Arek Dvornechuck
Branding Expert
10 Best Graphic Design Books of All Times
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As a creative, I've read countless of books about graphic design, that’s why I decided to share with you the must-have graphic design books in 2022.
What books to buy for graphic designers?
I featured various types of books that will surely fit every designer’s need to become a professional creative.
From basic books for beginners and students to more advanced books for professionals who want to level up—I’ve got you all covered.
I believe that as a professional artist, we must always be open to new learning and knowledge.
No matter how long we work as graphic designers, we still have to learn from experts who made tutorials and guidelines to serve as our reference.
These books that I will enumerate will help you learn the basics of graphic design as well as its history and relevance to us as designers.
These are all essential books for creatives like you, and the best thing is that they are all available online.
You can buy physical book (Hardcover) or you can buy it in eBook version (Kindle).
Most of the books from my list must be included in your book collection if you want to be an expert graphic designer.
So without further ado, here's my list of 10 best books for learning graphic design.
Graphic design books aren't just made for students or beginners; they're also an important part of continuing to develop and evolve as a designer.
These books include timeless classics as well as contemporary masterpieces about design.
Each one is authored by an expert in the industry and is filled with information you won't find anywhere else.
The books can serve as our guide by allowing us to learn based on the experience and knowledge of designers that are already experts in the field of graphic design.
We can adapt to their mindset and use that as inspiration for us to grow and become professional in doing creative work.
Michael Bierut is one of the most prolific designers and writers today, and in his book, he shares his perspectives on form and content in design.
A must-have book if you want to master the fundamentals of graphic design.
This book is a comprehensive guide to modern graphic design theory and practice that examines the broad range of design skills.
It covers everything from advertising, corporate identity, graphics for print, graphics for web technology, signage systems, and environmental graphics.
You can learn where to start when designing a project, and how to get (and stay) out of trouble.
In this engaging and insightful volume, Bierut spells out what graphic designers do and how they plan and execute their work.
He starts by asking the basic questions: Who are we? What do we do? Why are we here?
Once he established the basics, he goes on to illustrate how a typical project unfolds: from research to conception to execution.
Along the way, he discusses how to use symbols effectively and persuasively, solve problems creatively with typography and color, bring order to visual chaos, and define brand identity.
The How to Use Graphic Design book is reinforced by hundreds of full-color illustrations that include examples of great design, how to read a brief, typographic scales, how to apply color in effective ways, and much more.
It teaches the important aspects of effective graphic design and will help you become a better designer.
How to Use Graphic Design is definitely the best intro to graphic design book that you can buy today.
Buy How to Use Graphic Design on Amazon
Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips revised and updated a book edition which explains the key concepts of visual language that inform any work of design.
A foundational graphic design book for beginners and students.
This is a graphic design book for everyone, so no matter what your design project is, from logos to letterheads to complicated website design—this is perfect for you.
The New Basics has sixteen new pages of student and professional work covering such topics as working with grids and designing with color.
Which is perfect for any graphic design program and any graphic design school.
In fact, The New Basics is one of the best graphic design book for beginners and students.
This book is also an invaluable introduction to the field of graphic design by two accomplished designers and design educators.
It refocuses design learning on a critical, rigorous examination of form foundations informed by modern media, theory, and software systems.
This book teaches students and experts how to use simple relationships between formal aspects of two-dimensional design like point, line, plane, scale, hierarchy, layering, and transparency to create interest and complexity.
It takes a new approach to design education by stressing visually dense, form-based thinking in a way that is up-to-date with current media, theory, art, and technological advances.
The New Basics is intended to become the standard reference work in design education and is an invaluable resource for anybody seeking a clever, inspirational introduction to graphic design.
Buy Graphic Design: The New Basics on Amazon
Josef Müller-Brockmann, a legendary designer whose work is known for its minimalist designs and clean use of type, forms, and colors, wrote Grid Systems.
A must-own book for graphic designers that want to be experts in grid systems.
The book outlines the operation and use of grid systems with 8 to 32 grid fields that can be utilized for a wide range of tasks, including three-dimensional grids.
Grid Systems focus on established tools that are used by print and web designers to create well-structured, balanced designs.
The user is provided exact instructions for using all of the grid systems that are available, as well as examples of how to work appropriately on a conceptual level.
