Banana books is a curated repository with the best design and illustration books.
We’ve extracted data from many websites like designernews, reddit, etc, and sorted them by popularity using goodreads in order to create this list.
Just good books. Zero bullshit.
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Top 45.8k143If you're a website designer, intranet manager or someone without much Information Architecture experience, this book answers all those questions you were afraid to ask.
Drawing on her many years experience of practising and teaching Information Architecture, Donna Spencer guides you through some simple steps to better IA and leaves you feeling empowered and able to run your own IA projects. Whether it's organising content, providing clear descriptions or ways for people to get to them, this book is armed with practical advice and examples.
92The Fundamentals of Typography offers an overview plus incisive insight into the use of type and stunning examples sure to inspire typographers and designers in the field. A comprehensive introduction to the history of typography, typographic detailing in practice, and font generation for print and the web, this book covers type in the past and the present--and speculates on the future. Basic principles are explained with detailed presentations, illustrations, case studies, and examples from leading design studios around the world.
Typography82Reissued now for its 25th anniversary, "Graphic Design," perhaps the most famous book of its kind, eplores the extraordinary achievement of America's pre-eminent graphic artist. Here Glaser undertakes not only a remarkably wide-raning representation of his oeuvre but, in a personally revealing introduction, speaks of the influences on his work, the responsibilities of the artist, the hierarchies of the traditional art world, and the role of graphic design in the area of his creative growth. His work ranges from posters to book and record covers; from store and restaurant design to toy creations, magazine formats, and logotypes -- all of which define the look of our time.
Monograph80No component of graphic design has attracted as much interest or inspired as much innovation in recent years as lettering and type. These fundamentals of design, once the exclusive domain of professional typographers, have become an essential starting point for anyone looking for a fresh way to communicate. Practical information about creating letters and type often amounts to a series of guidelines for executing a particular process, font program, or style. But what makes lettering and type endlessly fascinating is the flexibility to interpret and sometimes even break these rules. Lettering & Type is a smart-but- not-dense guide to creating and bending letters to one's will. More than just another pretty survey, it is a powerful how-to book full of relevant theory, history, explanatory diagrams, and exercises. While other type design books get hung up on the technical and technological issues of type design and lettering, Lettering & Type features the context and creativity that shape letters and make them interesting.
Authors and designers Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals examine classic design examples as well as exciting contemporary lettering of all stripes—from editorial illustrations to concert posters to radical conceptual alphabets. Lettering & Type is ideal for anyone looking to move beyond existing typography and fonts to create, explore, and use original or customized letterforms. This latest addition to our best-selling Design Briefs seriesfeatures a foreword by Ellen Lupton and hundreds of images and examples of work by historical and contemporary designers, artists, and illustrators, including Marian Bantjes, Stefan Sagmeister, Matthew Carter, Christoph Niemann, Steve Powers (ESPO), House Industries, Christian Schwartz, Margaret Kilgallen, James Victore, Abbott Miller, Sibylle Hagmann, Ed Fella, and many more. Throughout the book interviews with type designers, artists, and graphic designers provide real-world perspective from contemporary practitioners.
60Modern Typography, 2nd Edition is a completely updated and revised edition of Robin Kinross's classic survey of European and North American typography since 1700, first published in 1992. In addition to numerous new illustrations and revised text, Modern Typography has been re-scaled to a new, convenient pocket format. Kinross's overview breaks ground by focusing on the history of typography as an intricate web of social, technical, and material processes, rather than a parade of typeface styles. Eye magazine calls Modern Typography the book that tells "how modern typography got to be the way it is." Together, Kinross's clear, concise writing combined with his extensive knowledge of the history of typography create a gold standard for how design history ought to be written.
Typography57A humorous and incisive analysis of the basic tenets of typography and how to turn them on their heads, this book will appeal to the conformist and the non-conformist in everyone - not just the newcomer to design."
Typography50Basics Design: Grids explores and explains the principles behind grid design and development, to help graphic designers tackle a wide variety of design problems and find creative solutions. A grid serves a similar function to the scaffolding used in building construction - acting as a positioning guide for text, pictures, page numbers, columns and so on.
In this completely revised second edition, best-selling author team Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris demonstrate how a creative approach to grid design can produce dramatic results. Filled with international case studies of contemporary design practice and practical exercises to help designers apply the ideas to their own work, this richly illustrated book is an invaluable guide to grids within design and visual communication.
48WHAT IS THE ONE THING not taught in design school, but is an essential survival skill for practicing designers? Working with other people. And yet, in every project, collaboration with other people is often the most difficult part.
The increasing complexity of design projects, the greater reliance on remote team members, and the evolution of design techniques demands professionals who can cooperate effectively. "Designing Together" is a book for cultivating collaborative behaviors and dealing with the inevitable difficult conversations.
Designing Together features:
28 collaboration techniques 46 conflict management techniques 31 difficult situation diagnoses 17 designer personality traits
This book is for designers:
On teams large or small Co-located, remote, or both Working in multidisciplinary groups Within an organization or consulting from outside
You'll also find sidebar contributions from David Belman (Threespot), Mandy Brown (Editorially, A Book Apart), Erika Hall (Mule Design Studio), Denise Jacobs (author), Jonathan Knoll (InfinityPlusOne), Marc Rettig (Fit Associates), and Jeanine Turner (Georgetown University).
36This series of small primers on drawing encourages readers not only to pick up a pen and start drawing, but to see the world that surrounds them with fresh eyes. Visual thinking and using one's imagination are skills that are often neglected in today's world. With author Peter Jenny's help, readers will learn to perceive their environment in a new way and will soon follow his lead, discovering the joy of drawing. The three books in the series each present a short introduction by Jenny and twenty-two easy exercises, with each book focusing on a different aspect: Notes on Drawing Technique takes actions such as gesticulating, touching, feeling, doodling, and moving as the starting points for putting pen to paper. Notes on Figure Drawing focuses on the archetypal presentation of the human figure, and Learning to See teaches the reader to discover art in everyday objects.
Perception33Discover 500 of the most innovative, influential, and enduring products from the last five centuries in one compact and highly collectable volume. The Design Book presents iconic pieces by Le Corbusier, Philippe Starck, the Eames, and the Apple design team, alongside classic objects such as the paper clip, the hurricane lantern, and the martini glass. Each entry pairs an image with a descriptive caption, providing accessible information about the product, designer, manufacturer, and history. Take an extraordinary journey through the objects that have improved our functionality, shaping our society and culture today.
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