Graphic Design For Everyone: Understand the Building Blocks so You can Do It Yourself

by Cath Caldwell

Transform your ideas into powerful visuals--to connect with your audience, define your brand, and take your project to the next level.

This highly practical design book takes you through the building blocks of design--type, photography, illustration, color--and shows you how to combine these tools to create visuals that inform, influence, and enthral.

Grasp the key principles through in-depth how-to articles, hands-on workshops, and inspirational galleries of great design. Find out how to create a brand plan, discover how a typeface sets the mood, and learn how to organize different elements of a layout to boost the impact and meaning of your message.

Then apply your skills to do it yourself, with ten step-by-step projects to help you create your own stunning designs--including business stationery, invitations, sales brochure, website, online newsletter and e-shop. There's also plenty of practical advice on publishing online, dealing with printers, commissioning professionals, finding free design tools, and much more.

If you're ready to use powerful design to take your pet project or burgeoning business to the next level, Graphic Design for Everyone is your one-stop resource to help you become an effective, inspirational visual communicator.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Art, Drawing, Business

224 pages, Hardcover

Published August 6, 2019

Reviews

[Georgina]

Weirdly the only thing I can criticise about this book is the graphic design. Overall it’s a great book, especially for beginners. I learnt a lot from it and the information is well structured with lots of great illustrations and graphics. My only criticisms are how difficult it is to read by low light and I didn’t like the page layout; there’s no clear path of what to read first on each page. Nonetheless, a great book!

[Abbas Mehrabian]

This charming, beautifully designed book covers all aspects of graphic design, from market research to building a brand to choosing the correct type, colours, and images to creating an eye-catching composition to publishing your design professionally. I read it cover to cover, and will also keep it as my go-to reference for graphic design.

[♡Lily Jane♡]

Read this in my graphic design class. It was super helpful and I learned a lot! I sometimes get bored of books that I have to read for school, but this one was engaging and interesting the whole way through.

[Kiera Beddes]

A good overview of the basic elements of design and how they all work together to create a visually pleasing whole. Lots of great infographics and visual examples, which is great.

[Sabine Lee]

informative for graphic design fundamentals i’ll probably keep referencing this book for my projects and such

[Denise みか Hutchins]

After sitting on this book for about eight months after buying it and reading only the intro, I ended up consuming the rest all in one day because it suddenly became extremely relevant to my current arts entrepreneurship class! The book is not only useful for learning the basic essentials of graphic design, but also for building a visual brand. The first section had me do exactly the same things I had to do for my class: discover and research my audience, mindmap my business, figure out what sort of emotional impact I want my brand to have, etc. It was unbelievably canny and really helped me fine tune my logo design, which is due today! I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs to do their own graphic design for any project, which could include new businesses, non-profits, clubs, concerts, weddings, art shows, private tutors--anyone who is going to have any sort of presence in print or online! The book is easy to read and beautifully designed (better be, right?) so it's something I'll be going back to time and again not only because it's chock full of useful information, but because I enjoy reading it!

[Monqeth]

أعجبني كثيرًا، لكن يعرض لك المحتوى بافتراض أن تعمل في التصميم او تريد العمل، لذلك يبتدئ الكتاب من وجهة نظرية إدارية وتسويقية، وينحو إلى ذلك في طيات الكتاب.
يميزه وجود تمارين عند كل فصل أو قسم، حيث يعرض لك التصميم الفلاني ثم يطلب منك إعادة تصميمه على ضوء ما تعلمته مؤخرًا.
تعرض الكتاب إلى كثير من مباحث تصميم الجرافيك كاللون والخط والمساحة ووسائط الإنتاج وغيره.

[Ricardo Reyes]

This book covered all of the basics of the graphic design process, from defining a brand identity, elements of good design, and even distribution/handling. It’s cohesive and succinct, making it easy to understand no matter your experience level.

I do have to admit that the “Project No.#” pages did feel like a bit of a chore to get through at times. I liked seeing the different design variations on display, but wished I could’ve treated the projects like assignments as well. It would’ve been nice if there was a QR code we could scan to download the brand elements and create designs ourselves alongside the book.

Additionally, it may just be a matter of taste, but more often than not I thought that the designs created in these projects were subpar. Although all of the advice and reasoning made sense, I hardly ever gravitated towards any of the visual design decisions.

