The designer´s graphic stew : visual ingredients, techniques, and layout recipes for graphic designers / Timothy Samara.

Introduction: Designer as chef -- How to use this book -- Basic Techniques -- Preliminary prep -- Basics of building a strong composition -- Defining clear visual hierarchy -- Symmetry and asymmetry -- Working with imagery -- Using abstract form -- Creating visually dynamic color relationships -- Using color to enhance messaging -- Exploiting color to enhance hierarchy -- Limiting (and maximizing) the palette -- Quick, easy coding strategies -- Choosing and combining typefaces -- Creating visual dialogue between type and imagery -- Crafting reader-friendly (and beautiful!) text -- Effectively using a column grid -- Graphic Ingredients -- Pictorial staples: icons, abstract forms, patterns, and varied image treatments -- Chromatic flavors: color palettes organized visually and by concept -- Typographic confections: typeface combinations, treatments, and embellishments -- Spatial presentations: grid structures, cropping strategies, and proportion concepts -- Project Recipes -- Appetizers and takeout: cover designs, image-based advertisements, and website home pages -- First courses: simple editorial spreads, posters and advertising campaigns, and retail storefront display -- Large plate and entrees: packaging systems, content-rich websites, and extended publication formats -- Dessert tray: a selection of purely typographic solutions.

From the Publisher: Under the witty and metaphorical guise of a high-end cookbook, the author provides visual ´ingredients,´ such as grid structures, folios, border devices, type treatments, abstract graphic elements, categorized stylistically and functionally. These ingredients are shown in use through a ´recipe´ format to accomplish strategies such as movement, rhythm, organization, contrast, metaphor, etc. Ingredients are coded and cross-referenced among categories for mix and matching purposes as well as demonstrating varied alternate combinations to achieving different approaches to strategies. Timothy Samara is a graphic designer based in New York City, where he divides his time between teaching, writing, lecturing, and freelance consulting through STIM Visual Communication. His 18-year career in branding and information design has explored projects in print, packaging, environments, user interface design, and animation. He has been a senior art director at Ruder Finn, New York´s largest public relations firm, and senior art director at Pettistudio, a small multidisciplinary design firm. Before relocating to Manhattan, he was principal of Physiologic in Syracuse, located in upstate New York. In 1990, he graduated a Trustee Scholar from the Graphic Design program at the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. Mr. Samara is a faculty member at New York´s School of Visual Arts, New York University, Purchase College/SUNY, and The New School, and has published six books on design and typography, all through Rockport Publishers: Making and Breaking the Grid; Typography Workbook; Publication Design Workbook; Type Style Finder; Design Elements; and, most recently, Design Evolution, released in January 2008. Mr. Samara and his partner live in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn.