The Elements of Visual Style: The Basics of Print Design for Every PC and Mac User

by Robert W. Harris

The Elements of Visual Style is for people who want to create sophisticated and professional documents at their own desks.No design experience is necessary to use this book, which will help even the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618772456
• ISBN13: 9780618772452
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 177 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 4.6" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Solid basics but many missed opportunities

I bought this book with high expectations, which were largely met with a few unfortunate caveats. First, the good. I really enjoyed the first chapter, which deals with using type. The intricacies of fonts, point sizes,x-height, serif fonts, etc. are clearly presented and enjoyable to read, with good examples. for a book that claims to be, "drawn from the field of graphic design and cognitive psychology." (p x.), I was disappointed in the lack of documentation for sources. In fact, the book does often reference principles of design and psychology, I just don't know where they come from or why I should believe them. If there is a future edition, I hope they strike a happy medium, not delving into theoretical discourse, but allowing the reader to know where he or she could go to learn more. A small, but significant, problem throughout the book is that all the text in the examples is gibberish. Why not use standard Lorem Ipsum type to fill-in the lines? I found reading through the examples to be very distracting, something I have not found with other design books that do use Lorem Ipsum type. Another missed opportunity/pet peeve is that the book fails to take itself into account. none of the examples reference the actual design of the book that you are reading (for instance, pointing out why a certain font or page layout is being used in this book). This book feels a bit as though it were a rush job, or perhaps the reason is because the book designer is not the author. Again, a future version could include references to the actual book, which overall looks quite nice. This book does convey the basics, which would be very useful for a person who just wants to produce nicer looking electronic documents. Others, who have more experience with such writers as Edward Tufte or Robin Williams will likely find this book contains information, but is a sub-par experience.