This book also featured the development of organizational systems in visual communication, which was the accomplishment of the representatives of simple and functional typography and graphic design.
Additionally, Grid Systems is one of the most popular graphic design books that you can buy on the market today.
This book aims to provide tips and suggestions by providing examples and precise instructions to professionals for any grid difficulties that may arise.
The author believed that graphic design is a visual communication that should be understood by viewers, and that grid systems would help designers understand how to arrange and manage their art work.
Buy Grid Systems in Graphic Design on Amazon
This book by Sophie Cure and Aurélien Farina is a fun and unique introduction to graphic design—it combines puzzles and visual challenges to show how typography, signs, logo design, posters, and branding operate.
A book that provides a fun and interactive way to learn graphic design.
It combines puzzles and visual challenges to show how typography, signs, logo design, posters, and branding operate.
Readers are introduced to graphic art principles and techniques in an interesting and dynamic fashion through a variety of games and activities such as spot the difference, matching games, drawing, and dot–to–dot.
The Play Book has solution pages and a dictionary that provide more explanation and information, and a loose–leaf portion contains stickers, die–cut templates, and colored paper to aid readers in completing the tasks.
The book will appeal to graphic artists as well as anyone interested in learning more about visual communication.
It is illustrated with typefaces, poster designs, and pictograms by renowned designers such as Otl Aicher, Pierre Di Sciullo, Otto Neurath, and Gerd Arntz.
The book’s four sections—typography, posters, signs, and identity—all invite you to jump in, explore, and allow your eyes and hands to lead you on a journey of discovery in the world of graphic design.
So if you’re looking for a graphic design book for you to read while being entertained, the Play Book must be included in your collection.
Buy Graphic Design Play Book on Amazon
Graphic Design For Everyone by Cath Caldwell aims to transform your ideas into powerful visuals, connect with your audience, define your brand, and take your project to the next level.
A must-buy book for every graphic designer—beginner and professional.
This highly practical design book walks you through the fundamentals of design, and shows you how to mix them to create visuals that inform, influence, and enthrall.
Through in-depth how-to articles, hands-on workshops, and inspiring galleries of excellent design, you can comprehend the key principles by reading Graphic Design For Everyone.
You can also learn how to build a brand strategy, how to choose the right typeface for the job, and how to organize different aspects of a layout to increase the impact and meaning of your message.
With ten step-by-step projects to help you develop your own amazing designs, including business stationery, invites, sales brochure, website, online newsletter, and e-shop, you'll be able to apply your talents to do it yourself.
There's also a lot of useful information on how to publish online, deal with printers, commission specialists, find free design tools, and so on.
Graphic Design for Everyone is your one-stop resource for becoming an effective, inspirational visual communicator if you're ready to employ powerful design to take your pet project or blossoming business to the next level.
Buy Graphic Design For Everyone on Amazon
This book by Steve Heller and Veronica Vienne is a thoughtfully curated inventory of abstract concepts that defined and shaped the art and craft of graphic design—each illustrated with images and historical context.
A book that features almost everything about graphic design.
The authors construct the technological, philosophical, formal, and aesthetic constructs of graphic design to provide every creative with a broader understanding of graphic designers' lives.
This book shows how concepts have impacted and defined graphic design, as well as how those ideas have manifested in design objects.
The 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design are divided into four categories to be able to cater to the specific needs of a designer.
These are: technical (overprinting, rub-on designs, split fountain); stylistic (swashes on caps, loud typography, and white space); objects (dust jackets, design handbooks); and methods (overprinting, rub-on designs, split fountain, paper cut-outs, pixelation).
The book is both a fantastic source of inspiration and a provocative record of some of the best examples of graphic design from the last hundred years.
So if you’re curious about the ideas that changed and improved graphic design concepts over many years, this graphic design book is what you should own.
Buy 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design on Amazon
This book by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson is broken into sections covering the fundamental elements of design—it serves to illustrate technical points and encourage readers to try out new ideas.
An inspirational book for every graphic designer.
This book includes form, narrative, color, type, and image, decoration, simplicity, and wit and humor for graphic designers.
As a result, you'll get an instantaneous and simple-to-understand guide to expert graphic design approaches.
The Graphic Design Idea Book gives practical suggestions for fueling your creativity as well as a new perspective on your circumstance or creative dilemma.
