Publishers of technology books, eBooks, and videos for creative people

Home > Articles > Design

Design

29 Items

Sort by Date | Title

Design for How People Learn: How Do We Remember?
Jan 26, 2016
Memory is the foundation of learning. There’s a lot we still don’t know about the nature of memory, but we do have some ideas and models for how it works. In this chapter from Design for How People Learn, 2nd Edition, Julie Dirksen looks at how we pay attention and encode information into memory. Second, she looks at different types of memory.
Starting Practices for Game Design
Jan 25, 2016
In this chapter from Players Making Decisions: Game Design Essentials and the Art of Understanding Your Players, Zack Hiwiller talks about how to get started thinking about game design, including theme and mechanics, designing for others, and familiarizing yourself with analog games.
Video: My Top 5 Favorite Features in Adobe Illustrator (2015 release)
Dec 17, 2015
Chad Chelius, author of Adobe Illustrator CC Learn by Video (2015 release), shows you his top 5 favorite features in the 2015 release of Adobe Illustrator, including performance enhancements, Live Shapes improvements, the Shaper tool, dynamic symbols, and the new SVG output.
Video: My Top 5 Favorite Features in Adobe InDesign (2015 release)
Dec 4, 2015
Chad Chelius, author of Adobe InDesign CC Learn by Video (2015 release), talks about his favorite features in the latest release of Adobe InDesign, including paragraph shading, converting a table cell to a graphic cell, and Creative Cloud libraries.
Video: My Top Five Favorite New Features in Adobe Photoshop CC (2015 release)
Jun 19, 2015
Kelly McCathran, author of Adobe Photoshop CC (2015 release): Learn by Video, shares her top five favorite new features in Adobe Photoshop CC (2015 release).
Creating Special Effects in Photoshop
Feb 12, 2015
In this chapter from The Photoshop Workbook: Professional Retouching and Compositing Tips, Tricks, and Techniques, Glyn Dewis shows you techniques for turning day into night, creating a cartoon/painterly effect, and making your own dust, debris, snow, and rain brushes. Plus, he shows a quick and easy black and white conversion technique, and how to fake the wet look.
Video: Top 5 Features of Adobe Illustrator CC (2014 release)
Feb 2, 2015
Adobe Certified Instructor and Learn by Video presenter Chad Chelius shares his top 5 features of Adobe Illustrator CC (2014 release).
The Use of Repetition in Design
Dec 25, 2014
In this excerpt from The Non-Designer's Design Book, 4th Edition, Robin Williams talks about the use of repetition in design and offers many examples of effective repetition.
10 Practical Logo Design Tips
Oct 14, 2014
David Airey, author of Logo Design Love: A guide to creating iconic brand identities, 2nd Edition, shares ten tips that will help you think about how to design better logos.
Sketchnote Planning: Techniques for Taking Visual Notes You Can Use Anywhere
Sep 23, 2014
Sketchnotes are well suited for planning. This excerpt from The Sketchnote Workbook: Advanced techniques for taking visual notes you can use anywhere shows you how you can use them to plan ahead visually for projects like simple task lists, family vacations, work assignments, and more.
David Airey on Laying the Groundwork for a Successful Brand Identity Design Project
Sep 22, 2014
Without knowing specific details of your client’s business, his reasons for seeking a brand identity, and his expectations of the process and final design, you can’t possibly be successful with the project. In this chapter from Logo Design Love: A guide to creating iconic brand identities, 2nd Edition, David Airey shows you how to lay the groundwork to achieve project success.
The Many-Faced Infographic: Brooklyn, Elephants, and the Visualization of Data
Nov 25, 2013
Alberto Cairo, author of The Functional Art: An introduction to information graphics and visualization, suggests that when creating interactive visualizations for general readers, you need to offer readers the opportunity to visualize the data in multiple and perhaps more traditional ways.
Burn Your Portfolio: A Conversation with Michael Janda
Jul 3, 2013
Michael Janda, author of "Burn Your Portfolio: Stuff they don't teach you in design school, but should," sits down with Peachpit and discusses his writing process, his sense of humor and why his book isn't called "Polishing Turds."
The Role of Conflict in Design
Jun 17, 2013
Conflict is the process through which ideas are validated and elaborated. In this chapter from Designing Together: The collaboration and conflict management handbook for creative professionals, Daniel M. Brown explains that through conflict, ideas grow from a spark to a concept to a full-fledged design.
Heroes of Visualization: John Snow, H.W. Acland, and the Mythmaking Problem
May 29, 2013
The visual display of information is no stranger to heroes and myth. Alberto Cairo, author of The Functional Art: An introduction to information graphics and visualization, uses the story of John Snow and his cholera maps to illustrate his point.
Author Talk: Mike Rohde on Sketchnoting
Dec 7, 2012
Publisher Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel interviews author and sketchnoting pioneer Mike Rohde about his new book, The Sketchnote Handbook: the illustrated guide to visual note taking. They discuss the benefits of sketchnoting, Mike's specific style and techniques, and the rise of "the Sketchnote Army." Mike also touches on the documentary style video he recently released, The Sketchnote Handbook Video.
Hidden Gems in Adobe Illustrator
Sep 19, 2012
Brian Wood, contributor to Adobe Illustrator CS6 Classroom in a Book, shows you how to optimize content for use in projects such as websites, apps, and more.
"The Best Design Advice I Ever Got" with Alberto Cairo
Aug 28, 2012
Underneath the packaging, an infographic serves a very simple purpose—to educate. Alberto Cairo, professor of information graphics and visualization at the University of Miami and author of The Functional Art: An introduction to information graphics and visualization, talks about the importance of making infographics work on an instructional level.
From Looking to Seeing: The Craft of Typography
Sep 5, 2011
Everyone looks at type, but the typographer has to see more, because eliminating all traces of visual discord is what elevates type from being merely legible to being comfortingly readable. Jim Felici, the author of The Complete Manual of Typography: A Guide to Setting Perfect Type, Second Edition, explains how even the untrained eye suffers from badly set type (untrained doesn’t mean unsophisticated), and how discerning eyes are needed to set the fine type that readers deserve.
The Complete Manual of Typography: About Fonts
Aug 17, 2011
Working with fonts forces you to learn more about your computer than you probably want, but everything you need to know is in this chapter.

Page 1 2 Next >