I should preface this review of Chip Kidd's, "Cheese Monkeys" by saying that I was expecting not to like it. The many times I picked the book up and flipped through it a bit, it just rubbed me wrong. Now that I have read it, I am embarrassed to say that I couldn't put it down. This book was pretty well written, but the design principles it is built upon are dangerous. Let me take a little time to reveal the assumptions that this book makes in an attempt to prove why this book doesn't deserve the acclaim that some graphic designers have given it.

Ogilvy arrogantly says, "As a former door-to-door salesman, I shall go to my grave believing that, given two minutes on television, I could sell any product on the face of the earth." It is precisely that arrogance that made me think I was really going to hate this book. After reading the book, however, I am willing to bet that he would only need one minute on television to sell any product on Earth. He is a fantastic salesman, and I would describe this book as a fantastic salesman doing a great job of selling his philosophy on advertising. So what is that philosophy, and where does the sales pitch end, and truth begin?

“Ella Minnow Pea” by Mark Dunn is a pleasure to read. The title alone made me want to read the book. It was a nice break from the usually dull, but informative design books I have been reading. I won’t go into great detail about the book, but the writing was very impressive.

A quick synopsis of this work of fiction. The main character, Ella Minnow Pea, lives in a small island country off the coast of South Carolina. The island is named Nollop after one of their former leaders Nevin Nollop. Mr. Nollop created the famous line “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. For this he is made into a national hero and years after his passing he is nearly worshipped. The famous pangram “the quick brown fox jumps…” is placed in tiles under the dome of city hall. When the tiles start to fall, the community elders see this as a post-mortum sign from Nollop to ban the specified fallen letters from use. Since this book is written in letter form, from specific characters in the community, the written letters must abide by the ever changing laws. I would go on, but I don’t want to ruin the rest of the book. I can’t imagine the time it took to write this book. As the letters continue to be banned, the more entertaining the writing becomes. The ending totally ties everything together and is a delightful surprise.

After reading “Ogilvy on Advertising” a few weeks ago, “The Wizard of Ads,” by Roy Williams was a nice change of pace. Not that it is a bad thing, but don’t expect any examples of ads or statistics based on research. This book is set up as a collection of 1-2 page essays about observations and stories. The first of the three sections is the most directly applicable to advertising because he is talking about the power of words. The other 2 sections, although interesting, relate more to success in general than to success in advertising. Roy’s tone is similar to that of a motivational speaker as he gives examples of small people doing great things.

To be honest with you, I would never have picked this book up if it wasn’t recommended to me. The cover design turned me off. The worn leather look would be alright if it weren’t for the poor type treatment of the title. Calling it “The Wizard of Ads” is too corny for me to have given it a second look, although he does have several references to the Wizard of Oz. Despite my lack of enthusiasm of the book’s design, it is definitely worth reading. The stories are short and inspirational, and the observations are insightful and well written.

We have all had this happen to us. You have a great idea that could drastically improve something. When you start sharing your idea, people say “that is a good idea, but it will never work.” Your great idea gets shot down before it was given a fair chance. Does that mean that your idea wasn’t good enough? According to Seth Godin’s newest book, “Free Prize Inside,” there is no correlation between how good your idea is and how likely the organization is to embrace it. So how do you get your ideas implemented? Seth first challenge of the book is to figure out what it takes to make your ideas a reality. We aren’t just talking about big ideas either. We are talking about small changes that can make a big impact. Seth calls them “soft innovations.”

This book was vastly different from the last book I reviewed, Ella Minnow Pea. Where Ella Minnow Pea was classic, Pattern Recognition was every bit of sub and pop culture jammed into one novel. William Gibson went into great detail, while Mark Dunn simplified his writing to only the essential letters. Having said that, I still think this was a good book.