This is a playful yet thoughtful look at how to be creative, complete with colorful infographics and pictures.
Its visuals and flow diagrams bring creative activities like pitching and giving feedback to life, and its short, snappy chapters make everything clear and simple to understand.
So if you’re looking for an inspirational book that can motivate you as an artist, this is your must-have book.
Buy The Graphic Design Idea Book on Amazon
In this another essential graphic design book, legendary designer Ellen Lupton critiques the creative process.
A mindset-changer book for graphic designers.
She wrote the book Graphic Design Thinking which looks at a number of strategies for generating new ideas and coming up with compelling and practical solutions.
A brief narrative text introduces each technique, which is followed by a range of graphic demonstrations and case studies.
Lupton's close-up, hands-on method, popularized by her book, makes the creative process accessible to everyone and dispels the misconception that creativity is a natural skill.
Graphic Design Thinking is for working designers, design students, and anyone who wants to apply inventive thought patterns to everyday creative challenges in the design process.
You will learn the design techniques that are grouped around the three basic phases of the design process: defining the problem, inventing ideas, and creating form.
This book will teach you to approach problems through focus groups, interviewing, brand mapping, and co-design.
Buy Graphic Design Thinking on Amazon
This book is the first collection of essays, syllabi, and directions for transmitting the history of graphic design's distinctive practice.
A must-read book to learn the history of graphic design.
From standard chronologies to diverse themes generated by today's historians, designers, researchers, and documentarians—this book got you all covered.
By reading Teaching Graphic Design History, you will learn that the history of graphic design and concepts and ideologies.
As well as the history of printing and typesetting had long ignored graphic design, so historians were faced with the challenge of deciding what was worthy and where to focus.
Teaching Graphic Design History is a great choice for creatives that are looking for the best history of graphic design book.
When it comes to teaching graphic design history, this book is a must-have for anyone who wants to learn about the history of sign language, symbolism, and items made for use in the public (and occasionally private) realm.
Teaching Graphic Design History is an invaluable resource for students, practitioners, and future teachers of the field.
It examines the attempts, fortunate accidents, and significant influences of the graphic design practice over the years.
Buy Teaching Graphic Design History on Amazon
The Graphic Design Rules is packed with practical advice delivered in a fun, lighthearted manner, making it ideal for the ever-growing community of non-designers looking for graphic design help.
An ideal book to learn the dos and don'ts in graphic design.
And for more experienced designers, individual entries will either bring forth knowing nods of agreement or hoots of derision, depending on whether or not the reader loves or hates hyphenation.
No matter how many times you ask a graphic designer what their preferred method is for laying out a new design, you won't get the same answer twice.
Regardless of how many strategies one can use to develop a new design project, each creative person has their own unique strategy or combination of techniques.
So, for you to learn your own unique way of designing, this book combines a specific guideline with discussion from a diverse group of experienced designers from various disciplines within the graphic design industry.
Graphic Design Rules is absolutely an ideal choice for designers that wants to have the best graphic design principles book.
You can use it as the source of a daily lesson in how to generate amazing graphic design, with themes like typography, color, layout, images, production, and creative thinking.
If you're starting out in the field of graphic design and want to brush up on your knowledge of typography, color, layout, images, production, and creative thinking, this book is an excellent resource.
Buy Graphic Design Rules on Amazon
Since there are a lot of books about graphic design on the market, it’s hard for creatives to know which book to purchase and read.
That’s why I became inspired to review my 10 best graphic design books to help you figure out what book you need for your specific needs.
This list of my top 10 books about graphic design is a great source of knowledge for all types of designers—regardless of whether you’re just starting or already have years of experience in designing.
I included How to Use Graphic Design for those designers that want to know more about the fundamentals of graphic design.
Additionally, Graphic Design: The New Basics and Graphic Design Rules are great references , especially for those beginners who want to master the basics and rules of graphic design.
This article also featured The Graphic Design Idea Book which is an inspirational book for every designer—both beginners and professionals.
On the other hand, the Graphic Design Play Book, is an ideal book for creatives that want to learn graphic design in the most fun and interactive way.
Now that you’ve learned about the best graphic design books on the market, which one of them will you buy as a graphic designer?—Leave a comment below.
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I'm a branding expert and graphic designer based in NY. I specialize in the development of brands: brand strategy, identity & web design. Need help with your project?—Get in touch
