Graphic Designer's Essential Reference: Visual Ingredients, Techniques, and Layout Strategies for Graphic Designers

A good designer, like a good chef, is aware not only of how each ingredient is similar or different, but also which delivers one message in contrast to another, which will combine to create experiences that are harmonious or jarring, financial, medical, or industrial.

By comparing the designer to a chef, author Timothy Samara, walks readers through the ingredients, tools, and techniques it takes to create successful design recipes.

This book is broken into easy-to-follow sections, including basic design techniques, graphic ingredients, and projects recipes. The Graphic Ingredients section is categorized into four groups: Pictorial Staples, Chromatic Flavors, Typographic Confections, and Spatial Presentations. Once the basic design techniques and ingredients are established, the author demonstrates how to concoct delectable design recipes. Graphic Designer's Essential Reference is an inspirational resource that all graphic designers should keep by their workspace for handy reference.

The author:

Timothy Samara is a graphic designer based in New York City, where he divides his time between teaching, writing, lecturing, and consulting through STIM Visual Communication. His 18-year career in branding and information design has explored projects in print, packaging, environments, user interface design, and animation. He has been a senior art director at Ruder Finn, New York's largest public relations firm, and senior art director at Pettistudio, a small multidisciplinary design firm. Before relocating to Manhattan, he was principal of Physiologic in Syracuse, located in upstate New York. In 1990, he graduated a Trustee Scholar from the Graphic Design program at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Mr. Samara is a faculty member at New York's School of Visual Arts, New York University, Purchase College/SUNY, and The New School, and has published six books on design and typography, all through Rockport Publishers: Making and Breaking the Grid; Typography Workbook; Publication Design Workbook; Type Style Finder; Design Elements, Design Evolution, and, most recently, Letterforms, released in September, 2018. Mr. Samara and his partner live in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.