Design Basics Index

Make no mistake, this is very dense reading, and at its core are recommendations where the reader is left to decide what to best do with the recommendations. The depth of the information presented, though dense, is also well organized enough to reward a reader (and serious student of graphic design) that takes the time to read and digest the recommendations.Among the concepts covered in this book are scale, layout flow, placement options for graphic elements, repetition, recommendations for hierarchical alignments, and patterns selection and arrangement.This is not overnight reading, but, once again, is broken down simply, and in an organized manner, to make this (in my opinion) a reliable manual for studies in graphic design.If a graphic design student, I also strongly advise "The Elements of Graphic Design," by Alex W. White, to compliment this book (Alex White's book also goes strongly in depth with graphic design concepts that are unfortunately can be easily missed).

I don't normally like to "buy" into books, but this one caught my eye at the book store.At the time, I happened to be a graphics design student in college, and I honestly didn't know what I was doing. Bad grades, whole nine yards. I can't call it an over-night success, but this kind of made my lightbulb go off about why some designs work and some don't. Namely, I loved going between the "do's" and "don'ts" - that is, I saw how my work didn't work, and saw how to make all of the parts of my work become a whole.I'm not a graphics design student anymore, but this is still one of the books I love to pick up when I'm looking for inspiration. I love the vivid colors and the practice designs in the book, and I like going back to the basic concepts of design and applying them to whatever I happen to be working on.My only issue with this book is the binding. I actually had a really hard time reading anything other than the beginning or end of the book because I always had this fear that the binding was going to break because it's really, really stiff. I love the way the cover feels, but that also seems like it bends too easily.In short: It's a fun book to glance at for inspiration with a relatively nice variety of styling just within its own pages to drive its content home. However, I will remark that it's definitely more aimed at people with very little design experience.

My review title isn't a slight on the book as I do not mean it's excellent only for beginners. Since I'm a beginner (never took an art or design class since high school), I can only judge how good it is for beginners . The bottom line for me is, my graphic designs have definitely showed more creativity, more flow and overall shows more thought and planning. My previous "designing" used to involve just moving objects around and see if I like it - more hit or miss than anything else. I would still consider myself a beginner, but this book has definitely improved my design abilities - and I'm only 2/3 of the way through the book!What I like about the book is the language is easy to understand and the author doesn't get caught up in technical terms. Having said that, he doesn't speak in just generalities. There are definitely specific things he writes about like the Golden Section and specific effects that someone like me can immediately use. On the other hand, this is also not a step-by-step book and I like that he encourages experimentation but it's very guided and structured. This brings me to another thing I like about the book: Exercises. In many sections, he gives exercises you can do on your own so you can see for yourself what he is talking about - he's guiding you to teach yourself. It's almost a self-guided art class and I've found the exercises to be really useful and creativity-inducing.I can see myself referring back to this book often.

This is a solid primer. In fact so solid that upon showing it to my design professor/good friend, he decided to place it in his curriculum.However, it's not without flaws:firstly, a lot of the designs shown as examples are a bit dated and often dont show of the concepts as well as one would hope.There are a few widows, orphans and other typographical faux-pas, not really the best thing for a book about design and layout.The size is hit or miss, I personally love it but my professor thinks it awkward.Keep that in mind and the fact that some of the terms he uses may be different than your training and I think it's solid.Got me going in design and now I'm a beast. HahahaNo seriously, great for beginners.

I had been looking this book over at my local bookstore for a couple of weeks, and I was impressed enough to look it up on Amazon, where I found it for a much better price. After receiving the book and reading it from cover to cover, I was REALLY impressed. Jim Krause is a great teacher and this book is filled with detailed and simple instructions on how to make your design work shine. I have been in the graphic design industry for many many years now, but I still learned a lot from this book. The book is very well organized, and written in a way that makes it easy to remember the concepts that Krause conveys. I wish all authors of creative subjects were as effective as Jim Krause is at explaining things! If you are an experienced designer or a beginner, this book is worth every penny you might pay for it. I highly reccomend Design Basics Index!!

I ordered this book for a class. Since school began we've only had one assignment from the book so I really can't rate this book fairly from a technical point of view. I did consider using the book as a reference and the book does an workmanlike job on fleshing out some of the concepts, however, it did not fit with my concept of a resource book. In completing the assignment, the material could have been presented in an more engaging format. I am past my prime as regard being a student and perhaps this is how stuff works now-a-days. I'll reserve my opinion as neutral until I have more class time/resource check time to investigate it. Stay tuned!

Excelente libro, refuerza muchos conceptos básicos que algunas veces pasamos por alto, funciona ya seas diseñador industrial, gráfico o mercadologo, ayuda mucho para educar la percepción.

Must have for students and those in design apprenticeship, but also very helpful for those of all levels of experience. Contains all theory that you need to know, and also great to reflect on how to improve your work.

Its a very nice book, I recommend it to thous like to get into print design or even web design.

I do a lot of volunteer work which includes graphic design like websites, newsletters, posters, brochures, mail outs, etc. I have some background in art from my school days, but no other formal training. I found it very helpful to see examples and solutions for things I struggle with in layout and text. The reason I remove one star is because this book is physically very awkward to read. Also, designs shown are very 90’s. It’s the principles which still apply.

The best part about this book is the detailed Design Examples and explanations of what to do and what Not to Do as a designer