Popular Lies About Graphic Design

“This is not a book full of facts. Nor is it a book full of advice. It’s a book full of opinions, and confusion between those three is how a lot of these problems begin…”

The opening sentence of my very first book!

I’d always wanted to write a book. So, I wrote one. The alternative being to not write one, which would have been very lazy. The result, 160 pages later, is ‘Popular Lies About Graphic Design’ and it will be available, happily, just in time for Christmas. In fact, it’s now available for pre-order here on Amazon for those in the USA. Rest of the world, patience please.

Drawing on my ten years experience, it tackles lighter subjects such as design fetishists, Helvetica’s neutrality and ‘urgent’ briefs, alongside discussions on more worthy topics such as the validity of design education, the supposed death of print, client relationships and pitch planning. In addition, I approached a variety of established practitioners such as Milton Glaser, Stefan Sagmeister, Christoph Niemann, Paul Sahre, James Victoré, Michael C. Place and many others for contributions on their own insights and experiences and to whom I owe a debt of thanks for validating the project in my mind.

It doesn’t pull any punches and is extremely candid in parts making it, hopefully, a worthwhile read for everyone from students and recent graduates up to those more seasoned designers and art directors who will no doubt have come across many of these fibs first hand. Format wise, it’s compact: 120 x 170mm and is a perfect bound soft cover, printed on two paper stocks – one of which being a cool fluorescent paper which I can’t show here, obviously. It will be published by Actar, a New York and Barcelona based publishing house whose previous publications have included Marc Valli & Richard Brereton’s excellent ‘RGB: Reviewing Graphics in Britain’ as well as ‘Neuland’ and several of IdN’s publications.

It goes without saying that I’m really excited about it. I’ll be hosting some kind of a launch in early December here in New York so look out for that and I’d really appreciate your support in the meantime! I’ll also be giving away signed copies via Twitter closer to the time for those who live elsewhere. I wanted it to be accessible to everyone so it will have a very affordable price tag (£/$/€ variable dependant on your location of course) and, there’s really nothing more to say other than tell your friends, tell your colleagues, tell your tutors and put it on your Christmas lists! C x

Category : General, WIP