Finamore Design

Jeff Fisher of LogoMotives with How Publishing just published Identity Crisis: 100 Redesigns That Transformed Stale Identities into Successful Brands which showcases recent identity rebranding work for as variety of industries. This book acts as a guide designers can use to show their clients the power of rethinking and redesigning their identities.

Identity design (logos, letterhead, web sites, etc.) is one of the most popular topics in design books, and Identity Crisis takes a fresh look at this common subject by exploring the process of redesigning existing identities to help businesses refine their images, communicate with customers, and find success. Readers will get an inside look at the challenges of redesigning identities. They’ll see the creative and strategic thinking behind fresh design work as well as have a powerful tool to show clients what a difference a professional can make to their image.

I am also happy to announce that one of Finamore Design’s re-branding projects, New Triad for Collaborative Arts is featured in the book.

Steven Heller does it again! He is credited with authoring, co-authoring and editing over 100 books. While I personally own quite a few from his library, this new addition (pub February 2007) is one of my favorite.

In this book Steven Heller and Mirko Ilic analyze fifty great pieces of graphic design (posters, books, catalogs. music packaging, logos, brochures, etc..) and dedicate a spread per piece to explain why these designs resonate with us and what about the design makes them great. Then each spread has a gate fold where they show samples of historic design work (including captions explaining why) that probably influenced the artists.

They believe that graphic designers are “pack rats” constantly storing design ideas in our brains for later use. They do not guarantee that all of the influential pieces were definite motivators for each piece. They are just educated guesses. And who else to make those guesses than the co-chair of the MFA Design program at the School of Visual Arts?

Keep ‘em coming Steve!

Do you find it difficult to “Think Outside The Box?” Not sure what it is going to take to succeed in a creative position? Or possibly just curious about what it is that those people in the creative department do on a day to day basis? Paul Arden, Executive Creative Director for 14 years at Saatchi&Saatchi-UK, has written two books that spell it all out for you. These are full of his theories on creativity and success based upon his personal experiences and backs them up with stories and quotes from his job. They are small, light, and easy to read with simple creative layouts and imagery that back up each idea. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.

These books are a definite asset to any business person, creative or not, who wants to score extreme success. These books are well written, extremely insightful, and fun to look at. I find these two books work well together, while GUT focuses on how to listen to and understand your gut instinct, BALLSY gives you the skills you need to act upon these instincts. (more…)

This book is full of motivational stories about unconventional places where some of the world’s greatest ideas have been spotted. These stories are intermingled with small easy to complete exercises that are guaranteed to stimulate your creative juices and open your mind to the possibilities that are sitting right in front of you. This book is a great resource for anyone in any field that realises their creativity could use a boost.

Art Chantry’s work is a perfect example of how to send a specific message through a simple coherent design. People who do not know of him will look at his work and label it retro-punk when in fact he is one of the founding fathers of this style of design. Undoubtedly he creates his work using a computer these days, but his career began in the pre-tech era and to this day his work does not carry that heavy-handed computer-generated look that so many new designers today have.

While this book is technically on my Bookshelf it also falls in the SmileFile category. I have been drawn to optical illustions and visual trickery ever since I was a little kid.

This book explains the why, what and how of the “Masters of Deception” like; Guiseppe Arcimboldo, Salvador Dali, Sandro Del-Prete, M.C. Escher, Scott Kim, Shigeo Fukuda, Rob Gonsalves, Ken Knowlton, Octavio Ocampo, Roger Shepard and more. (more…)

I hunted used bookstores and scoured the web for this book about four years ago. It turned out that this book was out of print. I finally managed to find it in a used bookstore in a suburb of Chicago and happily bought is for approx $25. Just recently I recently found out that this book has been re-issued in paperback form, and can be found in most major booksellers. According to the author’s website: “The new edition contains about 98% of the 1992 edition, plus about 25% new material: many new ambigrams, several new essays, plus a 16 page color insert featuring a number of my word-illusion paintings. It also features a new Foreword by Dan Brown, a complete and thorough history of my ambigrams, a section showing my favorite commissioned ambigrams, and a “How Ambigrams Are Created” section.” (more…)

You know it’s going to be a good book when you see the AIGA logo on the spine. Normally I do not hesitate when I see that little back square with the four white letters, but for some reason this book eluded me for two years. When I was in the mood for another branding book it wasn’t on the shelf, or when I did see it there, something else caught my eye. This book had been recommended to my by so many people that I finally had to go out and buy it.

While most books on the subject of branding cover either the left brain or the right brain approach, Marty explains in easy-to-read english just why it is so important to bridge the gap between these two hemispheres and attack branding with both sides working co-operatively.

Starting by explaining what branding is not, he then proceeds to work his way through what it is, how to do, why it is important, and how to test is what you want to do will actually work.

There is a quote on the book that can not be better stated:

“Read this book before your competitors do!” —Tom Kelley, general manager, IDEO
The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier was originally published in 2003. This expanded edition now features a 220-term brand glossary.

Finally, someone wrote this book so I don’t have to. I know that most designers are like me, they want to spend all their time creating good designs for good clients. But the truth of the matter is that aside from being a good creative, there is a fair amount of business acumen designers must acquire, wether they plan on freelancing, working full-time, or running their own agency. In this book Shel Perkins spells out every aspect of business for every type of designer in a language that is easy to understand. (more…)