02. Branding: In Five and a Half Steps

The ultimate step-by-step visual guide to creating a successful brand identity

No-nonsense book on branding

Opens up branding process

Genuinely useful

Leading graphic designer Michael Johnson demystifies the branding process in his latest book, Branding: In Five and a Half Steps. Dividing the process into five key steps – investigation, strategy and narrative, design, implementation and engagement – Johnson also acknowledges the non-linear nature of branding with a crucial half step, which marks the fluid relationship between strategy and design.

A no-nonsense, six-question model structures the first half of the book; the second analyses the design process, using over 1,000 contemporary brand identities from around the world.

This is the ultimate step-by-step visual guide to creating a successful brand identity. It’s an essential read for anyone in the branding industry, and a particularly valuable resource for students and new designers.

03. Logo Modernism

An unprecedented catalogue of modern trademarks.

Loads of logo eye candy

Incredible resource

Focused on 1940–1980

Taschen produces some truly spectacular books, and Logo Modernism is no different. Bringing together approximately 6000 trademarks, registered between 1940-80, Jens Müller examines the distillation of modernism in graphic design and how these attitudes and imperatives gave birth to corporate identity.

Müller includes a variety of logos, organised into three chapters – geometric, effect and typographic – in order to both educate you as well as provide a comprehensive index of inspirational logo designs to inform your own work.

Typography books

04. The Elements of Typographic Style (v4)

An essential book for anyone who uses type in design

The ultimate type manual

Very detailed

Wonderfully written

First published in 1992, this history and guide to typography from Canadian typographer, poet and translator Robert Bringhurst has quickly become a major typographic resource. Leading typographers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones call it “the finest book ever written about typography” – and it isn’t difficult to see why.

The Elements of Typographic Style is a beautifully written manual combining practical, theoretical and historical information, while also sharing a deeper philosophy and understanding of the topic. If you’re looking for a book covering the finer points of type and typography, you’ll save a lot of money by starting with this one.

05. Just My Type

An entertaining and revealing guide to the history of type

Informative

Detailed history

Very engaging read

Graphic designers are trained to look at typefaces, but Simon Garfield’s book Just My Type will encourage you to look even closer, taking in the rich history of fonts, as well as looking at their powers.

A well-chosen font communicates to the reader on an almost subliminal level and it can make (or break) a design.

How to be a graphic designer

06. How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul

A staple for any new graphic designer

Top practical advice

Philosophical guidance

Intelligent writing

Sound advice from Adrian Shaughnessy on gaining employment, setting up as a freelancer, forming a company, dealing with clients, pitching and loads more fills this book.

As graphic design books go, How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul is insightful, intelligent, accessible and simply full of great advice, with the author calling on such luminaries as Neville Brody, Natalie Hunter, John Warwicker and Andy Cruz to help pull together his ideas.

07. 50 Best Logos Ever

Behind the scenes of the world’s most iconic logos.

Logo design inspiration overload

In-depth analysis of iconic logos

Empty List

A panel of leading branding and identity design experts come together to bring you the definitive list of the 50 best logos ever. Gain exclusive insight into the creative processes behind the most recognisable identity design work in the world. And find out if your favourite ever logo makes the cut.

08. How to…

A monograph, manual and manifesto by one of the world’s leading graphic designers

Pro industry insight

Beautifully written

Invaluable resource

Veteran designer and Pentagram New York partner Michael Bierut released this inspiring, highly readable monograph, manual and manifesto in 2015. Featuring 35 projects, Bierut – who’s a protégé of design legend Massimo Vignelli – illustrates the varied role that graphic design plays in the modern world.

Rough sketches and rejected ideas sit alongside finished work. How To (full title How to Use Graphic Design to Sell Things, Explain Things, Make Things Look Better, Make People Laugh, Make People Cry, and (Every Once in a While) Change the World) is packed with insights into the creative process, making it a valuable resource to new and established designers alike.

09. Graphic Design for Art, Fashion, Film, Architecture, Photography, Product Design & Everything In Between

The definitive guide to how design studios think and work

Publisher: Prestel (April 2018) | Author: Andy Cooke | Pages: 240 | ISBN-10: 3791383507 | ISBN-13: 978-3791383507

Great insights

Beautiful design

Bang up to date

Andy Cooke’s Graphic Design for Art, Fashion, Film… compiles branding campaigns of some of the world’s best design studios, along with illuminating interviews with many of the creatives involved, to provide an indispensable guide to modern commercial design.

