(Part 2) Best graphic design techniques books according to redditors

[She outdid herself with the new version's cover art.] (http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-Basics-Amy-Arntson/dp/1111347174/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)

My friend has a mandala book made out of it.

The newer newer edition is better. Just not much better.

I'm an introvert all the way so I love being alone, but a lot if times I slide into a pattern of marathoning shows on Netflix, which is not the most productive past time. I will say that Gilmore Girls has been lifting my spirits for a few months now, though!

After finishing the series I decided to put down the remote and pick up a crayon. Seriously! I bought a bunch of coloring books and I've been really enjoying coloring, sometimes while listening to chill music. My latest favorites are this book and listening to Atlas: Year One by Sleeping at Last spotify link.

You're making this too easy.

Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy

Amazon link to Art Fundamentals book- I loved this book, it was very easy to read and very informative.

Check out Feng Zhu, David Rapoza, Shaddy Saffadi on Youtube. Check out Daily Spitpaint and Level Up! groups on Facebook. Both have great communities and are super helpful for beginners.

Now to practice...

• Anatomy Drawing Practice - Great resource, I make a point of doing this as often as possible. Even just twenty minutes a day can bring you leaps and bounds!
  
• Anatomy Drawing Tips
  
• DeviantArt has a wide variety of stock images you can use for studies. Studies are pieces that aim to help the artist practice a certain element. For example colour, lighting, texture, values... etc. This study was something I did to practice hair.
  
• Do these EVERY DAY.
  
• This is an interesting article by MTG artist Noah Bradley that discusses why you shouldn't go to art school but I'm putting it here because there are a lot of resources he provides in it if you scroll down.
  
  
  I'll update this post if I think of anything else. These are just off the top of my head.
  

I found it on Amazon for half off!

The Famous Red Notebook by Best Made co has doted pages. Check out the second image to see.

There is this dot grid notebook at Creatives Outiftter.

This dot grid journal at Levenger.

And This sort of generic one from Amazon.

In general it seems like searching for dot grid notebook is pretty fruitful.

GEA is the book I wish I wrote! It is fantastic and matches my professional game development experience on consoles and PC spot on. Tons of little tips and tricks that only experience teaches!

The only weakness is that the multiplayer section is (almost) non-existent in both 1st Ed. and 2nd Ed. I really don't why know there aren't any good "Game Networking" books?? They (almost) ALL SUCK. Believe me I keep looking. MMO Game Dev 1 & 2 are finefrom a high level but lack low-to-mid level implementation details.

Thankfully we have Beej's Networking Guide, and open source (BSD) RakNet and Quake Engines, but still, a good game networking book aside from the ancient TCP/IP Illustrated would be much appreciated.

Hopefully somebody will fill that niche / need ...

Edit: Fixed GEA OCD :-)

Start by downloading scribus, gimp, and inkscape.

These will be your free design suite. Scribus is a layout application, like Adobe InDesign. Gimp is a photomanipulation application like Adobe Photoshop. Inkscape is a vector graphics application, like Adobe Illustrator.

None of these applications are as easy to use or as powerful as the Adobe suite, but several hundred dollars isn't "little to no cost," so you're going to have to make do. Plus, there's probably a ton for you to learn, anyway.

For the design side, try this book. It starts at the very beginning, and gives you some great beginner tools like the "works every time" (or WET) layout.

I'm personally using this one right now. Definitely going to pick up another.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1481011162/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I know that the calendar comes with stickers, and it's only 8 bucks right now:

Animal Crossing 2016 Wall Calendar https://www.amazon.com/dp/1419716891/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_l6vPwbZEHBQV2

Check out Getting it printed and Print production handbook

Prepress is pretty easy once you've done it a few times, to be honest. Juts learn about resolution (DPI), line screens, bleeds, and color first.

Aside from that most of what you'll learn will be from experience over time - you're never going to be able to learn everything you need to know upfront because the field changes (with digital presses becoming more and more commonplace) and the prepress will always vary based on the specs of the job at hand. You'll think you know it all and you'll get some massive airport signage printed on some weird poly material that will throw you for a loop when it comes to matching color.

Yeah! It comes with stickers too! You really can't go wrong, especially for the price.

