Hello everyone!
Today I am in my living room because
I thought it would be fun to show you the graphic design books I got while I was in college.
So if you're studying design or
you want to study design,
you might find some books you hadn't
heard of already.
Or maybe you've read some of these books,
in which case,
let me know in the comments
what you thought of them.
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make sure to hit that Like button
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Now that I've graduated, I'm really excited to share
more of my professional art life with you all.
So I'm going to start out with the most basic books that you've probably heard of already:
"Graphic Design: The New Basics" and
"Thinking with Type."
Both of these books are written by Ellen Lupton;
this one is also written by Jennifer Cole Phillips.
This was the first textbook I was required to
buy for my graphic design program,
and this textbook was for my
basic typography class.
If you are just starting out, I would highly recommend
both of these; they are incredibly useful.
"The New Basics" starts completely from square one,
so if you're in high school
or you're like, just at the beginning of college--
perfect book for you.
"Thinking with Type" is also the basics,
specifically for typography.
There's so much good stuff to learn in this book,
so if you enjoy learning the different parts of letters
or different styles of type throughout history
and what those convey, this is really important.
Also in that vein of basic books, but which
I haven't seen mentioned that often,
is "Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming."
This is also by Ellen Lupton.
If you're an artist, I am sure you can relate to
sitting down and just not knowing what to do,
or not even be able to sit down at all...
Well, this book is what that's for.
It gives you a whole bunch of ways to start
thinking about how to start your projects,
how to connect things you hadn't
previously thought were connected;
it goes over visual research and all kinds of stuff
that's really important to the design process,
so definitely read this if you
find yourself getting stuck.
Now these aren't books that I got in college.
I actually picked these up while I was still in high school
'cause I thought I might like them in college.
This is "Just My Type" by Simon Garfield, and
"Shady Characters" by Keith Houston.
This book goes really into depth about
the history of typography.
If you're a nerd about language-- (exclamation)
I almost dropped it!
You will love this. It also talks about the history
of Comic Sans, which I found very interesting.
And then this book I haven't read all the way through
'cause I didn't get a chance to like,
really sit down with it, but it goes over the
history of really weird punctuation.
Ampersands.
@ signs.
Octothorpes, which is the original
name for a hashtag.
If you've ever wondered how those symbols
came to be, you will find that out in this book.
What should I cover next?
Let's go with...
"A Designer's Research Manual."
This was like senior year reading material,
but I still think it's like, basic,
foundational information?
It goes over the different kinds of research,
how to apply those to design,
how to make sure that the solutions you're coming
up with are things that people actually need...
When you're doing graphic design,
it's usually not just art for art's sake;
you're trying to do it with a purpose, and you
should really have that purpose nailed down.
So that is what this book helps with.
In that higher-level research vein, we have
"This Means This, This Means That," by Sean Hall.
I am gonna be real, I did not sit down and
read through this textbook;
I went to class and listened to the lectures
and got the gist of it.
But, if you don't have that convenience,
here's a book for you.
So this is a user's guide to semiotics, and semiotics is
the study of how humans assign meanings to things.
Obviously, when you're designing things,
you're supposed to convey a message to people
quickly and accurately, and sometimes the message
they get is not the message you intended,
and also you have to have a cultural awareness.
Different groups of people can see the same thing
and associate it with different things.
As a concept, important to be familiar with.
Next we have "Creating a Brand Identity"
by Catharine Slade-Brooking.
This was very weird to buy on Amazon because
I thought this was a picture of the book,
but no, this is the cover
with a picture inside the cover.
This book is a comprehensive introduction
to creating a branding system,
how to define an audience, analyze competitors,
presenting to clients, all kinds of stuff like that.
And, along a similar vein
as this book, I also have
"Designing a Brand Identity" by Alina Wheeler.
I think I bought this as a senior in high school
'cause I was really excited about
going into graphic design, and then
I didn't actually need it until I was a senior.
