I don’t typically post book reviews here but I really wanted to let people know about a book that I picked up at the HOW Conference this summer. Graphic Design Referenced comes from Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit of Under Consideration (a great resource in itself).

The book first piqued my interest because of the numerous case studies throughout the latter section of the book. Without much time to look through the rest of the book thoroughly I purchased it and shipped it back to my office with a few other books from the conference. I hadn’t really opened it up until this week while I was researching a new campaign but I quickly realized that it was far more useful than I’d first thought.

Graphic Design Referenced calls itself “A Visual Guide to the Language, Applications, and History of Graphic Design” and starts out almost like a textbook. I don’t mean that in a bad way, this is the way design textbooks should be written. Among the subjects discussed are typography, print production and grid structure. The information is so well organized with so many examples that it really makes everything easy to understand and easy to remember.

The design samples and case studies continue on through the remainder of the book. In the final “Practice” section, there are numerous examples of logo design, brochure design, poster design, publication design and so on. Not only does the book provide great inspiration for future projects but the back stories provided on each one really give a lot of insight into the thoughts behinds the designs.

The massive amount of information in this book could almost be overwhelming but the authors and designers did a great job of structuring everything so it feels manageable.

There are a ton of books out there on graphic design and it can be tough to decide where to spend you’re hard-earned money. I love this book because of the great content but also because I feel like I really got a lot for my $50. If you’re a designer, design student or have an interest in advertising and marketing I would highly recommend this book.

Photographer Adele has created a wonderful series of photographs. Her idea is to capture an image of what her baby might be dreaming about while she is sleeping. It’s a fantastic idea and the way she sets up some of the photos to depict the dream scene is just inspired. Take a look at the photos below and make sure to click through to her blog for more fantastic images.

Although I’m not an architect I often find great inspiration for graphic design by looking at clever and beautiful architecture. This post on Abduzeedo highlights Slovenian architect Andrej Kalamar of Studio Kalamar.

From apartment buildings with sharp geometric lines to an amazing organic feeling pool and spa complex, there is a lot of great inspiration from this firm. Check out the Abduzeedo article for a lot of great pics. You can also see more at the Studio Kalamar website but be warned, I found it fairly painful to look at and navigate.

Home Retail Group – Reporting outside of the box from SAS on Vimeo.

I came across this video on the Fast Company website today. It’s a pretty interesting take on the idea of annual report design.

Too often annual reports can be beautiful pieces with lots of time and effort put into them but in the end not many people notice them. So what if instead of a printed book the report was a stop-motion video? That’s what SAS, a UK branding firm, did for Home Retail Group. I’m guessing that quite a few more people have seen this video than would have seen a printed report.

A while back I posted a link to a site that provides a highly detailed view of Paris. Now, along the same lines, is a site devoted to the city of Dubai with even more detail.

This panorama composed of 4,250 individual shots allows the user to zoom in to an amazing degree. There is also a nice description of the method the photographer used to capture the images.

Although I don’t think Dubai is nearly as interesting as Paris I definitely killed a few minutes looking around on this site.