$7 http://www.amazon.com/Color-Your-Own-Deadpool-McGuinness/dp/130290051X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463939442&sr=8-1&keywords=Color+Your+Own+Deadpool

https://www.amazon.com/Mandalas-Meditation-Scratch-Off-Lark-Crafts/dp/1454710179

There are lots of books that are nice to look at, but the one I've personally gotten the most use out of is The Color Index. There are also companion books: the Idea Index and Layout Index.

I used to have juuust enough color sense to know that my color schemes were crap. So I got some books full of color schemes, with bits of discussion on what was going on in them. At first I'd just pull colors out verbatim; as time went on I internalized a lot of things. If I was starting now I'd probably be hitting up the sites people mentioned above as well; this was back in the 90s before these kinds of sites existed.

The biggest advice I have: Vary things in hue, saturation, and value. A very very common problem is to only change H and S; when two colors are the same value, or close, they blend together indistinctly. I'll sometimes throw a desaturation layer over my work to make sure it works in greyscale.

Delete whatever default palette your art program gives you for a new document. It's probably full of hideous hyper-saturated colors that you'll end up using without thinking. (This is the equivalent of working with colors straight out of the tube in real media.) Keep your saturation below about 60-75% most of the time; save the super-saturated colors for when you want something to pop.

I don't ever really say "I want to go with a split complement scheme" or the like, I just think "well I did this as blue and purple, now I want this detail to pop, oh yeah something amber looks good". If you're working digitally then take advantage of whatever you can do to quickly push the colors around - experiment, play, learn! (It's not the endless rescalability that makes me love Illustrator; it's the fact that I can use 'global' palette swatches that immediately change the entire drawing when I play with them, as if I was palette-swapping a Street Fighter character or something!)

>On a small scale would VMs work for simulating the different servers?

Sure.

> Any good books to start with creating something like an MMO server?

Massively Multiplayer Game Development is about the best I've found. There is also a second edition, which I haven't read. These are collections of essays on different topics in MMO game development, so don't expect a guide that holds your hand through building an entire system.

Additionally, EVE Online has documented quite a bit about their architecture here.

There's a lot to learn in terms of user experience, user interaction, user interface, and graphic design and typography. Often, a design team that works on major sites/software will be multidisciplinary with differing design backgrounds working to compliment each other's skills.

However, a good understanding of Human, Computer Interaction principles is essential for every developer. This might be a good starting point: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/human-computer-interaction-brief-intro but there is a whole canon of work from HCI up to modern UX thinking.

For a quick UI design walk through you could try Know Your Onions, you might find some of it useful and much of it quite basic. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Know-Your-Onions-Web-Design/dp/9063693125

Reminds me of this [coloring book](Grimm Fairy Tales Adult Coloring Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/1942275242/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_Ovnryb5PNDP5P)

this week just got started and it's sucking because I have $20 to last the next 2 weeks but this..

Color Your Own Young Marvel by Skottie Young https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785195556/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_It2ACbM3BSKV6

..would make me feel more on the super duper side.

Don't make me think - The seminal book on web usability

The definitive guide to HTML5 - Great book to cement your current knowledge of HTML,CSS,and jscript while preparing you for more advanced concepts.

White space is not your enemy - I think this is the book every non designer should start with. It's the best introduction to the art of expressing through visual communication and introduces concepts that you'll start tweaking on your own as your repertoire and skill grows. It also introduces some valuable habits necessary of all designers.

Naturally these are just the books I would reccomend. I would also supplement them with up to date standards like Opera Web Standards Curriculm and active javascript practice that sites such as Codeacademy offer.

EDIT: Apparently, Opera's updated it's standard and donated them to W3

Uncategorized:

Thoughts On Design: Paul Rand


Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design

How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

Paul Rand

Paul Rand: Conversations with Students

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design

Bauhaus

The Vignelli Canon

Vignelli From A to Z

Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible

It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book

Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)

Josef Muller-Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design

Popular Lies About Graphic Design

100 Ideas that Changed Art

100 Diagrams That Changed the World

Basics Design 08: Design Thinking

Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965

Lella and Massimo Vignelli (Design is One)

The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice

History of the Poster

How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer

The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics

George Lois: On His Creation of the Big Idea

Milton Glaser: Graphic Design

Sagmeister: Made You Look

Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?

