Two sorts of books: conceptual and "branding"

#1

Hello, everyone. First post for me here…

Before I begin, let me note that I have indeed seen the stickies on recommended books, but they are not quite what I am after. The only book that looked general enough for my use was possibly Harley Brown’s Eternal Truths for Every Artist, and I plan on looking into that.

The long and short of it is that from childhood, I loved to dabble in drawing, but I am cannot rightly call myself a “graphic artist” at this point. However, I do want to learn the fundamental concepts of such things as colour, balance etc (beyond what I learned in school), in service to what I do invest quite a bit of time into: web design. I’m not satisfied with just being able to put up a passable page, or even one that might wow the ignorant; I’m the sort of person that wants to do something well if I’m going to do it.

To that end, I am looking for (as the subject line indicates) two sorts of quality books:

  1. Books that teach the important concepts that really transcend the genre boundaries (although even here, I understand that you can’t leave concepts in mid-air; I have no problem recognizing that examples etc will be embodied in e.g. painting and so on). To illustrate the sort of thing I’m looking for here, I’ll quote from one of the book descriptions that sounds close to what I want:Exploring the Elements of Design demonstrates how basic design elements and principles work together to achieve effective communication design by artfully blending academic principles and theories with real-world, practical design solutions. Topics are logically organized and concise, beginning with the primary design principles of unity, variety, hierarchy, and proportion. Subsequent chapters lead readers through the support principles of scale, balance, repetition, and proximity, and later through elements of shape, line, size, color, texture, and typography.
  2. Books that apply art and communication theory to what I’ll call “corporate graphics” - generating a brand identity through logos and attendant subsidiary things such as icons etc. Somewhere in the midst of this, I’d like something that also addresses some of the fundamentals of typography, although not necessarily a whole book - I’m not concerned to create my own font-sets, for example, but I want to know enough that I understand issues surrounding font choice on a deeper level than “that’s easy/hard to read.”

Both types of books can be detailed - I’m a pretty good learner, and I’m looking for something substantial. But hopefully, they aren’t so loaded with jargon that someone who is not a graduate student in fine arts will get bogged down.

I have currently amassed the following list of books; I’m hoping that someone here may be familiar with a number of these. I can’t afford to buy all of these, so I would like to make an informed decision as I narrow down my selection. In addition to the Harley Brown book mentioned above, here is my list:

William Lidwell, Universal Elements of Design: A Cross-Disciplinary Reference
Alexander White, The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
Jim Krause, Designers Complete Index
Poppy Evans & Mark Thomas, Exploring the Elements of Design
Johannes Itten, The Elements of Color
Robin Williams, The Non-Designer’s Design Book
Leslie Cabarga, Logo, Font, and Lettering Bible
John McWade, Before and After Page Design
John McWade, Before and After Graphics for Business
Robin Landa, Designing Brand Experiences: Creating Powerful Integrated Brand Solutions
Wendy Peck, Great Web Typography

I’m also looking at Van Duyne, Landay and Hong’s The Design of Sites, but that’s getting further away from the graphic design end of things.

If anyone has sound advice for books in these fields, whether listed above or not, please give me counsel.

Thanks in advance!

#2

I do want to learn the fundamental concepts of such things as colour, balance etc (beyond what I learned in school), in service to what I do invest quite a bit of time into: web design.

Have you done a search thru CGTalk on your topic of interest, web design? Or even possibly Usability or User Interface Design?

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=283118

If you’re focusing on web design, you should also really think about usability factors which may likely be more than what you learned in school if you were primarily focusing on the graphic design aspect of web development. A couple of web sites that special in UI design also have recommended reading which might reflect some of the books you’re interested in. Do a google and you’ll find more. :slight_smile:

t

#3

Thanks, Tatiana. The last-mentioned book, just below my actual list (Van Duyne et al), is actually largely about usability, and I’ve done quite a bit of other work along those lines. In truth, I’ve been doing web sites for a while, and although I can always learn more in any given area, it’s precisely in the area of concepts such as colour, space etc that I feel a real need for growth.