This is my first William Gibson book, and apparently this is his first non-science fiction book. The main character, Cayce Pollard, is a “cool hunter” that has flown to London to approve or reject a new logo for the world’s second largest shoe manufacturer. In her free time, Cayce is following a phenomenon as it unfolds one download at a time. She is part of an every growing online forum that is avidly following some enigmatic, unanimous film that is being distributed via the web, one segment at a time. Nobody can figure out where this film is being made, how it is made and most of all, who is making it. Cayce’s life gets more and more interesting as her personal and professional life are forced together. This story is definitely set up much like a suspense movie, which of course makes it not that surprising that it is going to be made into a movie. I’m not sure if the fact that I knew it was going to be made into a movie before I read the book was influential in the way I read it or not. None the less, it will be interesting to see the movie.

USAtoday is putting a new chapter of Chip Kidd’s sequal to Cheese Monkeys called The Learners on their site each week. I have been highly critical of Cheese Monkeys, but I am still excited to read the sequel. Maybe good isn’t dead afterall. We will have to wait and see.

The Dallas Society of Visual Communications publishes a nice design journal called Rough. They mailed me a few sample issues, and I’ve read interesting interviews and articles. It’s worth looking at.

I finished reading Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This, by Luke Sullivan and although I can’t say it was revolutionary, it was definitely a good read. Luke gives advice about how to create great ads from the perspective of someone who has been beat up and bruised by the ad world and can look back and laugh. Lets face it, getting the client to approve our great ideas is hard. It can be so brutal and frustrating that when this book outlines the pitfalls that great ideas have to be careful of, the results are very funny. A highlight of the book is where Luke gives names like “The Koncept Krusher 2000” and “Hallway Beast” to the traits of project killing clients. He also gives good advice about what to do in these all to familiar situations:

A client asks you to print their phone number in big, bold type.
A client takes your concept literally.
Your client asks you to make the logo bigger.

Who hasn’t had to fight those battles? In the end it is comforting to read about Luke’s battles in the ad world and to hear his optimism and encouragement to those of us who can relate to the challenges of the trade.

I have to admit that The Cluetrain Manifesto, tackles a subject that has really been resonating with me lately. Cluetrain’s premise is that the internet is fundamentally changing the way business functions. Written by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger way back in 1999, the manifesto’s prophecy still seems to be extremely relevant. Yes it is dated, but forget that they don’t mention blogs, rss feeds, or other revolutions taking place online today. Those recent advances should point you to the conclusion that these rebels were on to something big that continues to change our world today. If you aren’t familiar with The Cluetrain Manifesto, you can get a decent sample from www.cluetrain.com. There you will find the first chapter of the book as well as the 95 theses it is based on.

Learning From Las Vegas, is a controversial Architecture book by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour. To simplify this book and present it from a Graphic Design perspective, it analyzes the increasing use of two-dimensional signage and symbol in the stead of three-dimensional space, as a result of more rapid and individual transportation means (the car). Venturi et. al. acknowledge Architect's distaste for such urban sprawl, but endeavoring to learn from the existing environment rather than change it, they "look downward to go up." They argue the virtues of the "decorated shed," building a plain structure and expressing its function, or even monumentality, through signage. They present their ideas with tongue-in-cheek wit: one illustration, captioned "suggestion for a monument" depicts a plain, shed-like structure, with a light-up sign protruding from the façade proclaiming, "I'm a Monument."

It's hard to find a parallel in Graphic Design to this call to appreciate the vernacular, because Graphic Design is so inextricably woven with the vernacular. You are more likely to meet a Graphic Designer who appreciates billboards and spinning neon signs than you are to find an Architect who appreciates cookie-cutter homes and communities. The former means work for us, the latter means the commodification of Architecture. Some of us even pull ideas from the vernacular in producing our work.

Perhaps the parallel is the advent of desktop publishing, and the resulting availability of publishing power in the hands of those who don't understand or pay mind to the subtleties of working with type and image. Much like the automobile has changed the way we use buildings, desktop publishing and the Internet have changed the way we use Graphic Design. Maybe Graphic Designers could benefit from appreciating the ability for the "common" people to publish information.