This goes into the same stuff but a little more technical,
and it's less aimed at you the designer,
and more aimed at an agency team?
I would still recommend giving it a read;
it is not my favorite book.
The takeaway from this should be that
branding is all about really thorough research,
and you can't just whip out a logo
and that's the brand!
But, logo design is important;
I'm not saying it's not important,
which is why I have this book
about making logos
called "Logo Design Love" by David Airey.
This was not required reading; I got this myself,
but I got it during college, so I'm including it.
This also has stuff about brand identity, but there
is more of a focus on designing an effective logo.
There are lots of case studies in here.
I think this is the book that I found the most useful,
just for me personally. It really helped me
understand what an effective logo looks like,
not just a pretty logo, but one that
really defines a brand and becomes iconic.
I would super highly reccommend this book.
What makes the most sense to bring up next
thematically? Um...
How about "Meggs' History of Graphic Design."
This is a very large book.
This was required reading for my
graphic design history class.
Regrettably, I got a new version, because I was led to
believe I would need the online code, but then I didn't.
Anyway, this is a very useful book for
learning about history. (laughter)
I think in any art field, it's essential to have at least a
basic understanding of what came before,
so you can kinda borrow from that,
be inspired from that...
Would recommend giving it at least a skim;
probably get it used.
Next, I'll share some books about 
specific areas of design,
and first among those is the
"Package Design Workbook."
This was assigned reading for my 3D design class,
and it goes into the essentials of package design.
The title would lead you to think that
it's an activity book, but it's not.
It goes over how packaging can affect
how well a product sells.
It also goes over how to make a package stand out
in a competitive marketplace,
because when you go to the store,
there is so much stuff to choose from.
If that's something you're interested in designing,
I would recommend doing some research
on effective packaging.
Next we have also assigned reading for that class:
"The Wayfinding Handbook" by David Gibson.
This is the book you would read if you're
interested in designing signage, maps,
any kind of information design that
guides people from place to place.
And this goes into not just designing the signs,
but also where to put them,
as well as real-life examples, so I would definitely
check this out if that's something you're interested in.
Getting away from the physical 3D world
and into the digital one,
we have "HTML & CSS" by Jon Duckett.
I love this book.
It makes code super accessible.
If you've never coded anything before in your life,
you can look through this book and understand it.
I personally think one of the barriers of
getting into more technological stuff is that
everything is written so confusingly. A lot of times
when people try to explain things to you,
they're just trying to show off how smart they are, and
they're not actually making sure that you understand.
So books like this that assume nothing and
lay the pages out pretty sparsely
so you know exactly what's important and
what it means: super valuable resource.
This next one is a long book, and by "long"
I mean like, horizontally.
This is "Design for Motion" by Austin Shaw.
This was required reading for my motion design class.
Motion design can be kind of a vague term; there are
so many different ways to be a motion designer.
You can do title sequences,
video game menus, animations...
This book covers the whole process:
storyboarding, compositing, typography...
It goes over the basics of cinematography...
This isn't really my chosen discipline, but if it's yours,
it's very cool. You should check it out.
Next, just a couple of books about specific people:
"Pretty Much Everything" by Aaron Draplin, and
"How to" by Michael Bierut.
Michael Bierut is a really, really
famous graphic designer.
I'm holding too many books.
This is definitely worth a read.
I've talked about it before; I won't go too into it.
But it's full of case studies of stuff he's done, so
if you like Michael Bierut, you will like this book.
And then "Pretty Much Everything" by Aaron Draplin:
I adore this.
Aaron Draplin actually came to our school to give a talk,
so I got to meet the guy.
This book is really fun and colorful,
and I think it's a really great read.
I think it's really interesting how he got into design from
like, snowboarding, drawing in his sketchbook..
y'know, stuff that a lot of us did.
And now he's a really well known designer.
So I find this super inspirational.
