Looking Good in Print, Fourth Edition (Paperback)

~ (Editor), Patrick Berry (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This book is an excellent choice for anyone aspiring to become a successful desktop-publishing professional. In fact, it's the guide, long respected in the desktop-publishing community, and this fourth edition has more examples of good and bad designs than ever.

Parker and Berry first discuss essential design concepts such as relevance, proportion, consistency, contrast, restraint, and attention to detail. Next the authors teach you about basic tools for organizing layouts: grids, columns, gutters, headlines, kickers, captions, bullet lists, and pull quotes, to name a few. They delve into the intricacies of typography and font families, highlighting such concepts as type size, alignment, and leading and kerning. Next you learn about the use of white space and about rulers and accents such as borders, boxes, drop shadows, and bleeds. The authors discuss illustrations, clip art, backgrounds, charts, diagrams, tables, and maps and advise you on positioning those elements on a page. There's also a lot of information on selecting, resizing, and placing photographs. A full-color chapter illustrates how to choose color and use spot color, full color, and duotones.

At this point the authors move from theory to hands-on projects--you apply the design concepts that they have already put forth. You learn about the appropriate design, graphic, and text elements for newsletters, ads, catalogs, and other business correspondence. Each chapter in this section offers plenty of illustrations and ends with a checklist of reminders that you can refer to as you design.

Especially useful are chapter 12, which features common design mistakes along with illustrations and explanations of what's wrong, and chapter 13, which highlights redesigns of poorly produced publications. The latter is a before-and-after glimpse of designs of almost all types of publications, from newsletter to survey. These two chapters drive home succinctly and with great visual impact every point of design that the authors have previously discussed. Finally, the appendix offers extra tips on printing in color, and choosing image databases, paper, and service bureaus.

The authors don't refer to the Windows or Macintosh operating systems or to any software programs. The understanding is that you will learn how to use your software tools elsewhere and consult the book for elements of design. That's a reasonable goal, as the authors maintain a clear, concise tone and offer many tips that are tangential but still relevant to the subject matter. For example, the chapter on type has a short sidebar on the difference between kerning and tracking and a longer sidebar on font substitution. All in all, this book functions well as both a how-to manual for beginning designers and as a design reference for more advanced designers. --Kathleen Caster

Review

Now celebrating its 10th anniversary with nearly a quarter million copies sold, Looking Good in Print has become a classic and virtually launched an entire genre. Recognized as the definitive work in its category, this book features new information on service bureaus, color and printing, color lasers, new technologies, and much more.

The New York Times says, "If you can afford only one book on desktop publishing, this is the one." MacWEEK says, "A graphic design primer for anyone who wants to design better-looking...desktop-published printed material." From PC Week, "Looking Good in Print is an excellent and valuable resource."

The fourth edition has been updated to reflect the now-mature desktop publishing world, covering all the commonly used print publishing formats.

The book coaches designers to design with the reader (and readability) in mind, taking advantage of the strengths of the print medium while finessing its weaknesses, and avoiding both common and obscure design pitfalls. -- Book Description

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Coriolis Group Books; 4th edition (April 29, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566048567
• ISBN-13: 978-1566048569
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,302,494 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best crash course in desktop publishing available., January 14, 1999

By	akwriter "write4success" (Anchorage, AK) - See all my reviews

As a freelance writer who dabbles in desktop publishing, I've been searching for months for a concise, well-written, easy-to-grasp "how-to" book on DTP. I've consulted with graphic artists, posted messages online, and asked everyone I know for just such a book. I can't believe no one ever suggested "Looking Good in Print!" I stumbled across this book here on Amazon.com and decided to give it a whirl, and I couldn't be happier. This guide provides practical, step-by-step advice on conceptualizing your design, mastering the tools and techniques, and putting it all together to create great looking publications. With sections on illustrations and photos, printing techniques, and dealing with service bureaus, this book covers all the bases. Highly recommended!

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good content supported by extensive examples., September 15, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Boise, Idaho, USA) - See all my reviews

This is the most "readable" book on graphic design for desktop publishing that I own. This book assumes you are already familiar with your software. Examples are outstanding; often the same text & graphic elements are presented in a variety of ways. Content is concise and simple, and directed at the intermediate to advanced user. The first half of the book deals with elements of design; the second half incorporates that info with special pointers for newsletters, ads, brochures, catalogs, letterheads, reports, resumes, forms, business cards, etc. My favorite chapter was "Common Design Pitfalls", followed by a chapter of redesigns.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical advice for print and web, January 26, 2006

By	Jack D. Herrington "engineer and author" (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Looking Good in Print (Paperback)

I like this book because it not only covers the technical side of print and web work, but it also covers style and to some degree content. I like how the author encourages the reader to reel the design elements in. All to often the lure of the design pallette becomes too tempting and the design overshadows the content. This book will have your design complementing the content, which is how it should be.