Book Review: GRAPHIC DESIGN NOW

Lately, I've been picking up more and more books related to Art & Design, which has led me to possibly start a new segment on PID. As I've discussed with Shalimar, there's a lot of urge to take in as much information as possible on the field of Graphic Design and truly see what's out there. And now that this blog is about to turn a whole year old, I thought to myself "Let's not only share our work, but more of the work of others that are influencing the world of art and design." So below is a short review of a book that I picked up recently, that i think you should all pick up.

GRAPHIC DESIGN NOW
Charlotte & Peter Fiell




I impulsively picked up this book, as I do with most of my design books, and stored it away in the dark corners of my bedroom. I tend to do this with one glance of a book, mostly due to my short attention span and laziness. But as I was packing for work earlier this week, I decided I'd trade in my iPod for a book, and I'm really glad I did. As I scanned, read, and oggled over this book on my commute, I was pleasently surprised by the great thought that went into the selection of design/designers in this book. 'GRAPHIC DESIGN NOW', Is in essence, a spotlight on some of today's most influential and innovative Graphic Designers. The book definetly delivers that much and more. The entire book is filled with over a hundred Designers and Agencies that really have pushed the envelope on design, and I was really happy to see that the book really included a great scope of design styles and ethics. It ranged from very Traditional Design, Editorial Design ( Suburbia Media), and very Fine Arts based Design (MM Paris). The mix was really pleasent to see. But I must say, hands down, that the best feature of the book were the Designer Quotes that acted as opening pages for the following Design Spotlights (I'll be finishing off the post with one of my favorites). All in all, it acted as a very interesting visual interpretation of today's design with a lot of insight to their ideas and approaches. Pick it up if you have a chance, it's worth it.

"Graphic Design is the intersection point between art and communication." - Phillipe Apeloig

"Amidst all of the hype of modern design and computers, we have remained true by generating the majority of our designs by hand, viewing the computer as a tool and not letting it dictate our designs" - Ames Design