Thursday, July 17, 2008

A Book About Design: Complicated Doesn't Make It Good by Mark Gonyea

Calling all designers, artists and lovers of aesthetic orderliness! You can now cleverly indoctrinate your children into the principals of chic with this straightforward introduction to graphic design. But this little gem isn’t just for mini Warhols. Through unintimidating sentences and bold geometric illustrations, Gonyea teaches the language of color, size ratios, lines, and balance. It will soon become clear that good design makes all the difference in the world. In Gonyea’s opening example, a pair of equally-sized red and green circles appears completely balanced. Make the green one bigger, and the green circle becomes more important. Then make the red circle into an “o”… and suddenly the red circle is all you will notice. The ways of manipulating the viewers’ perception are myriad (though the author reminds us not to go overboard!) Check out A Book About Design and find ample inspiration for your next coloring project.

JD

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a neat book! Thanks for sharing this. I never would have discovered it otherwsie.

tt said...

This is a great book. Thanks for sharing as I never would have discovered it otherwise.