Customer Reviews

Before and After Graphics for Business

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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What a wonderful book this is. As a graphic designer, I have quite a collection of design books - this book offers a tremendous amount of practical design tips and instruction. Take a look at the topics covered in the book:

- Newsletter Design
- Using Typefaces
- Designing Stationary
- Logos & Identity
- Business Forms
- Charts
- Annual Reports

I think the most important aspect of this book is that it doesn't just show you HOW to design a report, it emphasizes how to create a GOOD LOOKING report - that's pretty rare. Most design books are little more than instruction manuals for the latest software. Here we have a book that is software independent and focuses on making your designs look good.

The title of this book is misleading, a more appropriate title might be "Graphics For Design" because this book has a wealth of knowledge that relates to more than just business.

I urge anybody reading this to buy this book - especially young graphic design freelancers looking to establish a business identity.

VERY WELL DONE.

I'll take any and all help I can get when it comes to doing graphical design for a website. I got the book Before and After Graphics For Business by John McWade (Peachpit Press), and it's a wealth of ideas and concepts.

Chapter List: Newsletters; Stationery; Logos & Identity; Sales & Forms; Charts, Reports, Calendars, & Maps; Index

Like all good (or at least what I consider "good") books on graphic design, this is a lavishly illustrated volume that does a great job on taking "before" examples of business literature and giving them a make-over to enhance their image and design. McWade does an excellent job in explaining the use of fonts, colors, and spacing in creating designs that convey a consistent theme and image for the company. Along the way, you pick up a working understanding of typesetting vocabulary, like kerning and leading. By the time you get done, you might actually understand what that "art-y guy" in the next cubicle is talking about...

The other thing I appreciate about this book is the large number of examples. While you wouldn't necessarily want to "borrow" exact images and logos that he's created, you can easily follow how he's built them and the techniques you can follow to come up with your own ideas. I actually came away from this book thinking I could possibly come up with a redesigned logo for my blog site. I don't know that I *will*, but I think I could now.

This is one of those books I'll take into work and make sure no one walks off with it...

Before & After is one of my favorite design magazines. The project examples, step-by-step guidelines and practical articles have always been excellent resources for designers of all education and experiences levels. With Graphics for Business, author, designer and teacher John McWade teaches the reader how to make their business look great. The book is not logo or corporate identity specific. In addition to logo design, McWade covers the creation of newsletters, stationery, sales pieces and forms, and charts, reports, calendars and maps. Still, the logo and identity section of the book (44 pages of the volume) explains logos very well and provides great examples of how to design lettermarks, wordmarks, monograms, ligatures and other forms of identities. Playing with type, words, shapes and illustrative elements are all presented in fun and well-illustrated manner. The book will be a great addition to the design library of anyone interested in producing a strong image for their business, or that of a client. - Jeff Fisher, writer of bLog-oMotives and the "Logo Notions" column at CreativeLatitude.com

Yet another great book from the folks at Before & After. I have the Before & After Page Design book and subscribe to the PDF magazine. Even with all that, I still liked the addition of this book. It covers the usual business situations like newsletters, stationery, logos, forms and charts. The ideas illustrated and dissected here were found to be light bulb creating. I was able to apply a few of the tips right away to some projects I was working on at the time.

Some of the nuggets I enjoyed most were the comparison and discussion of what typefaces are best for what text that can be applied to all sorts of type, logo creation and thought process and the charts. The charts were not just your average pie charts, but great design elements.

Again, I'm impressed by another Before & After project. The illustrations and explanations help new and intermediate designers improve the craft. I'm sure seasoned professionals can pick up a few tips too.

I am a former graphic worker and I now teach this matter to students who have no ideas of the state of the art.
The book is professionnal and easy to use, and all examples are so helpfull to any people who need advices in business graphics.

This book is a fabulous tutorial for anyone needing graphics in their business. Chapters are short, easy to understand, with lots of clear pictures. The before and after style is especially nice, as it shows what is possible with very little effort.

"Graphics for Business" is a great resource for generating ideas for creative projects. Whether you're tasked with putting together a corporate newsletter, or coming up with a new logo and branding for a client, "Graphics for Business" is an invaluable resource and reference tool. I found the section on layouts particularly useful, and have gotten a lot of great ideas for newsletters and corporate reports. The ideas presented here could easily be utilized for other types of print design as well (flyers, resumes, etc.). This book is a collection of some of the best articles from the "Before & After" magazines by John McWade. Highly recommended for anyone that wants their publications to stand out from the pack!

This book explains the basics (and some more advanced concepts) of good graphic design without overwhelming the reader with technical terms nor "dumbing down" the vocabulary for the novice. There are plenty of colourful examples and the book follows its own advice! This book lacks, however, the specific steps to accomplish the different design goals, but this is probably due the many publishing packages available. It assumes the reader will figure that out for himself (or herself.) The book is a compact 200 page document that is filled with useful information from cover to cover and is a great addition to any designer's reference library.

I really liked this book. it had a lot of ideas that anyone could put together. But I would mostly recommend it for someone who is not a design professional, but needs to come up with a design to suit a business need. Someone starting their own business, but cant afford a design team should definately invest in this book (and just about any B&A product!)

Finally, John McWade has compiled the brilliant articles from his magazine Before and After into a useful book. This volume is a collection of how-to articles ranging from newsletters to letterhead and should be read by every small (and large) business owner. If McWade were king, there would be a lot less crap "out there" and the graphics of business communication would be a lot better.