: Suggestion on introductory books about graphic design I will probably get some downvotes for this since I asked a similar question here: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/29362/cs-graduate-starting-out-in-graphics-desi

@Goswami567

These are my top must-reads for all new designers:

The Elements of Typographic Style

How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

I have more, but need the reputation in order to post.

— JMS

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@Cooney243

I understand your predicament. You can't learn every topic but that doesn't mean you can't get your feet wet with many. Having a survey-level comprehension of graphic design will make you better in other areas and hopefully help you collect a few extra Euros along the way ;)

If I had to choose one

There are a lot of design books out there. Many are geared toward novices. Many are terrible. But there is one I would recommend for every library.



Typographic Design: Form and Communication

This book will take you briefly through historical developments to give you a broad understanding of the discipline. Then it moves onto the practical, foundational aspects of well designed communication. It's fairly easy to scan when you need to catch up, but deep enough to serve as the starting point of a design education. It's been around a long time but its principals still hold up well.

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@BetL875

Here are the steps you should take at this point:


Obtain and read "The Non-Designer's Design and Type Books" by Robin Williams. This is the book I consistently recommend to anyone in your situation and quite often to my own clients to help them get a better grasp on the subject. It's easy to read, very practical, and full of simple-to-grasp visual examples to groove in the fundamentals.
Subscribe to "Before and After" magazine. Publisher John McWade, one of my heroes, also has a number of excellent videos online that illustrate design craft fundamentals. You might say that Before and After starts where the Non-Designer's Design Book leaves off.
Once you have that under your belt, go out and pick up flyers from kiosks, hotel lobbies, tourism centers, museums or anywhere you find them on display. Compare them to what you've learned so far. When something is effective, identify why it's effective; do the same for things that look bad. This will greatly increase your recognition of what's good and what's not, and will start to build the visual vocabulary you will need to start making your own designs.
Pick out two or three of these flyers that you find particularly effective. Work out how you could create them with the tools you know. Actually recreate at least one of them as closely as you can. Don't neglect this step. Keep at it until you're able to create a good duplicate (perhaps with different images, but slavishly copying the design) of your model. This grooves in basic craft skills that you have to have to do anything useful.
Find a flyer template that will keep you straight on dimensions, bleeds, where folds will be, and nitty-gritty technical details like that. There are plenty out there. Printing companies very often have them on their websites, and if you know what printer you want to work with you should use their template.
Start creating your own flyer. Be willing to throw things away, start over, abandon an idea that doesn't work out even after you've invested many sleepless hours on it. Frank Lloyd Wright famously declared that his most useful tools were the eraser in the drafting office and the sledgehammer on the building site. It's a good maxim to keep in mind. Being willing to ditch an unworkable idea frees you to make things that do work.
Any time you aren't sure where to go with some part of the design, go back to the Robin Williams book and see if the answer isn't in there.


Chances are it will take a few iterations before you and the client are satisfied, but by the time you've done a few of these you'll have started to get a good feel for the design process and the practicalities of creating flyers.

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@Alves566

This is not the ultimate answer, just my droplet

Thou Shall Not Use Comic Sans

I find that this book, although sounds silly and gimmicky, is actually a great introduction to graphic design. Not a text book at all, but for somebody starting to "think" about design it is great, because of its light and humorous tone and because of the huge spectrum it covers.

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@Jessie844

I am not going to give you a massive list of resources, but as a basic understanding of graphic elements, I will recommend first:

Visual Grammar by Christian Leborg

I also think that seasoned designers would do well to dip into this now and then; we often get stuck in our use of elements. It goes right to the base of the nature of visual grammar.

Best thing is; you can download it for free from Google.

Since you have recently finished this, for type, I would suggest:

Thinking with type by Ellen Lupton

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