Design Book Reviews

The book has eight main chapters then a section with Photoshop tutorials. The book looks like a school book with plenty of text but not many images and the layout is slightly difficult to navigate. The language is easy to understand though and there are some really useful points are made. It's a little heavy to do all in one go and is probably suited for someone who wants to pick the book up occasionally. The book looks a little boring but if you're after some practical tips don't let t...

This book will tell you how to create or improve your photographs and also give you some creative ideas you wont have even thought about. The step-by-step guides are easy to follow and compact and are illustrated well with start-to-finish images of how the photographs looked before and after the work was completed. The language is easy to follow and if you want even more advice you can look at the tutorial DVD which comes with the book. If you want to try some new tricks or just brush-u...

This step-by-step guide will help you understand the tools and give you the knowledge to get up-and-running with Apple Aperture 2. Not only will you learn new tools, and time-saving techniques, the book teaches you how to improve your workflow too. The book is split into easy-to-follow sections and the points written about are supported by diagrams and screen shots of the software in use. It's a nice, simple guide that is useful if you haven't used Aperture before.

This book covers the basics of composition clearly and in-depth. The book covers areas such as graphics, composing with light and colour, processing and framing images. Each is discussed at a reasonable length and is clearly explained throughout. There's a large selection of photos that illustrate the concepts covered and overall it's a good text book for both the pro and casual photographer.

If you have ever fancied creating your own digital art then Annabel's latest book is perfect for you. As well as ideas for pictures Annabel also talks you through the different cameras you can use, how light and other techniques work and some post-production techniques. The book is well illustrated and has easy to follow steps which are supported by Annabel's useful tips. The real-life shoots give even the beginner chance to create pictures which can be turned into pieces of art for your wa...

Steve's a well known figure in the Photoshop illustration world and his books and magazine articles often provide you with step by step guides to tackling design projects. Here he takes a different approach which allows him space to discuss many more ideas for designs, but means you have to have an understanding of the basics of Photoshop to recreate any of the ideas. The book covers the principles of design such as composition of elements and choosing the appropriate font, and then goes on to ...

Written by German photographic arts teacher Harald Mante, The Photograph: Composition and Color Design is an in-depth and descriptive guide on to how to look at and compose a photograph, and the individual elements that go together to make an image more visually appealing or effective. Going beyond the technical aspects of photography it discusses individual principles of line, shape and colour, contrast, composition and design using illustrative examples from the author's own portfolio. The...

If you needed Photoshop and InDesign it's likely that you decided to buy them in Adobe's Creative Suite bundle and this comes with a few more items you may not have considered, such as Illustrator and Fireworks. This book pulls the lot together to give you a very brief insight into working with the programs one single projects. The first section of the book explains the features, and additions from CS2 to CS3, then it leads us into how to set up workspace, work with Version Cue and manage layers...

FlipSigns, as the publisher says, shows how everyday street signs can be transformed into multilayered, kaleidoscopic designs. The question is why would anyone want to view 176 pages comprising little more than the 259 colour graphics. Okay, maybe the occasional graphic design student may get some ideas, but I'll be filing it under art!

This book has a stylish cover that uses just type to create the illustration, this, of course, being the theme for the book. To designers type is the essential element that makes a page pleasing to read or jarring. Much time is spent carefully laying out pages with different faces and sizes, bold serif sans serif italic small large. Basically a lot of time is wasted trying to determine what will and wont work for the new concept that's being created. It is designed to help and it does so perfect...