Many Graphic Designers struggle with the concept of only having a few font choices available on the web. Some have tried to fight this by designing as if they were designing for print, and locking their information away in graphics, rather than surrendering to the limitations (and thus unlocking the power) of the medium. The limited font choice is probably a blessing: if publishing power is more available, it’s better that there only be a few (and quite good for the medium) font choices. If one were to take the stance that Graphic Design's purpose is to economically increase the accessibility of information (and this is undoubtedly an important function of Graphic Design), then they should appreciate these innovations.

Maybe it's time for Graphic Designers to learn from the things they don't like. The equivalent to a cookie-cutter home, for a Graphic Designer, would be templates that come with desktop publishing programs. Perhaps we should learn to appreciate those, especially since the limited font choice I spoke of in the previous paragraph is inverted in desktop publishing. The publishing power is already in the hands of the "common" people, and given the economic resources and priorities of these people, it's pretty much established that they aren't going to be hiring a Graphic Designer for their project, so why not let them make a template and have their two-fold brochure look decent? Most two-fold brochures look the same, so why waste manpower to reinvent the wheel? Some may argue that therein lies the problem, that clients too often have a preconceived notion of what they want (e.g. a two-fold brochure). But you must admit that sometimes that is all it needs to be.

Even without the Architectural foundation to understand it fully, Learning From Las Vegas was a worthwhile read for me in that it helped me understand how designers have responded to change. There have certainly been some changes in Graphic Design, that perhaps we criticize without enough consideration for what may be good about them.

What are some things you dislike as a Graphic Designer, and how might we learn from them?

One of the fundamental goals of any Graphic Design curriculum is to understand the enigmatic concept of the grid. When I was in design school, we were given an opaque five-minute lecture about the grid, and were then instructed to do an exercise that was supposed to teach us how to use the grid. The entire lesson was confusing, and I never could get a clear answer from an instructor on exactly how to use the grid, and so I was left to fend for myself on that matter. If only my instructors had been armed with Kimberly Elam’s Grid Systems.

In a fraction of a second the human brain has the ability to execute extremely complex tasks. We do it all the time and rarely think about it. From everyday tasks to situations where life hangs in the balance, decisions are often made in a split second. How do we make these decisions, and what can we learn from understanding how this process works? That is what Malcolm Gladwell’s second book, Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking is about. If we can understand how our brain works in those “blink” moments, perhaps we can learn to make the right decisions more often, and understand why other people act the way they do.

Gladwell’s talent is his ability to apply his research to complex real life examples. In a style that carries over from the brilliant The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s search doesn’t simply rehash old studies or quote the experts. Gladwell takes us on a scenic journey that tackles some fascinating questions. For example: How can an art expert tell a fake from an original? What factors can change the results taste tests? Can successful marriages be predicted? How do you know if someone is lying? Why are wars fought the way they are? Why do the police make mistakes? Are you really as unbiased as you think? Can doctor’s do a better job of diagnosing their patients with less information?

It seems that we have created a very hostile environment for ourselves. The house that we live in is filled with materials - carpet, paint, wood finishes - that fill the air with mutagenic materials and toxic gases. The cars that we drive emit noxious fumes and require non-renewable resources for their operation, and even the computer you are reading this on is made with materials that are harmful to the people who manufacture them and use them - not to mention the harm that is done to the environment once it is disposed of.

Many of the things that we take for granted are really quite silly when you look at them closely. We plop down houses, designed and built with no regard for their orientation to the sun, on land that has been stripped of trees that may have shaded the houses, or bodies of water that could be used to guide water runoff. Those houses are then surrounded by a foreign grass species that is forced to grow with dangerous chemicals, and then cut down with polluting machinery.

I wouldn’t have picked up this book if it wasn’t for the optional session that I will be attending at this years HOW Conference. Ken Barber from House Industries will be leading a session on hand lettering. Since I will be doing reviews of this session among many others on our HOW Conference Blog, I thought I should do a little research. I ordered House Industries and read it from beginning to end, even though it tempts you to just look at the outrageous printing and flamboyant graphics.

