This revised and expanded edition of The Design Manual by David Whitbread is an indispensable and comprehensive reference for traditional and digital publishing.
From beginners to professional graphic designers, desktop publishers and graphic design students, The Design Manual provides essential information on conceptual approaches, planning and project development techniques for print, web and multimedia production.
Design tasks are divided into section on publication, corporate identity, on-screen and advertising design. There is discussion of specific skills such as branding and logo design; stationery, catalogue, annual report and newsletter production; websites; storyboarding and animation techniques; and more.
The production section discusses layout and typography for print and screen, colour and colour systems, printing and finishing processes.
With numerous checklists and practical tips throughout the text, The Design Manual has become a standard reference for anyone involved in or interested in design.
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The Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing 2002
Judges comments and criteria
TAFE and Vocational Teacher Reference The Design Manual
Author: David Whitbread
Published by UNSW Press
Judges comments
Design is an increasing aspect of educational endeavour and The Design Manual provides a reference approach to conceiving, planning and designing for print, web and multimedia production. The judges considered that The Design Manual was an outstanding new contribution to a growing field.
Overall criteria
Clarity of writing: Excellent
Pedagogical underpinning and implications: Highly advanced
Nature and quality of supporting illustrations: Excellent
Appropriateness of page layout and design: Highly appropriate design
Representation of the discipline: Excellent
Quality of the subject matter: Excellent
Innovation and flair: Highly innovative
Importance of the market: Very important
Book review by Angelynn Grant, Communication Arts (USA), July Illustration Annual 2003
This Manual aims to help anyone – student, designer, client or printer – produce visually-engaging solutions that work both aesthetically and as good business. Author David Whitbread is a monthly columnist for Australian MacWorld and former head of graphic design at the University of Canberra. Here he shows readers in a straightforward, easily readable text, how to analyse, organize and execute their designs, from sketching to publishing, whether it’s for print or the screen.
The book begins with the questions one should ask before designing, including how we read, who’s the audience and the appropriateness of a given format to a job. There’s a discussion of visual literacy and metaphors and, fitting in a book created as a government-commissioned project, a chapter on ‘Designing with Australian eyes’ (although the book is by no means limited to just Aussies). The middle section is project-based: publications (annual reports, catalogs, comics and graphic novels), corporate identity (markets, mascots/promotional characters, corporate typefaces and colors), stationery (letterheads, forms, signage), screen-based media (multimedia, Web design), and advertising (posters, flyers, direct mail). In each, Whitbread lays out all the pertinent issues (for example, the various ways to fold a 3-panel pamphlet), often including checklists and tips.
The third section goes into detail on each step in the road from design to final product: layout (eye flow, grids, ‘space and pace’), typography (typeface selection, legibility, formatting and page furniture), color and color systems (halftoning, Pantone Color System, and rgb/hexadecimal colors), prepress (trapping, imposition and output resolution), the many types of printing, paper, varnishes and other finishing processes, bindings, and so much more. There are sections on how to use a designer, how to write a brief and construct a contract, and ‘four ways to save a failing design’ (including ‘increase tonal contrast’ and ‘alter scale relationships’). In addition to the numerous marginal notes and sidebars, there are many ‘before/after’ and ‘do/don’t’ examples and other illustration that support the text. And all along are pointers on how to do it better, faster and for less money.
Going far beyond the old PocketPal of your schooldays (although there’s an updated edition of that venerable publication available at ippocketpal.com), you’ll find yourself getting lost in all the details of production, most of which will be familiar territory to experienced designers, but which, in Whitbread’s writing, still sound fascinating.
Book review by D. Ichiyama, Purdue University, Choice (USA), June 2002
The Design Manual serves both teachers and designer very well. Portable and comprehensive, it is perfectly suited for a college-level text and as a handbook reference for the professional office…
Within its 300 pages, Whitbread has managed to include 22 topics under the headings ‘Purpose,’ ‘Projects,’ and ‘Production,’ which cover communication and visual literacy and aspects of traditional print and multimedia (including Web sites and HTML).
The material under ‘Projects’ are not student projects but rather descriptions fo the various types of print and media topics such as pamphlets and brochures, stationery, animation, posters, and advertisements.
The manual concludes with chapters titled ‘Using a designer’ and ‘The Design Process.’ Which present issues such as assessing a portfolio, design justification and rationale, and contacts [sic] and copyright.
There is also a modest section on color and a well-written section on typography.
The author is a design teacher, and a statement in his preface has a familiar ring: ‘I have always needed a resource for my students that would go beyond fashion and beyond media choice…’ He has succeeded.
Book review by Janet Taylor, The Southern Communicator (Australia/New Zealand), Issue 11, April 2007
Calling The Design Manual a ‘book’ is quite misleading. It is definitely a manual, and an extremely comprehensive manual. It certainly isn’t a book that you would sit down and read, although I think I’ve read some parts of every chapter since I won my copy at the ASTC (NSW) conference in 2005. I find I dip into it when I need inspiration or wish to add authenticity to a decision I’ve made.
As expected, the book is beautifully ‘designed’ although David Whitbread, the author, emphasises that ‘design’ should assist in the communication and never be obvious. I like the small pieces of advice (tips) in the outside column, which contain gems such as the recommendation that ‘you should lay out your text in two columns for an A4 sized book and three columns, not necessarily of the same width, for newsletters.’
For most topics, there are references to books and magazines should you wish to learn more about it.
