Recently in Graphic Design Category

One Show Design is a great collection of conservative but amazing design (especially if you like works produced by Ogilvy & Mather & Apple).  They have a good broad spectrum of advertising, design, and packaging which make it worth the price.



Most notable is the brilliant campaign by Big Ant Int. for the Global Coalition for Peace, What Comes Around Goes Around.

Straight up graphic design, for some reason coined under the sub title "uniquely designed by hand". Granted a lot of the designs are potentially designed by hand, most are finished digitally and the materials list ends in "software".

Aside from that its an amazing collection and well worth putting on the shelf. Works by:


El Jefe Design

Great big design books packed with solid content are very hard to come by, especially affordable ones with "modern" content that is not all the same riff raff we have seen repeated for the last two or three years.

The atlas provides a look around the world of great design (600 pages worth on a nice thin glossy paper), although most of it is not the type of design you would see published in the real world. The design  borders on student looking with touches of genius that most of us would never attempt in our design careers. It also displays work from famous designers that you would not normally see. I have a hard time putting this one down.

Rockport Publishers, 2009

Dare to say "a must read". Almost.

Green Graphic Design should be a student primer for anyone entering the field of print. It gives a good overall snapshot of a burgeoning (and necessary) movement, including FSC certification by printers, the truth about ink usage and how the true environmental impact happens at the press.

The book is a quick read but just enough to show that just choosing post consumer waste is not enough if you are going to be an environmentally aware designer. For experienced designers it can reiterate what you already know and help explain other important processes, such as the making of the paper itself, that can be as important. This book will likely be one of a few current primers that will lead to many more like it.

Allworth Press, 2008