to is illustrated with tons of photos to show how to use paints, inks, textures, modeling pastes, and more to create handmade materials that can then be scanned in and used to create one-of-a-kind print projects or web sites. Examples of finished projects and Web sites are featured throughout the book to provide both instruction and inspiration for designers to use in their own projects.

Robin Williams DVD Design Workshop provides a clear, accessible introduction to the world of DVD menu design and authoring. If you're an amateur video artist, home-movie buff, or professional designer, you can use this book as a great introduction to learning how to create DVDs for your personal use or professional projects. John Tollett, David Rohr, and Robin Williams make it easy by presenting necessary technical information and design inspiration in the classic informal and friendly style that has made Robin's books continual best-sellers. Robin Williams DVD Design Workshop provides all of the information you need to understand the DVD authoring process and to get started with your own DVD projects. You'll learn about the advantages of the DVD format, applications of DVD technology, hardware requirements, and the pros and cons of various consumer vs. prosumer DVD authoring tools. The book also includes overviews of leading Mac and PC DVD authoring software tools, such as iDVD, MyDVD, DVD Studio Pro, DVD Producer and more. To get you inspired, the authors include examples of successful (and sometimes unusual) DVD interface designs from professional designers and major Hollywood studios. Valuable outsource resources for packaging and distributing your own DVD are also included.

Here is your new author's guide to writing winning book proposals and query letters. Learn how to find free media publicity by selling solutions to universal problems. The samples and templates of proposals, query letters, cover letters, and press kits will help you launch your proposed book idea in the media long before you find a publisher. Use excerpts from your own book proposal's sample chapters as features, fillers, and columns for publications. Share experiences in carefully researched and crafted book proposals and query or cover letters. Use these templates and samples to get a handle on universal situations we all go through, find alternatives, use the results, take charge of challenges, and solve problems--all in your organized and focused book proposals, outlines, treatments, springboards, and query or cover letters.

New technologies, new creative opportunities -- Creating story-rich projects -- Harnessing digital storytelling for pragmatic goals -- Media and models: under the hood -- Career considerations.

Once your cover letter is positioned first to be noticed, then how do you position the letters to be noticed for the longest time in a number of situations? What kind of thank-you letters work best? How do you ask for help in finding a job from a letter to a stranger, acquaintance, or business networking contact? How do you write a cover letter that will never be misinterpreted as a sales pitch or autobiography? How do you plan, write, and format an outstanding book proposal that lets the reader see the bottom line--profit for the publisher? Positioning your goal or project first means going where no one has gone before. It's where the competition is missing. Go where no one else has gone before when you plan, write, and format great cover letters, follow-up letters, and book proposals. Cover and follow-up letters or proposals could be applied to book proposals, book proposal cover letters, written marriage proposals, pre-nuptials, and courting. Cover letters could apply to love letters, letters to friends and relatives, business contacts at trade shows, or literary agents. How do you use cover and follow-up letters to position first your resumes, proposals, relationship communications, marketing or sales connections and connections? After cover letters, how to you plan, write, and position first your follow-up letters? What types of letters bring people together? Act as a catalyst? Get you an interview? Position you first for inclusion in a job, business, or relationship? What type of letters position first, attract, and sell what you can do without looking like sales letters? What types of cover and follow-up letters are best sent with a resume?

Defines page layout and design principles and explains how to use space, color, and type to create dynamic-looking documents and Web pages.