Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects [Paperback]

Sessions.edu (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0321336585 | ISBN-13: 978-0321336583 | Publication Date: August 25, 2005 | Edition: 1st ed.

Self-paced, self-guided instruction is all well and good, but at the end of the day, most people could use a little feedback--especially when they're ready to build a design portfolio and hit the job market. Not to worry, this book provides actual instructor feedback along with the self-paced, individualized instruction in Photoshop and Illustrator that designers need. Written by the faculty of New York-based, accredited online design school Sessions.edu, the book uses the school's trademark project-based curriculum to teach essential design concepts with Photoshop and Illustrator. After a brief intro to the world of graphic design, Sessions instructors provide quick "refresher course" chapters on the two programs. Then, armed with Photoshop and Illustrator basics, readers tackle a series of projects that stretch their imagination and creative muscles involving logo design, magazine layouts, illustrations, poster design, digital imaging, book cover design, packaging design, and more. Best of all, readers are encouraged to post their work for expert feedback from Session.edu faculty on "Studio Sessions," the custom Web site created for this book.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Self-paced, self-guided instruction is all well and good, but at the end of the day, most people could use a little feedback--especially when they're ready to build a design portfolio and hit the job market. Not to worry, this book provides actual instructor feedback along with the self-paced, individualized instruction in Photoshop and Illustrator that designers need. Written by the faculty of New York-based, accredited online design school Sessions.edu, the book uses the school's trademark project-based curriculum to teach essential design concepts with Photoshop and Illustrator. After a brief intro to the world of graphic design, Sessions instructors provide quick "refresher course" chapters on the two programs. Then, armed with Photoshop and Illustrator basics, readers tackle a series of projects that stretch their imagination and creative muscles involving logo design, magazine layouts, illustrations, poster design, digital imaging, book cover design, packaging design, and more. Best of all, readers are encouraged to post their work for expert feedback from Session.edu faculty on "Studio Sessions," the custom Web site created for this book.

About the Author

Sessions.edu, founded in 1997, brings new media design education to graphic and web designers worldwide, through online education. Once a pioneer and now a leader in the distance education industry, Sessions has delivered tens of thousands of courses to students in over 100 countries. The expertise and experience that has created the proven success of the online school is now offered to select universities and corporations that seek to enter or expand their presence in the competitive world of distance education. Sessions Online Design School offers certificate programs and courses in graphic design, web design, multimedia, business marketing design and digital arts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press; 1st ed. edition (August 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321336585
• ISBN-13: 978-0321336583
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Projects to be Reviewed by Professional Designers, September 24, 2005

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects (Paperback)

[...] The company is centered around on line training in the general area of graphics design. ==This book is designed to go with one of their courses. The goal of this course is to help you create a portfolio of your work. It has a series of projects where you download various components of a project, then you do the project and post your results back on-line. A Sessions instructor will then give you a short critique of your work so you will have specific person to person contact that lets you know how you are progressing. This is kind of like working as a designer and having the client look at what you've done.

As you might well guess from the sub-title, these projects are oriented to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. This is not exactly a beginners course in these software package. You should have at least some beginning understanding of how to use these packages. The concentration hers is on improving your design skills, not on the details of the software.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Half way through the book, Recommended, August 2, 2006

By 

Apprentice - See all my reviews

This review is from: Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects (Paperback)

Graphic Design Portfolio Builder is a good supplemental book for designers and beginning students. I wrote supplemental because this book does not comprehensively cover the features of Photoshop and Illustrator software (and it wasn't suppose to) but to help beginners you get familiar with the software and up and running.

The book is very colorful, well laid out and full of useful information. What is comphrehensive is that it covers all aspects of what designers or artists would face and be challenged at work or in classrooms. Each lesson is written by an professional designers and artists with years of experience and I highly enjoyed reading the chapters so far.

The projects in the book are fairly challenging and somewhat time consuming which is good since it makes you explore the software to its full potential if you're feeling ambious.

For inspirations, I recommend you checkout other students work in the book or on their website. It really challenges you to come up with your best work and experiment with different ideas and creative concepts.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for getting your feet wet!, March 20, 2006

By 

J. Stratman (Tri-Cities) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Graphic Design Portfolio-Builder: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator Projects (Paperback)

PROS:
Easy reading... lots of hands on pratice, which is also worded in an easy to understand language... Comes with a FREE membership to basically a webgroup website, but if you choose to take advantage of the service, the very authors of the book will critique and help you develop your projects, VERY HELPFUL/VERY COOL

CONS:
You have to have photoshop and illustrator in order to take advantage of this product