As easy to read as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series
The third edition of The design manual is a wholesale rewrite of the text after 12 years of additional research and identifying new resources and sources since the second edition was published (2009).
The professional field has radically changed over those years – and since the original edition (2001).
The design manual’s third encyclopaedic edition is 647 pages of design goodness. Its coverage is broader and deeper than most books on graphic design. It is a resource for a career – covering the basics through to advanced concepts, from student days through first job to studio promotions and managing a business.
Its innovation is to make a reference work as easy to read as a novel. You can dip in at any page (using extensive contents and index listings – as well as an online free download super-index) to find the information you need when you need it.
Additionally, the text was extensively edited and designed according to easy readability principles. As far as possible, using plain English and introducing terminology in a manner similar to encyclopaedias: front-loading paragraphs with the term so definitions are easy to find.
The text was also carefully structured to keep a reader reading. To make the text as easy to read as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels.
Quotations are often woven through the text in a ‘conversational’ reporting style. To allow for a diversity of opinions. This conversational tone allows ‘discussion’ of different approaches between the author and the cited sources.
This makes the text more immediate and encourages deep reflection. And there is a huge diversity in the sources and the people quoted. From Australians to people from all continents – except Antarctica.
The sources use an unconventional citation system, neither footnote nor endnote, but bracketed within the paragraph where they fall.
Online sources are given homepage links and full article title and author for accurate sourcing through search, as weblinks often change as sites are decommissioned, amalgamated or redesigned – and, indeed, some had through the production of The design manual. But the simpler citation was readily able to be found.
Books cited are given full citation in ‘Read more about it’ lists within each section, including ISBN for ultimate findability.
The text provides historical background for understanding why design techniques may have developed. But also challenges that primacy where contemporary production, for example, negates traditional views. So it is progressive, rather than regressive.
There are a significant number of new checklists and illustrations included. Making over 150 checklists and 345 illustrations, not counting font examples ... It is almost entirely new, though the original coverage is there, reordered, updated and significantly rewritten.
