Design Resources
Welcome to the resources section of Graphic Design Success. Our experts have put together a comprehensive list of resources — “the best of the best” for DM-designers. You may notice that some of the books listed here are out of print, but they are well worth the effort to find used.
BOOKS:
The Designer's Desktop Manual (HOW Design Books)
Software options, type, color, images, layout, and production are all covered in easy-to-read sections. Each section covers the technical issues and skills needed for a specific area of design.
Design Basics Index (HOW Design Books)
Features page after page of ideas for layouts and understanding how various design elements work together. A great book for helping to inspire ideas when you’re stuck.
The Designer's Toolkit: 500 Grids and Style Sheets (Chronicle Books)
The included CD features ready-to-use grid templates formatted for InDesign and QuarkXPress as well as website templates that can be used with programs such as Dreamweaver. Details and information are provided for each template so you understand how best to use them.
The Official Adobe Print Publishing Guide (Adobe Press)
This book includes succinct, illustrated explanations of the basic concepts and terminology of print production, along with Adobe’s tried and true guidelines, tips, and checklists for ensuring a successful print job. Also include typographic terms so you can talk your printer’s language.
Real World Print Production (Peachpit Press)
Probably one of the most extensive books on the print process available. Learn how ink and paper work together, and how to prevent unwelcome surprises in tricky situations such as overprinting, trapping, and color registration.
Getting It Printed (HOW Design Books)
A comprehensive look at how to work with printers – everything from estimates, pricing and negotiating to trade customs and quality guidelines. There are also easy-to-follow explanations of printing processes and techniques.
Forms, Folds, and Sizes (Rockport Publishers)
This book will provide you with all the little details that can make or break a design such as how much space to leave in the gutter when designing barrel folds, how to layout a template for a box and the ratios of each part, metric conversion charts, and standard envelope sizes. Also covers bleeds, bindings, and printing processes.
Real World Color Management (Peachpit Press)
Like most of the “Real World” books, this is a thorough look at color management. You'll find advice for building and fine-tuning color profiles for input and output devices (digital cameras and scanners, displays, printers, and more), selecting the right color management workflow, and managing color within and across major design applications.
Graphic Design Cookbook (Chronicle Books)
More than a thousand line drawings illustrate effective design devices, type treatments, spatial solutions, and pictorial presentations. This is a book you can use when you’re stuck for a new way of doing something – like page number treatments – that needs a fresh feel.
Design To Sell (Microsoft Press)
One of the few books that focus on using Microsoft Publisher as a layout tool. Even better, Parker covers the broader topic of marketing yourself which can also be applied when you’re working with clients who are marketing their products and services.
Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers (Allworth Press)
This book not only helps you understand some of the business and legal issues you might run into while running your graphic design business, it also includes a CD-ROM with all the forms you’ll find in the book. You’ll also get advice on setting up your business workflow to avoid the pitfalls beginners often encounter.
Thinking Creatively: New Ways to Unlock Your Visual Imagination (HOW Design Books)
This book reveals dozens of idea-generating techniques from top designers – along with insight on how they apply creative visual thinking to real-world projects. Through 44 visual thinking exercises, you'll learn to better communicate your own ideas and feelings ... to increase your creative potential and the number of successful designs in your portfolio.
Design-it-Yourself Graphic Workshop: The Step-by-Step Guide (Rockport Publishers)
A book that avoids all the theory and just gets down to the nuts and bolts of getting a project done. Covers logo, letterhead, businesses card, and newsletter dimensions for page layouts; recommendations for type and point size; color ideas; paper information; sources for graphics and photographs; and a complete production guide.
Quick Solutions to Great Layouts (HOW Design Books)
Includes swipeable layouts that you can use to create your own pieces – everything from newsletters and ads to letterheads and brochures. Each layout includes a full background on the piece, the reasoning behind each solution and details on how special constraints were handled.
Before & After Page Design (Peachpit Press)
Based on articles from Before & After Magazine, you'll learn by example how to design single-page and multi-page publications, brochures, and advertisements, applying the principles design professionals live by. You'll also learn how to choose the right font for your project, why one typeface works better than another.
Before & After Graphics For Business (Peachpit Press)
Based on articles from Before & After Magazine, you’ll learn how to create business graphics that communicate a business's identity in a variety of forms. From creating charts, graphs, calendars, and maps to designing newsletters, creating various types of stationery, coming up with an identity, using photos to convey a message, and creating gift certificates, Yellow Pages ads, coupons, forms, and more, you’ll see how to present a business to the world graphically.
Type & Layout: Are You Communicating or Making Pretty Shapes (Worsley Press)
By Colin Wheildon, this book shows you when typography should be an invisible communication tool, and when it should attract attention. He gives you the skinny on what makes type work for headlines, newsletters, ads, magazines and more.
The Layout Index (North Light Books)
A compendium of layout idea-generators by Jim Krause that will help designers explore multiple possibilities for visual treatments each time they turn the page. The visual and textual suggestions are divided into eight major areas, including newsletters, flyers, posters, brochures, advertising, stationery, page layout, and Web pages.
