Gavin Ambrose’s Design Thinking for Visual Communication is a resourceful academic guide for any visual communicator; be it an illustrator, graphic designer, artist, designer etc. It identifies the methods and thought processes employed by design practitioners in order to start the design process. It provides step-by-step guidance for each stage of the design process, however I thought it was lacking in a very important stage; the defining and refining of a project.
The techniques and artist examples shared are quite dated, so that was a down-side to it for me. Maybe it could do with a newer edition. However that being said it still contains a lot of vital visual knowledge.
It’s very easily laid out. The book is divided into 6 chapters (1 for each design stage), each with several sub-sections relevant to that stage of the process. It keeps the readers interest with interesting and inspiring examples of visual work.
You cannot hold a design in your hand. It is not a thing. It is a process. A system. A way of thinking.
Bob Gill, American illustrator and graphic designer
Ambrose has taken into account the audience and has created a page layout that is both visually exciting but still contains the right amount of text that can be easily digested. However, I personally didn’t appreciate the colour choice for the pages; a rather bright, off-putting yellow – but that’s just my design preference. It made it a little hard to read at times and it came off a little too in your face.
It was a good follow up from learning about semiotics last term and I can definitely see myself coming back to this book when I feel stuck at any stage of the design process.
Yolanda Wafaquani’s Graphic Design Blog 