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b o o k  r e v i e w s

Trek by David Carson

Title: Trek
Author: David Carson
Publisher: Gingko Press
Year: January 2004
ISBN: 1584230460
Pages: 480

 


David Carson is a world renowned graphic designer. This is the first of his books that I've looked at and read. The pages are filled with his 'recent werk'. The pages are full of colour, with photographs/images that may or may not be in focus, and which may or may not focus on a particular subject. These images could be laid out anywhere on the page, are of varying sizes, and may or may not overlap each other. They may also be cropped in all sorts of ways. But the final 'layout' is linked and 'balanced' by an overlay and overlap of type and digital illustrations, and patterns, shapes, handwriting, squiggles, and anything else Carson feels like doing on the page. These elements are then further laid out at various angles. Basically anything goes.

You get the impression that this book is Carson's personal scrapbook of graphic design ideas and experiments, as well as a visual diary of things that interest him, his personal moments with his children, friends, people he meets, emails he receives from those inspired by his work and his lectures, and other things he'd like to record.

Carson's graphic design communicates a strong sense of emotion, texture, movement, life, vibrancy, playfulness, experimentation and freedom. He's a keen surfer and perhaps his work reflects how he feels when he's riding waves.

Overall the book is filled with lots of interesting visual ideas and experiments, as well as a couple of interesting essays and quotes, and provides an insight into who and what inspires David Carson. It's a good book to have on hand as flicking through it inspires you to pick up a pencil or a mouse and to just start doodling away.

David Carson's website: http://www.davidcarsondesign.com
More info about the Trek book: http://www.gingkopress.com/_cata/_grap/trek.htm
Amazon info for the Trek book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1584230460/qid=1066658355/sr=8-5/ref=sr_8_5/102-1456087-3311300?v=glance
&s=books&n=507846

Max Hits - book review

Title: Max Hits: Building and promoting successful websites
Author: Mike Slocombe
Publisher: RotoVision
Year: September 2003
Pages: 176

 


Max Hits provides a good introductory overview of how to structure, build and market your website. The book is easy to read and features lots of screenshots of websites. Slocombe defines terms and explains the steps to building a website in a manner that the beginner can read and follow easily. He also provides a number of website addresses to further resources on each topic, which is useful. Topics covered include: HTML, web-authoring packages, website hosting, information architecture, designing printer-friendly web pages, Flash, navigation, audio/video, promoting your website and more.

One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the focus on design websites. Slocombe features screenshots of many interesting, creative and colourful websites to inspire the reader. There are also short interviews with high profile web designers such as Michael Schmidt of K10K and Nick Crister of Digit Design about their approach to designing a site for a client, tips for new designers and more.

The book has a companion website which includes some of the content in the book, as well as providing many links to further resources. This website can be found at: http://www.max-hits.net. Slocombe also has his own website at: http://www.urban75.org.

If you're a beginner in the web design area and want a book that takes you through the basics of building a website with lots of nice screenshots, then this book is worth a look.
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