Robin Williams Design Workshop (Peachpit Press)
A colorful tutorial in creative design by Robin Williams, with advice and lessons in composition, visual impact, and design challenges. Filled with hundreds of full-color examples, the ideas in this text tackle design theory, visual puns, and layout and graphics for real-world projects such as logos, business cards, advertising, newsletters, brochures, and flyers.
Looking Good in Print (Coriolis Group Books)
Looking Good in Print by Roger C. Parker has become a classic and virtually launched an entire genre. Recognized as the definitive work in its category, this book features information on service bureaus, color and printing, color lasers, new technologies, and much more.
Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines (Graphic Artists Guild)
A must-have for determining what you should be paid for any number of different projects. Includes lots of information related to copyright and legal issues that designers may encounter.
The Non-Designer’s Design Book (Peachpit Press)
Design and typographic principles for beginners. Author Robin Willams offers tips on the solid design principles that go into well-design layouts.
Designing Direct Mail That Sells (North Light Books)
Sandra J. Blum’s classic that is now out-of-print, but worth tracking down used. Blum has advice for designing envelopes, reply cards, postcards, magalogs, letters, and brochures.
Color: Messages and Meanings, A PANTONE® Color Resource (Hand Books Press)
Based on research and filled with hundreds of color combinations and illustrations, this book presents color expert, Leatrice Eiseman's insights on color and emotion, and addresses how best to integrate these qualities into your work, insuring your intended message is communicated. Experience inspiration through the most effective combinations for communicating moods, ranging from assertive to provocative or intimate, and many other moods. These essential guidelines and illustrations can be applied to so many of your projects... branding, packaging, signage, point-of-purchase, displays, advertising, logos, websites and more. Everything you need to make color work more effectively in your designs, from valuable color information to charts for converting PANTONE solid ink colors to four-color process (CMYK) formulas, is thoughtfully presented.
Type Idea Index (HOW Books)
Type Idea Index offers an in-depth examination of the creative and practical issues involved in all of the important areas, such as font anatomy, headlines, and body texts. Design expert Jim Krause, author of the best-selling Index series, returns with a look at type, one of the most fascinating design topics especially for dm-designers. Type Index eschews the ponderous style found in other books in favor of a fresh, accessible approach.
Color Index 2: Over 1500 New Color Combinations: For Print and Web Media: Cmyk and Rgb Formulas (HOW Books)
Color Index 2 contains hundreds of different color combinations, each with an accurate formula for both print and web use. You'll easily find the best colors for your piece with chapters organized by dominant hue, and with unique expansion palettes – sets of four related hues arranged from dark to light – that allow you to explore even more color combinations for limitless possibilities.
PODCASTS:
Adobe Creative Suite Podcast – http://creativesuitepodcast.com/
Adobe Photoshop Quicktips – http://www.photoshopquicktips.com/
AppClinic (Covers a variety of software) – http://appclinic.com/screencast/
InDesign Secrets – http://www.indesignsecrets.com/
The InDesigner – http://www.theindesigner.com/
Layers TV (from Layers Magazine.. all things Adobe) – http://www.layersmagazine.com/category/layers-tv-archive/
Rookie Design (Tips for becoming a successful designer) – http://rookiedesigner.com/rookie/
Photoshop Killer Tips – http://www.photoshopkillertips.com/
Photoshop User TV – http://www.photoshopusertv.com/
MAGAZINES:
Before & After Magazine
http://www.bamagazine.com/ (General design)
Before & After provides very practical ideas relevant for direct market design. Each article is short and to the point, and gives you all the information you need to recreate the ideas yourself. Available in both PDF and print formats, this magazine is not available in retail stores.
Communication Arts Magazine
http://www.commarts.com/ (General design)
Since 1959, Communication Arts has been the journal for designers, art directors, design firms, illustrators, photographs and everyone involved in visual communication. They also publish special issues each year featuring the best illustrations, photography, print designs and advertising.
Computer Arts Magazine
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/ (General design tutorials – UK-based)
Computer Arts covers the broader world of design with tutorials and features focusing on cutting-edge work. Comes with a CD so you can work along with the tutorials. Even though this magazine comes from the UK, you can usually find it at Barnes & Nobles or Borders.
Dynamic Graphics Magazine
http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/ (General design)
Design Graphics covers a wide range of related subjects from high end printing, through new media all the way to the web. Each issue contains inspirational work by top professionals, tips and techniques in the Studio Skills articles, feature articles, technology updates, information on the latest hardware and software, reviews, hardware comparisons and much more.
GD USA
http://www.gdusa.com/ (General design)
Graphic Design USA is a monthly news and information magazine for and about the professional design community including graphic design firms, corporate and publishing in-house departments, advertising agencies, institutions and non-profits, and other creative businesses and organizations. The magazine is free to creative professionals within the United States.
How Magazine
http://www.howdesign.com/ (General design)
Founded in 1985, HOW Magazine provides graphic-design professionals with essential business information, features cutting-edge technological advances, profiles renowned and up-and-coming designers, details noteworthy projects, and provides creative inspiration. The year-end Business Annual has become a respected resource for its articles about studios across the U.S. In addition, HOW holds annual Self-Promotion, International and Interactive Design competitions and features the results in special issues. Other frequently profiled topics include digital design, creativity, typography and paper.