Things I have learned in my life so far

Covering the '60s: George Lois, the Esquire Era

Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

[Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration]
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812993012/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=VEJ64Y4T0U6J&coliid=I1WMMNNLTRBQ9G)

Graphic Design Thinking (Design Briefs)

I Used to Be a Design Student: 50 Graphic Designers Then and Now

The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design

Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference

Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Envisioning Information

The elements of dynamic symmetry

The elements of content strategy

Corporate Diversity: Swiss graphic design and advertising

Book Design: a comprehensive guide

Meggs' History of Graphic Design

White Lines Brand?

I'm still using my copy of the color index, which has to be at least ten years old by now.

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Index-Revised-Jim-Krause/dp/1440302626

Here it is: http://www.amazon.com/Massively-Multiplayer-Game-Development-Charles/dp/1584503904

There are lots on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Your-Own-Women-Power/dp/1302901583/

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Your-Young-Marvel-Skottie/dp/0785195556/

I don't know where you live, but just go to Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Five Below etc and they have them there as well.

I don't know any off-hand, but I would suggest looking for resources on comic coloring because most of that is done in Photoshop nowadays. There's a book I have that's pretty basic. One you get a handle on coloring, brushes and layer styles, you can probably get something close to that style. Keep practicing-- the thing about Photoshop is that there are always at least three ways to do something, and once you know them and have the understanding how to use them in conjunction with one another you can use the program with intent. It takes practice to get there though. I've taken two classes and watched tutorials but the way I really got good at Photoshop was to use Photoshop all the time.

I was gonna reference stuff like gestalt, fibonacci etc but your links are better! As for books, i found this one really useful for referencing earlier in my career.

I'm a really big fan of Know Your Onions; it both serves to cover the basics of design, as well as some of the post-design process that often tends to be glossed over in other content.

There's a Web Design version as well.

Agreed. Plus undercharging has its own ethical implications for the industry. Nab yourself a copy of this book and it will help you put a price on your work that is on par with the industry standard.

I think this pretty colouring book for grown ups is a great idea. Its not too expensive but if you get it, you should also buy some nice quality colouring pencils to go with it. I love it because it's creative but relaxing.
Thank you for the contest :D if I win I would love a surprise! I have plenty on my wishlist for under £5 :)

It's too bad they don't have a web version of this book. I have found it very useful.
https://www.amazon.com/Color-Index-Revised-Jim-Krause/dp/1440302626

I did indeed have artist experience, I was already an artist but I had never done anything that involved comics, so while I was new at it I had experience that really helped me out.

Sadly most tutorials online are rather rubbish, most of the don't tell you the important things like flatting, or how to make selections. Personally buy this book, it seriously turned me from amateur to professional and I still use it today. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1581809921/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_g14_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1Q4W47PA7Q69Y2G4XJR3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Sadly I feel the same way, I have worked on some awesome art in my day but seriously without colors it looks rather boring. Thank you for your appreciation. :)

I would recommend this. We use this as a getting started guide for new folks joining AlphaGraphics.

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-It-Printed-Printers-Services/dp/1581805772

Also we have started adding tips and tricks videos to our youtube channel. And intend to increase the tutorial type videos over the next few months.

https://www.youtube.com/user/agbountiful/videos

Depending on where you live some tech schools teach pre-press design, but it might be worth it to try and score a job at a local printshop or AG as a backup designer to start out.

Bought this one as an undergrad, still consult it to this day!

I recommend this instead.

Found the newer version: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1111347174/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

This is the link... sorry mods!

Pretty sure it's on back-order though. This was gifted almost a month ago.

This perhaps?

Mi-a placut mult Confessions, dar suna foarte bine Introvert Power, o sa citesc musai, am vazut ca a ajutat Confessions, dar omul cam tinde sa uite daca nu face un obicei din ce invata :)

Din pacate, ai dreptate ca e formatul limitat, trebuie cautat bine, cele care sunt disponibile in format kindle se vad si ok si n-au neaparata nevoie de culoare: Logo Design Love a fost excelent, o baza buna a fost White space is not your enemy, cu ceva greutate am citit pdf-ul The fundamentals of graphic design si acum citesc The creative process illustrated - desi, ce-i drept, e clar mai mult despre creativitate, dar la fel mi-a facut placere sa citesc Hey, Whipple, squeeze this.

