10 Graphic Design Books Every Freelance Designer Should Have

Amazon Price: $5.87 (as of 05/31/2012)

Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical guidelines, 12th Edition is the industry bible, containing information all graphic artists and their clients need to buy and sell work in a totally professional manner. This edition has been revised and updated to provide all the information you need to compete in an industry moving at lightning speed.

Amazon Price: $7.01 (as of 05/31/2012)

Not satisfied with the new T-shirts on sale at the local mall? Maybe you'd like a wedding invitation that expresses your own vision, not your party planner's? How about some personalized stationery? An upgrade to your website? A business card? A poster for your political campaign? A CD package for your band? Sound good? Then get up off your couch and Design It Yourself! Avoid graphic identity theft: build your own. Ellen Lupton, bestselling author of Thinking with Type will show you how.

"DIY: Design It Yourself" provides you with all the tools you'll need to create your own projects, from conception through production. Here you will find:

- simple ideas on how you can "think like a designer"
- clear and coherent explanations of design technologies, from silk-screening to web
development
- what materials you'll need to get your job done
- where to find and buy them
- how much time and experience your project demands
- diagrams that show how to handle complex tasks
- basic typographic dos and don'ts
- the history and theory of the DIY design movement
- hundreds of innovative and beautiful projects for inspiration

No more excuses. With this book, virtually any design task is within your grasp. Just do it (yourself)!

Amazon Price: $19.98 (as of 05/31/2012)

This book is a hands-on guide to the entire process of making logos and fonts and even icons, all of which, essentially, start with the ability to draw letterforms. The intent of the book, in fact, is to enable the user to end reliance on "OPF" (other people's fonts) and learn to draw your own custom logos, fonts and lettering! There are many books on the market that simply display collections of logos and fonts, and that give the history of logos and fonts. But Logo, Font & Lettering Bible is unique in that it teaches you how to create logos and fonts from scratch using traditional tools as well as the computer programs Adobe Illustrator and Fontographer (plus a bit about FontLab). The book provides all the traditional rules and tips about letter formation relating to proportion, shaping, balance, spacing, composition and actually teaches five different methods of drawing letters on computer using bezier curves. There has never been a book like this one that goes into so much detail about drawing letters and takes such a fun and irreverent approach while doing so. The book is also full of inspiration and analysis of tons of great examples of vintage and current lettering from old manuscripts to graffiti. Logo, Font & Lettering Bible also shows you how to create fancy drop shadows and other type effects. And finally, the last section provides straight talk on the business of being a logo and font designer, from advertising your work and pricing to dealing with difficult clients (aren't they all?).

This book has been almost unanimously acclaimed by professional letterers, logo designers and font creators, both young and old. It is currently in use as a text in many typography programs and several Design college educators have stated it is one of the few texts that "students are actually happy about having to purchase."

Amazon Price: $19.50 (as of 05/31/2012)

This wonderful book is about color and design, but it is not a book of theory that begins with color wheels, primary colors, secondary colors, and color harmony. Instead, it offers design examples from the past century: Victorian, Art Deco, Sixties, Raves, etc., with each illustration including Cmyk color formulas. Cmyk is the color-processing system used by printers and also Photoshop, i.e., you can add in the Cmyk for any color in the book and duplicate it in Photoshop or other paint programs. Along with design examples, there are also chapters on current color styles, limited colors, and "bad color," which actually is pretty cool. Designers will love this book for the examples; others can simply select great colors that go together.

Amazon Price: $14.30 (as of 05/31/2012)

This book contains negotiation tactics and thirty-three forms designers need in every-day business, including: Estimate for Client, Preliminary Budget and Schedule; Proposal Form; Job Sheet; Production Schedule; Estimate Request for Suppliers; Contract with Illustrator/Photographer/Printer/Sales Representative; Merchandising Agreement; Release Forms; Permission to Use Copyrighted Work; and much more.

Amazon Price: $39.00 (as of 05/31/2012)

The new edition has been redesigned in a larger format which provides more color area with which to work, improved readability of important color data and better accessibility to all colors on the pages. The formula guide is an essential tool for graphic designers, pre-press professionals and printers. Its simple design provides a convenient and portable reference that can accompany you at client presentations or on press. This three-guide set contains 1, 114 PANTONE Colors on coated, uncoated and matte stocks.



Read the single review left for this on Amazon. Kind of funny to a graphic designer...

"My only complaint is, they don't use nice names for the colors. They're all "PMS147" or "PMS1457" but really, I'd prefer something like "mediterranean blue" or "tuscan yellow." Just a suggestion."

Amazon Price: $0.29 (as of 05/31/2012)

The 2008 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market is the best reference guide for emerging artists who want to establish a successful career in fine art, illustration, cartooning or graphic design. Readers will find complete, up-to-date contact and submission information for more than 1,900 art markets such as greeting card companies, magazine and book publishers, galleries, art fairs, ad agencies and more. Informative interviews with successful artists and art buyers offer advice on how to make contacts and succeed in the competitive art industry. Readers will also discover valuable resources for obtaining grants, marketing and promoting their work, and networking with fellow artists.

Amazon Price: $9.65 (as of 05/31/2012)

Forms, Folds & Sizes is the book that is always next to a designer's computer. Completely practical with only the most needed information, this book will provide designers with all the little details that can make or break a design such as how much space to leave in the gutter when designing barrel folds, how to layout a template for a box and the ratios of each part, metric conversion charts, standard envelope sizes in the USA, Europe, Canada and Asia, etc. This hardworking handbook is 2-color with a durable soft vinyl cover.

Amazon Price: $110.00 (as of 05/31/2012)

The Designer's Complete Index. It's creative, powerful, inspiring and real - providing all the insight and problem-solving muscle a designer needs to produce the best work of their life.

This super-cool boxed set contains all three of Jim Krause's best-selling "Index" books, including Idea Index (graphic effects and typographic treatments), Layout Index (your secret weapon for effective, dynamic layouts) and Color Index (over 1100 color combinations with CMYK and RGB formulas). Each volume is packed with hundreds of stimulating ideas, creative solutions and practical instructions.

And the collector's box itself is a prize worth having, a slick yet practical carrying case you can use long after having put the books on your "most valuable resources" shelf.