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.

Yesterday I noticed a tweet from Chris Brogan telling designers that he had just put a logo design contest up on a popular crowdsourcing website. If you’ve heard me discuss crowdsourcing then you know I’m not a fan so I sent a quick reply letting him know that most reputable designers are against this type of design “contest.”

Considering that Chris has over 135,000 followers on Twitter I thought that would be the last I heard of the issue. I was pleasantly surprised when Chris replied back asking me why. I responded with a link to NO!SPEC and a quick summary of my point of view that, “designers deserve to get paid for work they do and businesses deserve full attention from their designer.”

It was clear from his discussion with me and others on Twitter that Chris was attempting to educate himself. He also asked if anyone had written any blog posts on the issue and said he might link to some in a future post of his. I happily sent him links to the two posts I’d made about crowdsourcing graphic design last year.

Soon Chris had a blog post up about his project and the strong reactions he’d been getting from Twitter, he also linked to one of my posts. There has been a great discussion in the comments on his blog about crowdsourcing benefits and why it might hurt designers and businesses. I’d recommend taking a few minutes to read his post and his decision to pursue a $300 logo over the $20,000 logo he had previously had done.

Of course I made my opinion clear although I don’t particularly expect it to change many minds. What I do appreciate is someone taking the time to educate themselves and others about both sides of the debate. It’s understandable that a business might just see crowdsourcing as a way to get a cheap logo but hopefully discussions like these will educate those people so that at the very least they are aware of what they are asking of designers.

I came across images today of a hotel in Krakow, Poland. The design of the hotel is absolutely amazing and has a graphical element that especially appeals to me as a designer.

The hotel exterior consists of a sleek aluminum material that is interrupted by beautiful black lines and windows. I have to admit that I think part of the reason I love the design is that it reminds me of Apple products.

Unfortunately I don’t think I’m headed to Poland anytime soon but if I was I think I’d set aside a little extra money to stay at this amazing hotel.

There have been some really amazing photos of the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland. In case you’ve missed them, a few can be found on this site.

I find the ones with lighting particularly beautiful but all of them are pretty spectacular.

Obviously not everyone would boost their productivity by spending time on Twitter or Facebook during their workday. But for graphic designers or other creatives these short breaks can help keep our minds running and the ideas flowing. Take a look at the article and see what you think.