Another Book about Design: Complicated Doesn't Make It Bad

by Mark Gonyea and TurtleMe

In A Book About Design, Mark Gonyea taught us why a complicated design does not necessarily mean a good design. Now he's back in super-heroic form to demonstrate that the beauty of "complicated" can... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805075763
• ISBN13: 9780805075762
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 8.4" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Bit by bit, putting it together

Combining the terms "good design" and "children" often sends me into fits of mild hysteria. There is nothing in this world that I find funnier than adults creating tasteful/mindless toys, games, and books for kiddies that utilize the principles of good design. I used to work across the street from the ultimate in hoity-toity children's goods. The kind of place where the mobiles looked like something out of a Klee painting, and rocking horses were one single sinuous unseamed piece of polished wood. In short, stuff that no self-respecting child would touch with a ten foot pole. Children's books are often the same way. The Graphic Alphabet is the book I like to single out as the grossest offender (nore does the fact that it won a Caldecott Honor does not help its case any). There are exceptions, though. Follow the Line and One Red Dot, for example, are truly charming titles as fun to kids as they are to PoMo minded adults. One of the best, however, was Mark Gonyea's, A Book About Design: Complicated Doesn't Make It Good. Regardless of whether or not you agree with Gonyea's conclusions at all times, you have to admit that he has an ear for making this most peculiar of art forms comprehensible to young kids. I was pleased as punch to see that his follow up title was coming out this year. "Another Book About Design," breaks down the elements of a complex image and gives children everywhere a book that they can understand. Working with primary colors, bold lines, and simple terms, "Another Book About Design," picks up where its predecessor left off. The premise of this book is simple. "Just because it looks complicated doesn't mean that it is." Breaking down complex images, Gonyea considers foreground and background, familiar images, positive and negative space, how elements are laid out in an image, and so on. Chapters are rarely longer twenty pages, and often whiz by. This is because Gonyea writes his text in big bold letters, often with just a sentence a page. Ideas are easy to follow because he doesn't engage in complex paragraphs and excess ideas. The principle guiding factor of this book is simplicity. And though you don't initially realize it, each chapter introduces a concept or element of design that will make a significant contribution to the final image (which is to say, the cover image) in the book. At the moment I'm currently enjoying Scott McCloud's book, Understanding Comics, which tackles many of the same elements Gonyea is discussing here but in an adult context. I should clarify, though, that even though Gonyea has featured a superhero on the cover of his book, this is not a how-to-draw-comic-book-characters title. It's undoubtedly going to end up purchased that way, and possibly even checked out by kids for that reason, but that is not what the book is about. Like McCloud, title is concerned with the elements on the page or canvas before you. Unlike McCloud, though, there is no discussion of the melding of