Design Basics Index
blogThe design autodidact constantly fears being found out. Unlike those who have been taught, they cannot afford to be complacent. Every day there is a popular article on del.icio.us outlining some design tip or typographical technique that will help prevent you appearing gauche in your work. But whilst these tips are great in the long term, in the short term they only serve to increase the anxiety. What you need is a firm grounding, a complete overview, preferably without the expense of going to college.
Jim Krause’s Design Basics Index aims to provide just such an overview, tackling all the practical problems of graphic design and outlining all the places where you can go ‘wrong’. It is both an introduction and a reference work, asking questions of the designer on every page. It even comes in protective rubberized covers, easily robust enough for frequent browsing or holding open to flatten the spine.
As with any book that focuses on such topics as colour and photographic texture no expense has been spared. The full colour printing is crisp and it is bright to the point of garishness. Indeed, at first blush, it feels rather badly designed and out of date, as though it came from the early Nineties (it says (c) 2004), but don’t let that put you off. Krause doesn’t limit himself to any one fashionable aesthetic and, of course, by criticizing his work you can start improving your own.
The book is divided into three sections: Composition, Components and Concept. 1) Composition is all about the way layouts fit together, why some integrate better than others and how to situate graphical elements; 2) Components concentrates on the graphical elements themselves — from typography to illustration to photography; 3) Concept brings everything together through theme, mood and idea.
Of the three, I found the Conceptual side the most useful; largely because Krause is very good at introducing concepts that prick one’s creativity. And it is through feeling creative that the designer — whether or not they are an autodidact — feels confident and assured.