Altceva de design cu imagini si explicatii, mai comprehensiv, clar nu merge pe kindle. Si daca ai recomandari pentru mine legate de design, pentru kindle or not, nici nu stii cat mi-ar placea sa ascult!

Maybe Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy https://www.amazon.com/Barlowes-Guide-Fantasy-Douglas-Barlowe/dp/0061052388/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504282509&sr=1-1&keywords=barlowe%27s+guide+to+fantasy

Hm, you might be looking at more general books then, so you could also ask /r/computergraphics or /r/3dmodeling.

Also this might be of your interest, and you should look trough this this list too.


There's also the C4D Beginners Guide - from this list.

http://www.amazon.com/Hi-Fi-Color-For-Comics-Professional/dp/1581809921

Killer book. Highly recommended. I had been a colorist for about six years before reading, and I kicked myself for not buying it earlier!

I am stunned that this thread has gone six hours without someone posting a link to Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy.

OP, it seems as if this is what you're looking for. It's imperfect, yes, but it's the best we've got and has been damn near a fantasy essential for damn near 15 years.

It's an activity that is simple, but requires focus which helps alleviate some of the anxiety provoking "chatter" that goes on in one's mind. Knitting, crochet, instrument playing, wood working, coloring, meditation...etc. My favorites are slow yoga and this book: https://www.amazon.com/Mandalas-Meditation-Scratch-Off-Lark-Crafts/dp/1454710179/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485747585&sr=8-1&keywords=scratch+off+mandalas

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: White Lines Brand?


|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Germany|www.amazon.de||
|Japan|www.amazon.co.jp||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||




To help add charity links, please have a look at this thread.

This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

It's on Amazon: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/130290051X

[Relevant] (http://www.amazon.com/Knotty-Words-Crass-Celtic-Coloring/dp/1945218002)

http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Artists-Handbook-Pricing-Guidelines/dp/0932102123

This book is super informative and cheap. I asked a buddy the same question and he directed me towards this. It starts by giving you the usual rates, proposal writing and etc.

I used to be exactly like you back in high school. You have the raw talent, now you need to pair that with an education on art fundamentals. These fundamentals exist irregardless of medium, so you can practice with just your doodles. The main fundamentals are anatomy, color and light, perspective, and composition. In your case, I recommend buying a book on proper figure drawing. You have really cool ideas, so you just need to nail the proportions. This was the first book I read on the subject, and I fount it really helpful. If you want more after that, Andrew Loomis and Bridgeman are the some of the other classic figure drawing educators. As for the other fundamentals, ctrlpaint.com is a probably one of the best free resources, and as for books, here's one I would recommend that covers all the essentials. Again, if you want to take your art to the next level, whether it be just doodles or digital art, it's all about dem fundamentals. Best of luck!

Pick up the ethical pricing guide. It's about $50 at any book store or you can get an older edition for cheaper off of amazon ( For example, this one that is only $.13 ). It has contract blanks in there you can copy but LOTS of legal advice for working as or with artists. Good luck!

I received this scratch art book recently and it’s a perfect thoughtless way to relax! I highly recommend one for anyone.

Not out yet, but the Skottie Young one might be a bit better: http://www.amazon.com/Color-Little-Marvels-Skottie-Young/dp/0785195556/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=61rBAdzsmAL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=01VEMGH2Z6X0QB3NA9PB

Found this on Amazon! I saw another little on here get another version of it so I went searching.

I don't actually have much of an online presence. (I'm blessed with a steady stream of commissions.... So I've never really needed it)

Should you be interested in checking out my coloring book, it's called "Knotty Words: A Crass Celtic Coloring Book."

Here is a link

https://www.amazon.com/Knotty-Words-Crass-Celtic-Coloring/dp/1945218002/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539805513&sr=8-1-fkmr1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=naughty+words+a+Crass+Celtic

I've got this dot grid comp notebook. It's OK. Like any comp notebook it doesn't lay flat. It handles ink well and there is some ghosting with wetter inks but it's not bad at all. The dot grid is fairly small, which is nice.