The anatomy of our bodies requires sitting; but do we design seats in the same way? Has our meaning of sitting been colonised by Modern design? And how is the diverse, social-cultural act of sitting itself reflected in this functional commodity? In observing and analysing social and cultural differences through chairs from eight cultures in the most populated countries, Sicilian designer Matteo Guarnaccia went on a field research to portray each country, in collaboration with selected local d...

Providing tactical strategies and creative support to tackle the complexities of balancing intuition and taste, technical and personal capability, strategic business decisions in design work and the demands of modern brand building, this book speaks to students, educators, and seasoned professionals. Part personal memoir and part professional manual by Matt Owens, A Visible Distance, Craft, Creativity, and the Business of Design is a reality check to challenges when building a practice in gra...

Candles is a photographic essay by Tim Onderbeke. Fascinated by the sacred, ritual, and cerebral act of lighting a candle, the artist began collecting images of candles and candlesticks in an artistic or art-historical context. In Candles, Onderbeke uses his own work and that of others to research what he calls “the colour of darkness,” or negative space – a concept he borrowed from the Japanese writer and essayist Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. Tanizaki describes this intense experience he ha...

Capitalism could not exist without the coins, banknotes, documents, information graphics, interfaces, branding, and advertisements made by graphic designers. Even anti-consumerist strategies such as social design and speculative design are appropriated to serve economic growth. It seems design is locked in a cycle of exploitation and extraction, furthering inequality and environmental collapse. CAPS LOCK uses clear language and visual examples to show how graphic design and capitalism are ine...

Now in full-color throughout, the second edition of Packaging Design offers fully up-to-date coverage of the entire packaging design process, including the business of packaging design, design principles, the creative process, and pre-production and production issues. New chapters cover topics related to branding, business strategies, social responsibility, and sustainability. All new case studies and examples illustrate every phase of the process, making this the single most important guide ...

Designing Type is a comprehensive guide to type design is hailed as a 'must-have' for typographers, graphic designers and students and has been fully refreshed and updated with the introduction of more contemporary typefaces, more explanatory diagrams and a closer connection between text and corresponding image.

The new edition of Designing Type also features more in-depth discussion of the processes behind developing typefaces and the basic issues that need to be taken into consideration suc...

Graphs, maps, stats, and diagrams: this collection of infographics explores the development of visual communication in the big data age. More than 400 exemplary graphics-ranging from journalism to art, government to education-are accompanied by essays tracing the evolving art form that is pictorial explanation. Complete with in-depth fact...

Many designs that appear in today's society will circulate and encounter audiences of many different cultures and languages. With communication comes responsibility; are designers aware of the meaning and impact of their work? An image or symbol that is acceptable in one culture can be offensive or even harmful in the next. A typeface or colour in a design might appear to be neutral, but its meaning is always culturally dependent. If designers learn to be aware of global cultural contexts, we...