Buying desktop publishing software will not make you a professional graphic designer any more than buying a scalpel will make you a surgeon. As good as the software may be, it is only a tool. The missing ingredients are graphic design concepts and techniques. This 335- page book with hundreds of illustrations, will show you step-by-step, how to create sparkling graphic designs, efficient business forms and money-making Web sites. This unique publication is two books in one, a how-to-do-it book for desktop publishers and a college textbook.
Customer Review: Graphic Design for the 21st Century Desktop Publishers
Let me begin by saying that this book is an adequate “starter book” that does the basic job of setting up a graphic design career. It solidly defines that design cannot be handed to you through the use of a computer nor can you simply “pick-it-up” by reading this book. Those are great words of reality when it comes to the real world of graphic design - both in the business/advertising world and the Internet. No one should ever step into this field without a complete understanding of the principles of design (balance, harmony, repitition, etc) and computer skill. Lets face it, without the computer, most of the ads and design you see today would be gone.

Unfortunately, I felt this book fails to hit the quality of explanation needed to understand the “why” of design. I face it with my own high school and college students as well as my own freelance clients; the “why” of design always becomes the forefront of what is made. It takes more than small paragraphs of information to explain why deciding a photo vs. a raster image is correct for a particular design. Many different factors come into play that aren’t fully described in this book. The text almost feels like a glorified glossary rather than a ‘how-to” on graphic design.

I also found that the quality of the imagery is somewhat remedial and quite outdated. I would not show most of the visual examples to my students as I feel they are not up-to-date enough to follow current design trends and styles. Many are perfect for explaining the point at hand, but should be revamped for today’s tastes and should include professional examples where the technique was applied.

In addition, I also felt that a few of the techniques described seemed to pull from the 1980’s - before computer-based design was the mainstream. I still remember the days of physically cutting and pasting the images in place and the real pen & ink drawings!

Overall, I felt the book is good glossary for building a foundation of what graphic design is about, but I would not depend on this as an all-encompassing text for your career. I would in fact use the text as a source for my students to begin with, but would suppliment the examples with that of my own and would encourage more open collaboration on the ideas behind the design (Why does the design fit or not fit the client? What is the design focusing on? What is great about it? Why does it work or not work in this situation? Etc…). The book should also drive the reader into the realization that computers are the mainstream and that they are there as a very powerful tool to aid in your design and should be used whenever possible (for the fabrication, not the idea!). Even though the authors are not full-time designers (one is a typesetter and desktop publisher and the other is a business educator) they have created a decent book for the beginning student of graphic design. Buy It Now At Amazon!