Overall, it was a great refresher as a current design student, and even taught me new things, such as:
— As it turns out, I’m really drawn to designs that use Tertiary Colors!
— The Golden Spiral uses a 1:1.6 ratio, and is often used in web design.
— Evaluating the market/your competitors is way more important than I previously thought was necessary in the design process!

Thank you for composing this book. It’s one that I’m sure I’ll repeatedly come back to revisit and refresh my memory.

[Atheer Alulaiw]

One of the most impressive books I’ve read in terms of clarity of ideas, logical structure, and overall presentation quality.

The book is aimed at those who wish to learn graphic design, offering a comprehensive and educational overview. It begins with what a designer needs to know before starting a project, moves through the tools used in the process, and covers important aspects such as copyright, final output—whether digital or print—and what needs to be prepared and discussed with the printing house.

What makes this book stand out is that it serves as a modern, structured, and concise reference. It’s a valuable addition to the personal library of any academic learner, enriching and supporting what they study with clear, well-organized content. It is also a highly useful resource for self-learners who rely on YouTube or books, as it helps them organize concepts and topics in a logical and methodical way that strengthens their overall understanding.

Additionally, the book does not overlook the marketing aspect and its connection to the design process across various levels, which gives it broader depth and practical relevance in the field.

[Mike Bell]

I recommend this book to refresh design theory, but more so for anyone who needs to work with designers. It will help you better understand why we make the decisions we do and provide context and a common vernacular for discussing the work.

Will it allow you to become a designer? Only in the same way that watching Rocky will turn you into the heavyweight champion. Introduction and explanation and maybe some inspiration, but you’ll still have to have some skill and put in a lot of work.

[Devis]

Molto utile per chi non ha nessuna base e idea di dove partire per muovere i primi passi nel mondo del design. Questo libro copre le basi del design in modo semplice e lineare, spiegandone l'ABC spaziando in diversi ambiti e formati in cui i principi descritti possono essere applicati. Insomma, un utile punto di partenza.
Edizione di qualità e grafica veramente piacevole.

[Lori Palen]

Skimmed. Very comprehensive introduction to graphic design, including sections on audience analysis, branding, choosing a computer and software, and paper sizes/finishes (along with the expected content on type, color, images, white space, hierarchy, and composition). Includes 10 hands-on design projects.

[Chris Haines]

Very useful book for references about Design Techniques like layout and composition, colour and font choices, images and illustrations etc. Very clear and easy to understand and presented in a nice and friendly way.

[createitlibrarian (Amanda)]

A thorough overview of graphic designs elements. So grateful this was published before the AI doom boom. I have a few artistic goals and I don’t want AI anywhere near my creative process.

Graphic Design with a soul.

[pauline ✞ -new bio!-]

The book is really good I especially liked the examples, including when my favorite book, the hobbit, was set as a “good design” example. the book cover is very aesthetically pleasing to me and it’s like a 4.2 because I wouldn’t probably pick it up if I didn’t have to read nonfiction.

[Brendan OConnell]

Great book for those interested in the discipline of Graphic Design.

[Ray]

This book is a really great little intro to product design. It touches on everything just enough to keep you interested.

The parts about color wheel theory and typography.

[Adam]

A good look at the graphic design but more for those already that have been designing items. A little bit detailed for the beginner in the graphic design industry.

[J Prosaist]

An excellent book both for self-teaching and reference.

[Daniel Hollands]

A good overview of design topics, a good primer for someone totally new to design. Not quite what I was looking for, but not bad at all.

[Stef]

A colorful, attractive introduction to graphic design basics.

[Momo]

As beginner in this area, I found the book rounding up to the base knowledge in graphic design. I think it is a nice book to start with this field.
Highly recommended for beginners :)

[Julia]

Good starting point for beginners, as it covers basic principles of graphic design. Well structured and I liked the excercises.
Weirdly enough, i didn't like the Design of the book that much.

[Jiwon Kim]

mediocre design, mediocre content.

[Melissa]

Having not studied design, this book was helpful for a work project and answered the questions I had.

[Otto]

As a web developer this is a phenomenal read and reference for all things design (especially the non-web stuff) and has left me inspired and equipped with the language to talk with designers.

[Laura]

OK. not as useful as I was hoping.

[Alicia]

Easy to read.

[Tova]

A little too technical for me, but enjoyable nonetheless. Would be great for a beginner graphic design student.

[Adrian Marc]

Great book, well explained. Even as a designer with experience I still learned a bunch of new things from it.