As a designer himself, Cooke knows all the right questions to ask, and the stunning work – including Studio Makgill (for G. F. Smith), Freytag Anderson (for Fraher Architects) and Ico Design (for David Rowland) – is beautifully collated and presented.

With the emphasis very much on creative collaboration and developing designs to work on multiple touchpoints, this book is the most up-to-date and informative guide to modern design around.

10. Work for Money, Design for Love

Answers the most frequently asked questions about running a successful design business

Sound advice

Great case studies

Refreshingly written

Inspired by the many questions that David Airey – author of Logo Design Love – receives on a daily basis, Work for Money, Design for Love is a refreshing, straightforward guide that tackles the essentials of starting your own design business.

Touching on everything from the mindset needed to be a designer and how to take that first step into being your own boss, to business basics, this is a must-have read for anyone thinking about going it alone.

11. The Art of Looking Sideways

The ultimate primer in visual intelligence

Thought-provoking essays

Full of wisdom

Beautiful graphics

Alan Fletcher, the legendary co-founder of Pentagram, penned various thought-provoking tomes during his illustrious graphic design career, but The Art of Looking Sideways is perhaps the best known – questioning the way designers think about everything from colour to composition.

Once you’ve digested his seminal text, give Picturing and Poeting a go, exploring the link between imagery and meaning through a series of visual mind-teasers, games and visual puns, assembled from his personal notebooks and diaries. Another great work by Fletcher, Beware Wet Paint, is a more conventional monograph, looking back over 35 years of inspiring work and putting it all in the context of Fletcher’s remarkable thought process.

12. A Designer’s Art

Paul Rand’s 1995 manifesto is to be read, not flipped through

Incredible resource

Insightful essays

Steven Heller afterword

Heralded by many as one of the fathers of modern branding, Paul Rand has several inspiring books to his name. Design, Form and Chaos is unfortunately out of print, but if you can track down a copy it’s worth it to immerse yourself in his talent for simplicity, and to explore the thinking behind some of his best-known identities.

A Designer’s Art, meanwhile, probes more deeply into the process of graphic design in general: why it’s important; the impact it can have on society; what works, what doesn’t, and most importantly, why.

13. Perverse Optimist

The definitive document of the late Tibor Kalman’s work and ideas

Rich resource

Radical ideas

A collector’s item

Written by Tibor Kalman and edited by Peter Hall and Michael Bierut, Perverse Optimist is another notoriously hard-to-obtain volume which, like Rand’s Design, Form and Chaos, is sadly out of print. But second-hand copies do appear…

Dedicated to the visionary editor-in-chief of Colors magazine and creative director of Interview, Perverse Optimist is a weighty tome by any standards, and packed with high-impact images and insightful analysis of the art direction process behind them.

14. Graphic Design: A User’s Manual

An insider’s guide to the complexities of current design practice

Wealth of insight

Wide range of topics

Pro career guidance

Another insightful resource from designer and industry commentator Adrian Shaughnessy, Graphic Design: A User’s Manual brings you everything you need to know to survive and prosper in the complex, ever-shifting world of graphic design.

Organised from A-Z, topics include annual reports, budgeting, kerning, presenting, dealing with rejection and more. This is an entertaining and invaluable resource that’s packed with pro advice on all the things you won’t have been taught at design school.

15. The Little Know-It-All

Packed with fundamental information all designers need to know

Indispensable manual

Includes social media and SEO

Succinct

Don’t judge The Little Know-It-All: Common Sense for Designers by its cover or size – it’s possibly the most useful book you’ll own as a designer. Everything from light, colour and perspective to law and marketing are covered in succinct, beautifully carved chapters.

It’s the kind of book that you never stop reading once you start; the kind you’ll always refer back to, making it a winner on pretty much every level.

16. Book of Ideas Volume 2

Inspiration guide to working in the creative industries

Stunning 3D illustration work

Frank, useful advice

Larger format could work better

Too much reversed out type

The second volume of graphic designer Radim Malinic’s inspirational journal Book of Ideas is packed with advice for making it in the fast-paced creative industries. The designer, who works under the name Brand Nu, teamed up with Adobe Stock to make the oil painting-inspired cover illustration. “I want these books to look a bit odd on the shelves,” he says.

Book of Ideas 2 shares Malinic’s musings on creativity and working in design, along with his key career learnings. “I wanted to challenge the traditional design book model, releasing my own titles that discuss things others don’t,” he explains. “Seeing the first copy never gets old. Having it printed and bound is quite something.” Read our full review here.