I can’t say that I have a ton in common with the guys at House Industries. I have never liked thrasher metal, used many grunge fonts or been a huge fan of the hot rod aesthetic. Despite this fact, or maybe because of this, I really gained a great deal from this book. Actually, I can’t think of a time that I have used a House font aside from designing the AIGA Nebraska Bowl-a-Rama poster (This event started as House-a-Rama when the boys from House came down and did a presentation in a bowling alley in Omaha). That event was even mentioned in the book, showing the initial poster that they illustrated and designed.

You might find the book “You are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination” by Katharine Harmon interesting to read—and to look at. For those of you who don’t love to read long books (like me), think of it as a picture book with captions. (I was interested the whole way through.)

The author has collected a variety of maps from 100 years ago until present time, and organized them by theme. I call them “maps,” but they’re really pieces of art and personal expression. Some were created to be humorous, others to be creatively informative or anecdotal, others to be editorial illustrations, yet others to simply be beautiful art. Each page had so much to say. Through reading this book, I gained a renewed understanding of the large amount of information that is spatial. Geography isn’t just a boring class you had to take in school—it’s all around us, and you make geographic decisions every day.

I would recommend this book.

Paula Scher commented in her introduction to Make it Bigger, that one of the worst things about doing a monograph of your life’s work is that people will assume that you are finished. From the title of his forthcoming book, Chip Kidd: Book One: Work: 1986-2006, it looks like renowned book designer and author Chip Kidd is doing his best to show people that he has only just begun. For any other designer, calling the collection of your life’s work “Book One” might be a bit presumptuous. This is only fitting for Mr. Kidd, since he is so prolific and seems to continually reinvent himself.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

“It’s not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon.” Tom Lehrer, from “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”

“They’re rats with wings.” Woody Allen, from Stardust Memories

No one is certain when pigeon-loathing began, but the anti-pigeon phenomenon has by now insinuated itself into every medium of popular culture. Whether in film, television, music, or advertising, pigeon eradication has become an accepted way to tug at a person’s funny bone. With Canceled Flight: 101 Tried and True Pigeon Killin’ Methods, A.V. Jones has created an Anarchist Cookbook of comic relief for the worldwide pigeon-hating population.

Conjured from Jones’ twisted brain, 101 surefire methods for speeding a pigeon’s journey to the grave are laid out for even the novice pigeon-despiser with lists of required materials and step-by-step guidelines. Every method has been brilliantly illustrated with the help of more than eighty-five of today’s hottest street-inspired painters, illustrators, designers, and photographers. Whether visualized in the pre- or post-death stages or at termination, each piece faithfully represents Jones’ methodology with incredible energy and originality in “The Butcher,” a Dalek Space Monkey picks up a cleaver to “chop, chop, chop till he can’t chop no more,” and Struggle, Inc’s “The Permanent Press” illustrates how two scorching hot irons can make a toasty pigeon sandwich in no time flat. An exhaustive compilation of execution, Canceled Flight is sure to provide the pigeon-killing technique perfect for you.

Canceled Flight features some of the hottest young artists working today including Peter Sutherland, Ryan McGinness, Richard Colman, Derrick Hodgson, kozyndan, David Choe, Dustin Amery Hostetler, Jon Burgerman, and Nago Richardis, among others.

Canceled Flight- The show and the book.

In order to have a little more information for my upcoming HOW Conference session reviews, I have been reading books by some of the presenters. Hatch Show Print: The History of an American Poster Shop is my second installment. My own experiences with letterpress printing is one of the many reasons that I am attending Mr. Sherraden’s session.

I have only been doing letterpress printing in my spare time for less than a year, and currently I have only done small and precise work. Hatch Show Print’s posters have spurred me into getting a 1920’s 12”x18” Chandler & Price letterpress and four trays of wood type. I am already looking for an excuse to print a letterpress poster.

This is the third book that I have read in order to beef up my knowledge of the speakers at this year’s How Conference. I was lucky that, Made You Look had been recently re-printed. I am glad I didn’t have to shell out 60-100 clams for the fist edition (although it still might be worth the price).

