Book Review of Design Essentials

Adobe Studio Technique Series books don’t try to teach the commands and features of individual computer programs. Instead they focus on end results: what you see when a project is finished, or the physical tools and materials you will deal with in producing a finished piece of art. Each book in the series is beautifully produced in an oversized format. They are full color throughout and interior pages are laminated for durability and coffee cup protection. They are designed, laid out, and edited to high standards which this reviewer wishes were adopted by the vast majority of computer books which, by comparison to Adobe Press books, seem in a rush to say or to show nothing.

Design Essentials, the volume by Cohen and Wendling, begins with a totally helpful strategy session. Those of us who are new to the graphic production trade want to waltz in and throw some cool stuff together. But computer tools allow us to create complex images—even the simpler projects are complex—and so we can benefit greatly from the methodical approach that Cohen and Wendling lay out for us. Here we get tips on everything from font management to ideas about working efficiently in Illustrator and Photoshop that will save hours of time over the life of a project. From there Cohen and Wendling consider lines and perspective (dashed line effects, creating offset outlines, shaded spherical objects), painting and blending (impressionist effects, stippling, shadows for objects), patterns and textures and text effects. They close with a chapter on special effects which discusses filter combinations, embossing and composite photographs and another that takes up issues of printing and production such as color trapping and creating duotones. This is really a great book. You can pick up plenty of cool ideas and the authors tell enough about how they were generated that you can go to your program and (with a little help from the manual or internet, if you're new) put the thing into action. Here are my favorites: creating a textured effect—in other words degrading crisp text and line art to make it soft-edged and emotive; filter combinations—the use of two Photoshop filters in combination to create a special effect; Gaussian blur plus diffuse: normal, two times—a great grainy texture that is subtle, artistic, and moving.