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Before I begin, I am a huge Sitepoint fan, love their books as I have developed a great collection of their books. More importantly they are great read that provide the right balance of technicality and easy reason. Wish I did work for them because they are that good. Now that my fanboyism is out of the way about the publisher, let’s talk about “Photoshop CS6 Unlocked” 101 Tips, Tricks, and Techniques” by Corrie Haffley. First thing I want to point out this this is the second edition of this book as this Adobe Photoshop book deals with getting the most out of Photoshop CS6. Even better, I own one of the Adobe CS6 suites and so this book has scored more points! Of course, I will point out and for those that do not know me; I am a pretty crappy graphic designer. I can handle my own in the sense I can attempt to make things look pretty and have an eye for what looks good and what doesn’t, but other than that, I am last person to hire or use for a million dollar project. However, with this book it provides me a guide to help learn basic techniques and spruce them up a bit and like every great designer you need to master the basics to become a better artist. Naturally, 101 tips, tricks, and techniques is not enough to get the most out of Photoshop because we all know this software is hundreds of features with thousands of different possibilities. As for who can use this book, I have to everyone, not because I am huge Sitepoint fan or Photoshop person but these 101 tips, tricks, and techniques attack all three levels of skill and patience because it uses tools like the Convert Point tool, feathering, masking etc. and I know that people spend months making complex designs in Photoshop. However, if you are looking to spruce up your photos or website, Photoshop does it as well. More importantly, it is a much bigger book in terms of size as it gave the author plenty of room to show clearly how the tips work and walking you through them. Or if you’re a Sitepoint junkie like me, I would pick it up, granted the book has purpose for me since I do have the software. On top of that you learn a lot and it refreshes your skills if you have been out of the graphic design game for a bit or don’t want to hire an expensive graphic designer.

In volume two of the Smashing book series, we are introduce to ten more chapters from the boys and girls of the Smashing Magazine Network. Here the web designers tool set is greatly expanded in which topics of graphic design, mobile design, wireframing, psychology, and even e-commerce are discussed. At a comfortable 335 pages this book will show you how difficult a web designers life really is due to the fact that there are a lot areas a web designer needs to cover from the first meeting to the client to going live. Like volume #1, Smashing Book #2 condenses a lot of information you would find on their website and the various they have published as well. This is due to the fact that each chapter presented in this book can be a book in itself and once again they provide a great starting point for their readers and of course provide fresh prespective on what to think about when it comes to designing website. This book is only a year old, so the information presented is not totally outdate and so you can breath a sigh of relief because of it. Obviously, the point of the book is get you thinking and go out and research mroe about the topics and thus really build up your experience on the various ideas and concepts that are presented in here. Of course, one thing I do like about this book, is that the information is easy to read and understand and can be reference back to. Of course, once you log into their website, the information they bring daily will quickly dwarf the book by hundreds of pages. As they continually talk about those topics and thus if they were to add that information into the book, it could easily triple in size. Another great aspect of this book I like is the artwork for each chapter as they really pop with the use of vivd colors and great design. On top of that, at the beginning of the book you find almost 3000 names of people who have bought this book and those pages are all designed in a large S. I would defintely pick up this book to add to your collection of great web design information, especially if you have Smashing Book #1 and I will point out that Smashing Book #3 is coming out soon so you should defintely add that to your collection when it comes out later this year.

I had designed this last month, after a long time out of the graphic design business and after an hour of working different angles and going through various Photoshop tools, I produce this.

In this review, I will be talking about a book that is specific to graphic designers, called Logo Design Love. Author David Airey book specifically targets one aspect of graphic design and that is logos, and the goal of this book is not to talk about iconic logos or what ones are bad or good, but rather the design process. It isn't so much a step-by-step guide, but more of the process one takes either from inspiration from what he or she sees to fulfilling client requests. in the first part of book he talks about the point of logos and brands, the story they are telling and what makes a great logo. In the second part of the book is where you get your hands dirty, but the interesting part is the work a person has to do before they even begin the concept of design and I reflect back to the five W's; Who, What, Where, When, and Why. However he takes it a step further by talking about How and the need especially when it comes to redesigning an old logo from a well established company to a logo for an emerging company. Then, when a person feels they have everything they need to get an idea what the Logo should say, then they begin the design process itself; from concept drawings to color theory, to graphic design software. As for part three of this book, he provides useful information and tips to become more proficient and focus in Logo design and while this book is working on two years, the information that it provides would be invaluable to graphic designers and area for some to focus on to strengthen their skills.