InDesign Magazine
http://www.indesignmag.com/ (InDesign)
InDesign Magazine is the first bimonthly PDF periodical devoted entirely to Adobe InDesign and to the growing community of InDesign professionals. With editorial direction by page-layout guru and author David Blatner and creativepro.com editor in chief Terri Stone, InDesign Magazine includes in-depth features, reviews, and tutorials you need to master Adobe InDesign.
Layers Magazine
http://www.layersmagazine.com/ (All things Adobe)
The bimonthly magazine for all things Adobe. Features and tutorials cover Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and Lightroom. Also included are hardware and software reviews, and tips and tricks for Adobe software.
Photoshop Creative Magazine
http://www.pshopcreative.co.uk/ (Photoshop – UK-based)
Photoshop Creative aims to provide Photoshop instruction for beginners to advanced users. It’s also one the rare publications to address Photoshop Elements. This magazine is produced in the UK, but is often available at Barnes & Nobles and Borders.
Photoshop User Magazine
http://www.photoshopuser.com/ (Photoshop)
Perhaps the #1 source for Photoshop news and instruction. The magazine can often be found in your local bookstore, but comes free with your membership to the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. The magazine covers just about every aspect of what can be done with Photoshop and often includes techniques and tips you can apply to your direct market design projects.
Print Magazine
http://www.printmag.com/ (General design)
Print is a bimonthly magazine about visual culture and design. The magazines overall focus is to analyze the influence and effectiveness of the designer in the worlds of commerce, culture, and society and present its observations within a rich and dynamic visual environment. For a direct market designer, this can be useful in seeing the broader world of design and then applying that to the world of direct market.
Step Inside Design Magazine
http://www.stepinsidedesign.com/ (General design)
Step inside Design explores the impact of design on all facets of our lives; how we work, learn, move, communicate, and play. Each issue includes profiles of visionary creatives, thoughtful analysis on business issues, and essays and commentaries on design’s most relevant questions.
Web Designer Magazine
http://www.webdesignermag.co.uk/ (Web design tutorials – UK-based)
If your interest is in website design, Web Designer Magazine covers just about every aspect of site design. The included CD has the files necessary to following along with tutorials that cover Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash. Covers advanced topics such as eCommerce as well as topics for beginning web designers.
X-Ray Magazine
http://www.xraymag.com/ (QuarkXPress)
X-Ray Magazine is the online publication dedicated to QuarkXPress. Their Index of PDF Articles section not only includes a wealth of articles to help you use QuarkXPress more efficiently, but also links to all the back issues of the magazine.
STOCK PHOTOS:
General Purpose Stock Photos:
Comstock Images – http://www.comstock.com/
Dreamstime – http://www.dreamstime.com/
iStockPhoto – http://www.istockphoto.com/
Jupiter Images – http://www.jupiterimages.com/
Media Bakery – http://www.mediabakery.com/
Photos.com – http://www.photos.com/
Veer – http://www.veer.com/
Specialty Stock Photos:
Maps – http://www.mapresources.com/
Objects with no backgrounds – http://www.photoobjects.net/en/
Religious – http://www.goodsalt.com/
Food – http://usa.stockfood.com/
Aerial – http://www.aerialstockphotography.ca/
Fruits, Vegetables, Herbs and Spices – http://www.1000bananas.com/
Doctor Stock – http://www.doctorstock.com/
LifeART – http://www.lifeart.com/
FONTS:
Adobe Fonts – http://www.adobe.com/type/
Fonts.com – http://www.fonts.com/
MyFonts – http://www.myfonts.com/
DESIGN-FOCUSED WEBSITES:
The Graphics Artists Guild
http://www.gag.org/
The Graphic Artists Guild is a national union of illustrators, designers, web creators, production artists, surface designers and other creatives who have come together to pursue common goals, share their experience, raise industry standards, and improve the ability of visual creators to achieve satisfying and rewarding careers.
NAPP
http://www.photoshopuser.com/
The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) is the world’s leading resource for Adobe® Photoshop® education, training, and news. They also produce Photoshop User Magazine.
CreativePro
http://www.creativepro.com/
Creativepro.com is a designer resource center offering everything from design news and features to software reviews and tutorials.
Lynda.com
http://www.lynda.com/
Lynda.com offers both online and DVD-based training on over 350 topics, including InDesign, QuarkXPress, Publisher and Photoshop.
USPS Business Mail 101
http://www.usps.com/businessmail101/
The U.S. Postal Service’s site for beginning direct market mailers. Includes a checklist for mailers and help for determining what class of mail is right for your project.
Quark VS InDesign
http://quarkvsindesign.com/news/index.php
Quark VS InDesign.com calls itself the world's leading authority for news and opinion on the war between the desktop publishing giants. It is read by nearly 30,000 creative pros each month, and is a resource referenced by Adobe Technical Support. You’ll find many helpful tips and tutorials for both Quark and InDesign.