Design theory and history

17. Grid Systems in Graphic Design

The definitive guide to using grid systems in graphic design

Invaluable grids resource

Detailed examples

Very informative

Grid Systems in Graphic Design remains the definitive word on using grid systems in graphic design. Written by legendary Swiss graphic designer Josef Mülller-Brockmann, this visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and 3D designers is packed with examples on how to work correctly at a conceptual level.

It’s a must-read resource for any student or practising designer – regardless of whether you prefer the David Carson approach.

18. Interaction of Color

One of the most important books on colour theory ever written

Fascinating

Must-read textbook

Insightful exercises

Conceived as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors and students, Interaction of Color is an influential book that presents Josef Albers’s singular explanation of complex colour theory principles.

It’s been over 50 years since this tome was first published, but it remains an essential resource on colour, demonstrating principles such as colour relativity, intensity and temperature; vibrating and vanishing boundaries; and the illusion of transparency and reversed grounds.

19. The Graphic Language of Neville Brody

The best of Brody’s designs

Incredibly inspiring

In-depth intro to Brody

Classic design text

You’ll find this book on the must-read list on every self-respecting graphic design course, and with good reason. Neville Brody may have been president of D&AD and head of Research Studios’ global studio network, but it was arguably his 1980s heyday that had the biggest impact on contemporary graphic design.

First published in 1988, The graphic language of Neville Brody explores the thought process behind some of his best-known work, including his genre-defining art direction of The Face magazine.

20. Designed by Peter Saville

The ultimate coffee-table book for the 21st century

Chronicles Saville’s career

Illuminating text

Stunning images

Like Brody, Peter Saville famously built his reputation in the 1980s with iconic album artwork for Factory Records-signed bands such as Joy Division and New Order – but this 2003 publication was the first to chronicle his career.

Starting in 1978, Designed by Peter Saville inevitably covers the Factory era in detail but also explores Saville’s design and art direction for the fashion and advertising industries, taking in brands such as Dior, Stella McCartney and London’s Whitechapel gallery.

21. Left to Right

An in-depth study of the influence digital technology has had on the way we communicate

A seminal text

Covers wide range of subjects

Visual communication rests on the power of semiotics, a concept that David Crow examines in expert detail within this seminal text.

Dealing with the principles of written communication and its relationship to imagery, and rounded off with an examination of audience understanding, Left to Right is a valuable assessment of academic yet essential design theory.

Designer monographs

With an impressive back catalogue of iconic identity designs – from MoMA to Microsoft – Pentagram’s first female partner is widely respected as one of the most influential graphic designers at work today.

Spin’s Paula Schuer: Works lovingly compiles her endlessly inventive work in a stunning monograph that reveals the unique, politically engaged intelligence behind her work.

A stunning work of art in it’s own right, this beautiful book (which includes an insightful interview with Schuer) celebrates the designer as auteur, not simply absorbing and reflecting culture but shaping it. And a selection of Schuer’s hypnotic paintings complete the picture of a singular creative force who defies easy categorization.

22. Two-Dimensional Man

Paul Sahre delivers a fresh take on the classic design monograph

Part memoir

Part art book

Part meditation on creativity

Paul Sahre is one of the most influential graphic designers of his generation and has operated his own design consultancy since 1997. Working out of his office in New York City, his clients have included The New York Times, Google and Marvel Comics and he lectures about graphic design all over the world.

His book, Two-Dimensional Man , is part monograph, part autobiography, part art book and part reflection on creativity. Combining personal essays discussing the realities of living creativity during his 30-year career, he proves that throughout highs and lows, humour can be a saving grace.

23. Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far

An inspiring book packed with visual eye candy from a living legend

Insight into a design genius

Fascinating projects

Very inspiring

Austria-born, New York-based designer Stefan Sagmeister has hit the headlines a couple of times in the few years with his nude promotional shenanigans, but his two monographs, published in 2008 and 2009, are all about his creative approach and output.

Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far revolves around 21 thought-provoking phrases, transformed into typographic works for various clients around the world and has been since updated. His second text, Made You Look, is fully illustrated with a red PVC slipcase and spans 20 years of his graphic design in depth. The two complement each other excellently.

24. Non-Format: Love Song

A monograph presenting the duo’s full spectrum of work

Incredible work

Beautifully designed

Nicely laid out

An iconic studio for the modern age, Non-Format is a fruitful transatlantic collaboration between Oslo-based Kjell Ekhorn and US-based Brit Jon Forss.

Their 2007 monograph, Love Song , is packed with awe-inspiring imagery and insight into the duo’s creative process over five years between 1999 and 2003, from advertising work for Coke and Nike to stunning art direction for The Wire magazine.

