The Graphic Designer’s Electronic-Media Manual

Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d – 20.03.2012

ISBN – 9781592537785

The Graphic Designer’s Electronic-Media Manual by Jason Tselentis, published by Rockport aims to educate traditional media designers like print and type designers to transition to the digital realm. This includes areas like type and colour application, composition, navigation and user interface, and customisation for different devices like desktop computers, tablets and smartphones.Chapters include:

1. The Digital Realm
2. Managing the Design
3. Format + Layout
4. Typography
5. Colour + Pattern
6. Image + Illustration
7. The Online Brand

The Graphic Designer’s Electronic-Media Manual really is a manual, it covers the whole scope of digital graphic design. Jason Tselentis, the author, is a professor at Winthrop University in South Carolina and has operated his own studio since 1996. How work has been featured in places like Arcade, Eye and How magazines. The experience of Tselentis shows throughout the book with a number of practical and experience driven examples which keep the book informative as well as entertaining.

These illustrative guides produced by Rockport really are my favorite books written. They have enough information to keep you interested and well informed, yet it is not too vague that you don’t learn anything and it is not too detailed like a rule book that gives you no scope to innovate. Tselentis uses a variety of media to communicate his message including screenshots, photographs, diagrams, sketches and tables which are utilised in great effect. As an example in the format and layout section it has a nice diagram explaining the commonly used screen sizes and aspect ratios used to help you with web development using overlaid transparent boxes, it gets this detailed! This section also covers areas like framing of pictures, padding, using tables as a layout guide and even navigation menus.

The aim of this book is to help transition traditional designers to the digital world and it does extremely well. A chapter that is a good example of this is the section on typography where they talk about web safe fonts and browser compatibility and rendering, really core knowledge areas for making a website that are pivotal to a beginner. Equally this book is great inspiration and training to young designers who are interested in transitioning to the web or app development. I can’t think of a greater audience for this book than web developers who can nail the apple script or C+ but don’t know how to engage and interface their design to the market.

The examples used are just great at illustrating Tselentis’s main points, I can’t praise or recommend this book more strongly. It is near essential reading for all junior web developers or people curious about website design.

[rating:4.5]