My Design Books

"It’s nice that 2014 annual" ; This book is immaculate and perfect. It has many design elements, I love the book I love the way that it has been created. The cover is blue, which is rather different. Also so are the pages they are blue. IT’s a very blue book however I think it’s great. My brother got me this book for Christmas I believe, as he knew I was really into design. They have different editions of this book all having a postcard in the front by a designer / illustrator and photography I think.

Mine is from Gwendal Le Bec, and it’s an illustration of shoes / trainers. Some of the pages actually in the book are either blue or white which I think has a nice feel towards it. I would really recommend this book to other aspiring designers. It’s beautifully put and is a well bound book. The It’s Nice That Annual is really one of my favourites.

Wild Art by Phaidon

This book was another that I had received for Christmas, this actually was the first design book that my brother ever bought me. I remember being upset at Christmas thinking why on Earth did my brother waste his money buying me this. However, I truly love it. It’s a great design / art book. It’s a really thick book too and I remember just reading through and looking at all the pages in this book thinking wow. That it some amazing photography work, or that’s beautiful graffiti art etc. I would recommend this book no doubt about it, it’s a great starting off point. It shows all kinds of art within it, which I will post in picture sets below.

Cereal magazine is all for ‘Travel & Lifestyle’, this magazine gets published twice a year and is devised into city-specific chapters. With each chapter, it comprises different features on places, people and products, also this magazines is showcased with beautifully visually striking photography. An interlude section is also included in every volume, this features a selection of style, and culture articles.

Cereal magazine also offers a range of city guides, they provide the reader with a tightly edited selection of their favourite places in a variety of different cities around the world. Each of these guides is published online, and come with an introduction to the city, as-well as alongside essential information, and also features anywhere from 10-20 different locations. This city guide also comes with exclusive photography which is taken by their team, and has been laid out in an editorial style. They also produce printed guide books for select cities.

The select Cities for these guide books, are as follow:

Austin, Charlestown, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Seoul, Bath, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, New York, Singapore, Bristol, Edinburgh, London, Paris, Vancouver. 

I purchased this magazine on the 02 May, after waiting a week to buy it. I couldn’t find this magazine in other WHSmith shop, apart from the one I work in, on weekends. I first noticed this magazine however, on a shift as I was routing through design magazines to help with my work.

As I was looking I noticed the title ‘ C | E | R | E | A | L’, I quite liked the way that this was laid out and thought I would give it a quick scan through. On the front cover, it is very minimal and basic, something I think what you’d expect from a Travel and Lifestyle magazine. Underneath the title, is clearly states that this is from the travel and lifestyle genre of magazines. Also, is states that this is VOL 8, which clearly says that there is eight volumes within this type of series.

I would recommend Cereal, although it is a pricy magazine/ bookazine it is perfect.

YCN Student Annual 13/14

I got given this book as my brother was working on this book. He was on the editorial side of creating this wonderful design book. When I received it I was really intrigued as well as thinking what is it? I wasn’t knowing at the time I think of what it was that I wanted to do once I finished College. Either photography or graphic design. I was on the fence about that.

I really think that this book gave me a brilliant insight to what graphic design can do and how you can make beautiful art from it.

I do think this book is great. The colour of the book is orange and has orange pages within it, however it is on more white pages than that of the It’s Nice That Annual. I do believe that it is just the contents pages that are on the orange pages. Another reason why I really like this book is that it’s about graduate designers. It shows their work and where they studied, who they had for tutors etc. I really liked this aspect. I remember seeing some in here that went to Huddersfield University and I got excited and thought wow! They went to the place where I am going to study. It made me excited as a designer for what I could accomplish there.