Would definitely recommend checking this out.
So we are finally to the last category of books
I have to share with you, and that is
design for social impact, which is my whole deal.
To get to those, let me first push past
my collection of shot glasses.
So first up, we have "The Design of Dissent"
by Milton Glaser. This is a classic.
I have the expanded edition,
which I would recommend.
This is not really a how-to book so much as it is a bunch of case studies of politically motivated design
over the years, so like:
protest posters, politcal comics.
This book is definitely good for learning history
and getting some visual inspiration,
but it will not teach you how to best
create these graphics yourself.
But if you like learning from looking at what
other people have done, this book is great.
Next up, we have "Signs of Resistance: A Visual History of Protest in America" by Bonnie Siegler.
This is a super recent book.
It's a lot like "The Design of Dissent,"
but it's more focused specifically on
movements in the United States.
I would recommend reading these
two books as a set.
So let's say you're interested in making your
own protest art. What would you do?
Well, you could start by reading some of these books.
These are not specific to graphic design, but I read them
while I was doing research for my senior thesis.
This book, "The Art of Protest":
it's not an art book, it's an actual written book.
So you can read through some of the details
of actions by social movements
and more understand what went into them,
whereas this book is actually a how-to manual.
This is "Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution"
by Andrew Boyd.
I believe this is also available for free online;
I will put a link to that in the video description.
This is literally just a compendium of all kinds
of different protest tactics you can do.
It also contains some small case studies alongside
the methodology so you can see it applied.
So if you find yourself stuck and you can't think
of anything besides making some signs,
this is a great book to read.
And lastly, we're switching gears from
protest to socially conscious design.
There are lots and lots of ways that graphic design
can be applied other than like, protests?
The first book I would recommend reading is
"Designing for Social Change" by Andrew Shea.
This was required reading for one of my practicum
classes, which was a completely project-based class.
This book presents ten strategies for working
effectively with community organizations.
Each strategy is accompanied by a case study
to help you understand.
As a designer, your goal is to help people.
You have to put your ego aside and actually
listen and understand what they need.
Don't enter a community you're not a part of,
guns blazing, thinking you have the answer
that no one's thought of, because probably someone's
already thought of it, and it's not a great idea.
I think a lot of times, graphic designers
do struggle with having a big ego.
I struggle with that sometimes too.
I am a YouTuber.
Really important read, y'all.
And these last two books were not required reading;
I just also picked them up.
This is "Just Design" by Christopher Simmons.
This book is all case studies.
It's not a how-to like the other book.
It can really help you get some ideas of how to
apply design more creatively to solve problems.
It has more than 140 examples. I would definitely
recommend checking this book out as well.
The second one is also the final book I have
to share with you, and that is
"By the People: Designing a Better America."
This is compiled by the Cooper Hewitt museum,
which is one of the Smithsonian museums.
This book features 60 design profiles, 9 essays and interviews, and more than 450 images
that bring light to design's important role in addressing
social, economic, environmental, and spatial disparities.
There are different sections, like, "In what ways can design act as a catalyst for change?"
followed by really thorough examples of projects,
like a cross-border community station,
or creating more effective polling materials so people
don't accidentally cast the wrong votes in elections.
This is definitely the kind of thing
I would love to do with my career,
so hopefully one day I will be able to,
and then I can share it with you all.
So we finally made it to the end!
Make sure to leave a like
and subscribe if this helped you find any new books.
I have more art-related content on the way in 2020,
and I am really excited.
Also don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
where I share my own design work,
and you can also feel free to check out my portfolio
website, which I will link to in the video description.
I will see you guys next year.
I have not read this book in a hot minute, so...
(laughter)
And this textbook was my... fhththth.
Let's fix this mess!
(loud burp)
(whisper) Sorry.
If you find yourself enjoying this video, make sure to leave a like and also subscribe for more videos...
oh, I can't talk.
I hate this so much.