I think I might be one of the few designers (among those that do read) that hasn’t read Stefan Sagmeister’s “self-indulgent” design monograph, Made You Look by Peter Hall. This isn’t by mistake. When Sagmeister’s Detroit AIGA poster came out, I was convinced that this poster was a publicity stunt and not the direction that design should be heading (I was just out of school and pretty idealistic). Since then I have realized all of the other amazing work that Stephan has done. That slip case induced ravenous dog cover was enough to make me want to read his book. I wasn’t disappointed. It is rare to find a design book as entertaining as this.

I wanted to get this review up before I saw Pash’Äôs presentation on Inspirability. I will be doing a review of his session of our HOW blog.

The book Inspirability is composed of interviews from 40 famous designers. Matthew Pashkow, a.k.a. Pash, is the author. This appears to be fairly unedited conversations with some of the biggest names is the biz. Beirut, Sagmeister, Scher, Kidd … I have made it no secret that I am a sucker for celebrity designers and this is no exception. It gets me every time. Why wouldn’Äôt I want to know what inspires some of the most respected and creative people out there? Of course there is no definitive answer and that is addressed at the front of the book. What inspires one person might disgust another. Another mans trash …

What is strange about the book might just be it’Äôs greatest quality. Informality. The conversations are obviously edited to fit the space allotted, but the content does not seem to be all that much. It is rather different to read Mr. Beirut say ’Äúyou know,’Äù several times in a row. What seems right in a phone conversation seems a little strange while your reading. You know. These informalities carry through in almost all of the interviews. It feels a bit voyeuristic. The informal aspect of the conversations is included in the design as well, almost to a fault. I’Äôm not sure that I enjoy reading body copy in Scala Sans, but maybe I am just being a font snob. At least it is easily readable.

Designers reach back into the past to learn from various design styles. They may attempt to emulate the color scheme, the line qualities, the textures, or even the concepts. But one factor holds together the most beautiful designs of both nature and man: sound geometry. Geometry of Design explores this mysteriously potent aesthetic phenomenon.

Kimberly Elam presents a simple yet comprehensive overview of the role of geometry in the beauty of design and nature. Elam first explores the prevalence of the Golden Section in nature, art, and architecture, and supports the storied beauty of its proportions with an overview of the cognitive proportion preference studies of both Gustav Fechner and Lalo. Red-highlighted illustrations illuminate Elam's clear explanations of how to construct Golden Section (or Fibonacci Series) rectangles, ellipses, and triangles.

Geometry of Design doesn't only cover the Golden Section. Elam also explores the root 2, root 3, root 4, and root 5 rectangles and explains their role in the more familiar European DIN system (root 2), and the construction of hexagons (root 3).

After introducing these common geometric proportions, Elam reveals the geometric structure of historically significant works such as Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Chair, A.M. Cassandre's Wagon-Bar Poster, and Jan Tschichold's Konstruktivisten Poster, as well as contemporary industrial designs such as the Braun Aromaster Coffee Maker and the modern Volkswagon Beetle. Her analyses are concisely written and aptly accompanied by translucent overlays which reveal geometric structures that range from the astonishingly deliberate to the seemingly unintentional.

Kimberly Elam's Geometry of Design is a flawless introduction to the role of design's least visible, yet most powerful, methods of achieving aesthetic beauty. It is a must-read for anyone curious about geometry's role in design.

Although he went by a different name at the time, Gris Grimly graduated from college just as I was starting. Bennett or some of our friends probably knew him better than I did, but I can tell you this guy was, well, eccentric. My limited memory of him includes burgundy velvet suits, greased black hair, long pointy sideburns, and a cloud of mystery and intrigue that followed him around like a curse. This image has served him well, and aside from the fact that he is now an acclaimed author of children's books, it seems like little has changed. The bio on one of his books says, "'Gris Grimly' is whispered by children in classrooms and on playgrounds around the world. Mothers cringe and babies cry at the sound of his name. In spite of his notoriety, Gris Grimly continues to remain a mystery. What we do know is that he likes old movies, tweed suits and mints."

