Stop Stealing Sheep is a unique, entertaining, and educational tour through the most basic unit of written communication: type. World-renowned type experts Erik Spiekermann and E. M. Ginger explain in everyday laymen’s terms what type is and how you can use it to enhance the legibility, meaning, and aesthetic level of your work. They elegantly touch on all aspects of typography, including the history and mechanics of type, how to train your eye to recognize and choose typefaces, and how to use space and layout to improve overall communication. learn more

Designers are quick to tell us about their sources of inspiration, but they are much less willing to reveal such critical matters as how to find work, how much they charge, and what to do when a client rejects three weeks of work and refuses to pay the bill. How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul addresses the concerns of young designers who want to earn a living by doing expressive and meaningful work, and who want to avoid becoming hired drones working on soulless projects. Written by a designer for designers, it combines practical advice with philosophical guidance to help young professionals embark on their careers. learn more

This lovely, well-written book is concerned foremost with creating beautiful typography and is essential for professionals who regularly work with typographic designs. Author Robert Bringhurst writes about designing with the correct typeface; striving for rhythm, proportion, and harmony; choosing and combining type; designing pages; using section heads, subheads, footnotes, and tables; applying kerning and other type adjustments to improve legibility; and adding special characters, including punctuation and diacritical marks. The Elements of Typographic Style teaches the history of and the artistic and practical perspectives on a variety of type families that are available in Europe and America today. learn more

Whether you’re a start-up business or an experienced owner, The Graphic Designer’s Guide to Pricing, Estimating and Budgeting, Revised Edition, provides a one-stop source of indispensable, innovative methods for achieving productivity and profitability in every area of a graphic design business.

This brand-new and completely updated edition offers practical guidelines for setting rates, dealing with clients’ budgets, preparing an estimate, and establishing profitability. Readers will also discover step-by-step strategies for pricing on the Internet, negotiating effective pricing with clients, and developing options to traditional pricing. Plus, the easy-to-read sidebars throughout this valuable guide offer dozens of creative, resourceful success tips for running a top-notch business. learn more

This is the fourth title in an exciting twelve-book series, focussing on both film and digital photography, by renowned photographer, John Freeman. These inspiring practical guides explore every area of photography from composition and landscapes to travel and photographing nudes. They include invaluable digital manipulation techniques to help you get the most out of your images. Each book is illustrated with John Freeman’s stunning images from all over the world along with helpful diagrams and screen grabs. Light is the lifeblood of photography and without it there would be no shadows. The correlation between light and shade is explored to give the photographer an insight into how stunning images can be achieved even when the light is low. All aspects of light are discussed including daylight, flash, tungsten, HMI, available light and night photography. learn more

At last, a mathematical explanation of how art works presented in a manner we can all understand. Kimberly Elam takes the reader on a geometrical journey, lending insight and coherence to the design process by exploring the visual relationships that have foundations in mathematics as well as the essential qualities of life. Geometry of Design takes a close look at a broad range of twentieth-century examples of design, architecture, and illustration (from the Barcelona chair to the Musica Viva poster, from the Braun handblender to the Conico kettle), revealing underlying geometric structures in their compositions. Explanations and techniques of visual analysis make the inherent mathematical relationships evident and a must-have for anyone involved in graphic arts. The book focuses not only on the classic systems of proportioning, such as the golden section and root rectangles, but also on less well known proportioning systems such as the Fibonacci Series. Through detailed diagrams these geometric systems are brought to life giving an effective insight into the design process. learn more

In today’s high-tech, virtual world where things exist, but then again, they don’t, people are drawn irresistibly to “touch-friendly” designs. It’s little wonder that graphic design that uses unusual materials, which call out to be touched, get noticed and build image like no others. Design on nontraditional materials attracts both designers and consumers. The subject fascinates consumers because they recognise that unique materials can be difficult to engineer and incorporate, and thus tactile design nearly always becomes coveted and collectible. Moreover, the designer who can get a consumer to interact with a product, whether it’s a brochure or a package, increases the chance of making a memorable connection and, even better yet, a sale. learn more