25. Pentagram: Marks

An incredible cross-section of design history

400 examples

Volumes of inspiration

Unsurprisingly, given its status as arguably the world’s most famous design agency, Pentagram has attracted its fair share of monographs over the decades: seven so far and still counting.

Marks simply reproduces four hundred of the hugely diverse identities that the agency has created since 1972. An incredible cross-section of design history.

26. M to M of M/M (Paris)

Unparalleled insight into the work and minds of the emblematic and influential design duo

The definitive M/M monograph

Rare insight into the duo

Unique work

It was a long time coming, but this definitive 528-page monograph of the iconic Parisian duo Michaël Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak, aka M/M (Paris), was worth the wait.

Chronicling two decades of stunning work spanning the worlds of music, fashion and fine art, M to M of M/M (Paris) is presented as a reshuffled alphabetical dictionary, starting and ending with M. The studio’s highly distinctive, unique approach to type, print design, drawing and photography shines throughout.

Ideas and inspiration

27. The Graphic Design Idea Book

A fantastic introduction to the key elements of good design

Ideas from 50 leading designers

Prevents creative block

Very insightful

The Graphic Design Idea Book: Inspiration from 50 Masters covers all the key elements of great design, featuring seminal works from acclaimed designers such as Paul Brand, Neville Brody and Stefan Sagmeister. It’s sure to spark inspiration and keep those creative juices flowing.

Honing in on those professional techniques, authors Steven Hiller and Gail Anderson refresh your knowledge on colour, narrative, illusion, humour, simplicity, ornaments and more.

28. Illustration Play

Offers a welcome departure from digitally generated graphics

Extraordinary illustration ideas

Exclusive interviews

Striking cover design

First up, Illustration Play has one of the most beautiful, special and intriguing covers you’ll see, each one being individually stickered by hand.

This is to echo the explorative approach taken by all of the illustrators featured in the book – looking at new ideas and ways to realise concepts within contemporary illustration. A lovely object.

29. Graphics Alive 2

Another valuable source of ideas and reference from Victionary

Amazing cover and slip case

Inspirational graphic design work

Great finish

Exploring the omnipresent power of graphic design and illustration in today’s society, Graphics Alive 2 (the first book also being great) is not only beautifully designed in itself, but also packed full of highly inspirational T-shirt graphics, shoes, signs, wallpaper and other everyday objects and ephemera that top designers have lent their eye to. An intense, head-hurting experience.

30. Palette No 4: Neon, New Fluorescent Graphics

Get your shades ready.

Includes neon spot colour printing

Lots of design inspiration

Picking the right colour palette for your design work is always a difficult decision. While some favour the more understated, others opt for the bold and bright. Palette No 4: Neon, New Fluorescent Graphics is a beautiful 296-page book (again by Victionary) showcasing the applications of fluorescent colours in the design world, examining where they work best.

Including branding, interior design, and fashion, a total of 110 loud and colourful projects by designers across the globe are featured.

31. A Logo for London

Charts the fascinating history of the bar and circle logo.

Richly illustrated

Contains previously unpublished work

Fantastic buy

London’s Underground system is over 150 years old, and this book by David Lawrence tells you all you need to know about the famous London Transport logo design.

A Logo for London celebrates the instantly recognisable bar and circle, also known as the bullseye. With 250 colour illustrations, this charming and informative tome charts the history and development of the symbol from the early 20th century to the present day.

32. Super Graphic

An extensive visual guide to the comic book universe.

Insanely detailed

Amazing infographics

Cleverly done

What is the Joker’s favourite question for Batman? Are there more deaths by human or by zombie in The Walking Dead? Those are just some of the questions answered in this book via an array of inspirational infographics.

Even if you’re not a comic book fan, the variety of infographic styles on offer in Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe by Tim Leong will bring you tons of inspiration.

33. 100 Best Typefaces Ever

All the greats, all in one place.

All the fonts you’d ever want

Type inspiration overload

Empty List

Today, creating a typeface can be equally laborious, involving hours of study and numerous phases of appraisal and refinement. A working digital font may need well over 500 characters too. Software means – theoretically – just about any designer can learn to become a typographer. FontShop AG, the renowned type foundry, conducted a survey based on historical relevance, sales at FontShop.com and aesthetic quality. With a few additions from the experts at Computer Arts magazine, the best fonts ever were selected for this book. In addition to defining the list, we’ve brought you some insightful background on each one.

6 must-have design tools for creatives ?

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