When I recently got my hands on one of his books, Little Jordan Ray's Muddy Spud I was captivated. We follow Nine year old Jordan Ray as he encounters beggars, trolls, water nymphs, and other dark yet lovable creatures. Gris's illustrations steal the show, but the plot is equally captivating. The book is geared towards children, but Grimly deserves the respect he receives from readers of all ages. I can't wait until my 2 year-old is old enough to enjoy the books as much as I have. Check out Mad Creator.com for more Gris Grimly, if you dare.

by Marty Neumeier

Your new client sends you a breathless email: “Our CBO is building an IMT to reorg the brand architecture from the bottom up. We’re deciding on a BHAG this week, and as soon as we refine our backstory, we’ll probably need an avatar. What do you think?”

You could respond in several ways: 1) “What’s an avatar?” 2) “I’m not really an architect.” 3) Could you please translate that into English? 4) “Don’t call me a beehag.”

None of these answers is likely to raise your client’s confidence in your brand savvitude, especially after you sold yourself as an expert. However, if there were a copy of The Dictionary of Brand on your shelf, you could look these terms up and give her a knowledgeable response.

The Dictionary of Brand is published by the AIGA Center for Brand Experience, and contains 211 terms currently in use by leading brand professionals. Some of the terms are fairly stable, such as brand equity and primacy effect, while others, such as brand police and parallel thinking, have sprung up like mushrooms and may well disappear overnight. (This dictionary is nothing if not fresh.)

I design Chip Kidd covers in my sleep. Ok, ok … so it is more like I was designing his covers in my dreams by the time I was done with this book (true story). Chip Kidd: Book One is chocked full of Chip’s design. When he says he has designed over 800 covers, he is not kidding (sorry for the pun). When you get this book I would suggest digesting it slowly, unlike my week of fairly consecutive four hour reading sessions. There is just too much to take in. These covers are all original (some more than others) and unique, but of course you know all of this stuff. Before I go into my overall nit picky complaints, let me say this. This is truly a beneficially read and an invaluable collection of his work. If nothing else this book shows the progression of book design over the last twenty years.

Who hasn’t thought about ditching their day job and going into business for themselves? You have the talent and ambition, so what is stopping you? Well, if you are like the majority of graphic design professionals, your design education probably didn’t prepare you with the business skills needed to start your own business. You need help. You need a guide that will teach you the basics of starting your own business, and provide you with the knowledge to help you avoid the pitfalls that could destroy the unprepared. Tad Crawford is the author of just such a guide. It is called “The Graphic Design Business Book,” and I was lucky enough to ask him some questions about his new book.

With your background in law, how did you become so passionate about design?
I became passionate about the rights of creative people early in my career. I was teaching writing at the School of Visual Arts and discovered the students knew nothing about business. This led to my creating a business course and then writing Legal Guide for the Visual Artist, which is still in print in its Fourth Edition. I became General Counsel to the Graphic Artists Guild and lobbied on both the state and federal level for rights for creators. In a sense, Allworth Press grew out of this passion.

I think that most designers fantasize about going into business for themselves, but your book doesn’t make it sound as glamorous as our dreams. Law suits, insurance, profit margins, taxes… that doesn’t sound like much fun at all. Is it really worth it?
It’s important that our dreams be grounded in reality. Being an entrepreneur is very different from being an employee. It has different challenges and different rewards. The entrepreneur has design skill, certainly, but also a vision of building a design business. Building any business requires a willingness to take responsibility and risk, to do the menial business chores as well as the exciting design work, to worry about money and perhaps be the beneficiary of a profitable business. When someone is ready to begin a design business, it can be terribly frustrating not to move ahead and get started—whatever the risks and however hard the work.

If I had one word with which to review this book, I would choose “collaboration.” If I had more—and you know I do—I’d talk about how Duffy explores the creative teams, account teams, and the clients on their roads to success.

Customer service. Why do I feel a little uneasy when I think of the phrase? The words “customer service” might as well say “customer complaints,” “unsatisfied customers,” or “those people who want me to produce garbage just because they don’t know the first thing about good design.” Ok, so maybe I could benefit from reading a book about customer service. Maybe you could, too…