Customer Reviews

Exploring the Elements of Design (Design Exploration Series)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book give you a solid base to be a good designer, inside it you can read about theories and principles of design with a lot of real-world pratical solutions.
The book covers the principles of scale, balance, repetition and proximity; the elements of shape, line, size, color, texture, imagery and typography. At the end of each chapter you have a real-world project to do and a list of questions about the chapter.

At all I can say that this book is a must have and much better than the "Design for non-Designers" book.

I am using this book for a design class I'm taking in an effort to improve my seemingly hopeless eye for anything creative. This could be a great book. It includes a lot of interesting information and projects to reinforce the concepts introduced in each chapter.

Unfortunately it is also rife with typographical, spelling, and grammatical errors, which distract me as I'm reading (e.g., inconsistent capitalization of list items, incorrect hyphenation, multiple verb tenses in a single phrase, and just plain misspellings or incorrect words). There are also multiple layout inconsistencies and mistakes (missing line feeds before new paragraphs and extra spaces in sentences). Finally, at least once there is what appears to be an editorial comment that was never removed from a paragraph. See p. 97, 1st paragraph (2nd edition) (Also note what is probably a missing space between the two sentences.):

"Nothing seems as boring and can alienate a reader more quickly than a page of statistics.That is where charts can help (seems to add emphasis to leave as two sentences)."

If you are the type of person who is driven crazy by grammar errors and the like, you might want to look elsewhere. That said, I am one of those people, but since I'm stuck with the book for my class, I'm pushing through it, and when I can make myself look past all the mistakes, I find I learn a lot.

Came a little late on my first day of class but I didn't need it. But it arrived by the day I picked which was Monday. Very good shape! But I gave it a 4. Nothing's perfect. Like textbooks lol

This book added more insight to the skills I have been developing in graphic arts. It will make a nice resource.

If you want to become a graphic or web designer, then you've got to know more than just the software. You also have to be familiar with the fundamental principles of design. This book is an excellent way to accomplish that. Well written and copiously illustrated, it guides the beginning designer through classic artistic basics such as hierarchy, balance, and unity of composition, then moves on to color theory, typography and other vital subjects. It is easy to understand but is by no means "dumbed down." This book was the text for an online course I took in design basics and I found it enormously helpful. You will too.

Great book! It's great for beginners and spells everything out in an easy to learn way. I enjoyed the examples and all the little extras they added here and there to make everything sink in well.

This book was a text book for my college course Intro to Graphic Design. I loved the book. It's easy to understand and provides a lot of great references, instruction and detail. I learned alot about design from this text. This book provides a good, solid introduction to graphic design.

Got this book for my Basic Design Principles class. It explains the basics well and I am gonna keep it around for reference.

I bought this book for an introductory design class and it is great. Colorful illustrations, in-depth examples, and an organized way to define and demonstrate the basic design concepts make it a fun educational read. I will be keeping this book long after the class is over.

This text has some good assignment merit and can be a great tool if supplemented with outside materials. It is well written, easy to read and covers the elements of design in a logical way. If you are a teacher like me, this will be a good resource/ idea book to jump-start your lessons and planning.