Product Description
Learn design theory and practical know-how from the award-winning author/design team, Robin Williams and John Tollett! Robin Williams introduced design and typographic principles to legions of readers with her best-selling Non-Designer’s book series. Now she and designer/co-author John Tollett take you to the next level of creative design with practical advice and lessons in composition, visual impact, and design challenges.
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Robin Williams Design Workshop, 2nd Edition
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As a self-taught, working graphic designer, I am indebted once again to Robin Williams’ clear, principle-based teaching approach. Having become her fan through the “Non-Designer” book series, I found this one the best help yet.
Williams gives us more principles of sound design, which she then shows at work through a series of daily applications–letterhead, web sites, brochures, etc. She uses the principles in example after example, explaining why they are examples of good or blah design. I return to her examples again and again for simple ideas to juice up my non-profit communications and raise my customers’ expectations of visual communication.
Snazzy pictures, lots of ideas, and comforting encouragement all make this one an essential part of my reference library.
Rating: 5 / 5
I am not a graphics artist nor an art student. I needed some ideas for a project and this book came in very handy. I learned a lot from “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” by the same author and when I saw this book, I just had to get it. It is one of my best investments yet. I love learning new things and this book opened my eyes to many aspects of design.
At first, I was almost going to give up and hand over the project to a professional but after reading the book, I found many helpful ideas and was inspired to give it a try on my own. I produced a flyer, a Flash presentation, a product logo and a report layout and cover based on the lessons from these two books. I will not claim that they are works of art but many friends and clients have complemented on the outcome. Some of my clients even thought that I had had them professionally done.
Although there are others who will say that some of us just has the flair for designing, I don’t think I would have been able to do all that without the help of these two books. For those of you who wish to create artwork for print, I would recommend starting with “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” and then advancing to this book. Also check out some other books by the same publisher mentioned in the introductory chapter of this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
Robin Williams Design Workshop is a well written text that contains a lot of valuable information for both beginners and those already familiar with desk top publishing. Design Workshop gives you some new ways to look at things, including many good examples that demonstrate concepts discussed in the text. Design Workshop is directed at those who have some existing knowledge on the areas of typography, graphics, and layout software. However, she presents short quizzes that allow you to test your knowledge and if you feel the need, she also provides references where the information can be found. I do a lot of advertising layouts in addition to a quarterly newsletter that will benefit from the information and ideas discussed in the book. Robin Williams Design Workshop is the kind of a book you will read more than once-a good reference.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book was very insightful. I am a desktop publishing professional and was looking for ideas for website design. This book enlightened me to the many considerations in designing for paper distribution versus web publishing. It asked questions on a number of design topics and based upon your expertise level, the author directed you to other references. The illustrations were great. I am going to purchase The Non-Designers Design Book and The Non-Designers Web Book by Robin Williams and John Tollett.
Rating: 5 / 5
I found this book very informative and interesting. It had a lot of useful information, and the info was presented in a very “reader-friendly” format. There were a lot of examples in the book used to prove a point, instead of a `just take it for granted’ procedure. The book was simple and straightforward but not boring. The book was written `to’ the audience, with words like `you’ and `your’ instead of `one’ or `some designers’. It really made the book have a personal impact.
On the other hand, the book wasn’t `all encompassing’, like it seemed to be. Many references to previous books by the author showed that this was a book for most people. I would have added more to the book instead of constantly referring to previous books, if I was the author. Also, in the book, questions are asked to the reader, but there aren’t answers printed anywhere in the book, which can be confusing.
Personally, I would rate this book as an 8 on a scale of 1-10. It was a great book to read and it taught me a lot. It could have had more `guts’, but it was very well written. I would definitely suggest this book to others, if they were interested in design. It was well worth my time and a good book to `keep on file!’
By M.L.Conklin
Rating: 4 / 5