I did a search on recommended books and took note of the stickies. I know there is a lot of stuff available on the Internet for almost anything and everything, but when I want to learn something seriously, I inevitably want a good old-fashioned book.

As I spend more time here, I may well take a look at the web design threads, but I’m actually much more interested in taking a step back behind that, at this point. (In two directions, as I noted - what I’ll call, for the moment, “basic art concepts” and “visual communication.”)

Thanks again.

#4

In truth, I’ve been doing web sites for a while…

As a former web designer myself, I’m curious about your interest in picking up the basics of visual communication from a graphic design perspective…I would have thought that’s what most web designers already had? Or are your skills and experiences more from the technical side of web development, and you picked up some design techniques along the way and realize that there’s more to it?

You seem to be coming from the opposite of my own professional experiences. :slight_smile:

In the late eighties I started studying graphic design for my Communication Arts degree. Although my original interest was in Editorial Illustration, in the mid-nineties I somehow ended up working for various corporate consultant companies initially as a multimedia artist, but then later as a web designer/visual development artist to work with teams of developers to create web-based applications, knowledge management tools, corporate learning software, etc; along with the occasional basic identity website for various industries (finance, telecommunications, automobile manufacturing, sports and entertainment, oil and chemical). I learned alot from the developers I worked with and did quite a bit of studying on my own to better understand the technical aspects of web and application development, usability, etc…so I have to say I’m really curious about your own direction of study.

…but I’m actually much more interested in taking a step back behind that, at this point. (In two directions, as I noted - what I’ll call, for the moment, “basic art concepts” and “visual communication.”)

Are you seeking to better understand aspects of graphic design like color theory, line and space? Or possibly the cognitive science about the use of graphic design as applied to web site development?

#5

Well, as I noted in my first post, I couldn’t describe myself as a graphic artist. I loved to draw when I was young - from childhood through my teens, and a bit here and there subsequently - but I’ve never studied design at all. I think the last art education I had was in Grade 8!

I kind of stumbled onto web design as an income-producer after several years of producing several of my own sites with a WYSIWYG editor. Then someone kindly slammed me for using bad code. So that fired me up to do a bunch of learning on the technical end. I would say that at this point, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to describe myself as advanced in CSS. Not to say I couldn’t use a whole lot more on the technical end. (For instance, I hope to learn some PHP beyond the copying and pasting of scripts.)

But I think the design issue is more pressing at the moment. I’ve now come to the place in my development that I feel I need some design fundamentals to take the next step forward. That’s why I came here, rather than a web design forum. I’m not so much looking for web dev books (I’ve got quite a few of those already); I’m looking for material that will teach me fundamental concepts of space, colour, and so on, as I indicated.

I’ve been doing sites for $$ for the past year or so, and beginning in May, I plan on putting more eggs into the basket and try to build up my web biz company into something self-sustaining. What I want to do is expand my design skills where I can have more confidence that I’m building something that communicates the site’s content/theme visually, and that I’m not committing any faux pas (sorry, I don’t know the plural of that!) with the aesthetics. And really, I want to approach the whole as something of an art, and from a sound design basis.

Are you seeking to better understand aspects of graphic design like color theory, line and space?

Now you’re getting it! :slight_smile:

And then, feed that into “communication” issues such as branding, logos, themes. Hence, two sorts of books.

BTW, on someone else’s advice, today I ordered a used copy of the 2d edition of Robin Landa’s Graphic Design Solutions. But I’m still hunting for more.

#6

Well, FWIW, I made my book order. I guess you could say I splurged. In addition to the used copy of Landa’s Graphic Design Solutions which I mentioned earlier, I selected White, Evans & Thomas, Williams, Cabarga, both of the McWade books, and Landa’s Designing Brand Experiences from the above list. I also ordered Robert Bringhurst’s Elements of Typographic Style.

I guess I’ll be reading for a while. I also picked up the Van Duyne et al work and a couple books on PHP. :o

#7

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