The quotes on this page… are all excerpts from this manual and I thank David for giving me permission to use them.
David has had extensive experience in the design world… While ‘design’ may be David’s background and interest, and some of the topics are definitely of particular interest to graphic designers, the majority of The Design Manual is a perfect marriage with technical communication.
In ‘How we read’, David gives ideas for coping with readers who don’t have time to read properly, as in this tip:‘Captions have now moved beyond simple labelling – they are longer and contain editorial opinion rather than a bald description and together with the photographs they become almost a summary of the main points expressed in the text.’ ‘Designing with Australian eyes’ contains this comment: ‘Australian design… doesn’t take itself too seriously. The main identifying feature for foreign eyes remains our confident use of colour.’
‘Projects’ covers the layout and probably contents of a range of documents, including magazines, newsletters, journals, menus, programs and catalogues. For each type of document there is a suggested content list and a brief description of each type of content.
‘Typography’ is my favourite chapter, with many examples of type faces, type sizes, line length, letter spacing and leading. This leads to: ‘Optimum line length is generally considered to be between 1.5 and 3 alphabets. Given our alphabet contains 26 characters, then our optimum line length is 39-78 characters (sometimes rounded to 40-80 characters) or, for an easy to remember round figure, 60 characters…
If your manuscript has many long words, such as for a scientific paper, it may not lend itself to a multi-column setting.’
‘Corporate identity’ contains a check list of items you should have for a business. There is even a list of the amount of space you should allow for the entry of given names, family names and so on, when creating a form.
‘Screen-based media’ is covered in some detail, again with checklists and much sensible advice.
‘Layout’ contains a discussion of eye flow for single and double page spreads and this leads into the most intriguing topic: ‘Four ways to save a failing design’.
Also included, and perhaps not of enormous interest to most of us: ‘Colour systems’, with all you need to know about inks, colours and using graphics.
‘Prepress’, ‘Printing’ and ‘Finishing processes’ describe how you prepare your document for printing, the papers available, paper characteristics and the special treatment required for recycled paper. Then there’s the seemingly endless types of printing and finishes you might use.
There is a very comprehensive index and an easy to read contents list.
In keeping with David’s recommendations about making your documents stand out from the crowd, the squiggly square on the cover and the spine of this book is a very enlarged picture of David’s thumb print. It certainly makes this book stand out when you can only see the spine.
Book review by Megan Johnston, Campus Review (Australia), 28 November 2001
In 1922 Photoshop and Illustrator were still many years away; ‘Adobe’ commonly meant ‘an unburnt brick dried in the sun’; and ‘Quark’ was the German translation for ‘curd cheese’.
But this was the same year American designer William Addison Dwiggins first used the term ‘graphic design’ to describe ‘bringing order and visual form to printed material’. It’s a definition that is still as relevant as when it was first conceived, except, of course, we can extend ‘printed material’ to other contemporary visual media.
So it is surprising there are plenty of books in the marketplace that explain how to use design software but a gaping hole when it comes to books about basic design principles. That is, until the release of David Whitbread’s new book, The Design Manual.
Not strictly a textbook, The Design Manual is a comprehensive reference guide written in a readable style and supported by checklists and tips.
It is intended for graphic design studios, aspiring designers, desktop publishers, educators, clients, and related professionals.
Originally commissioned as a companion volume to the Style Manual, it covers basic projects and production issues for print and screen-based media. Design tasks are divided into sections on publication, corporate identity, screen-based and advertising design. It covers conceptual approaches, planning and project development techniques for print, web and multimedia production.
It includes discussion of specific skills like logo and icon design; stationery, catalogue, annual report and newsletter production; storyboarding and animation techniques, and others as well as numerous checklists and practical tips throughout the text.
The production section discusses layout and typography for print and screen; colour and colour systems; printing, finishing and specialty processes. It covers the use of illustration and photography, graphs and tables, style sheets and navigation systems, and concludes with a section on contracts and industry practices.
The Design Manual does not address the more meaty issues of the cultural or political role of design, or provide much insight into design innovation or experimentation. But neither was it intended to. Rather, it is an affordable Australian reference that explains the design process in the workplace in realistic detail.
The book is based on Whitbread’s running ‘Design’ column that appeared in a number of Niche Media’s publications, including MacNews, which then became Australian MacUser and eventually Australian MacWorld.
My one concern is that the reader of such a book should be careful to keep a critical mindset toward any text that lays down design rules in relatively concrete form. The reader should be aware of the commercial imperatives that inform much of the book.
However, traditional design and classic form will continue to make up the basis of much of our design knowledge, even in more experimental work where subversion is the priority, in that all design is informed by traditional ideas, whether as a reaction against or compliance to them.
As Whitbread himself writes, ‘It is important to remember that [if] you are breaking something, it needs to be established before a break can have its full impact.’
Cautionary note aside, The Design Manual is a user-friendly guide essential for anyone interested in learning the basic ‘vocabulary’ and principles of functional design.
Foreword from the first edition (2001)
by Rita Siow, General Manager, Australian Graphic Design Association and Design Manager, Design Centre, Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE
There are some 15,000 registered graphic designers in Australia. Professionally trained via tertiary education and industry experience, many produce quality, visually-engaging business solutions which communicate to the hearts and minds of their designated audiences. Their objective: to increase brand equity and market share for their clients. These attractive and powerful visual images also serve to raise consciousness of design within the Australian cultural landscape and beyond.
In order to achieve those business and aesthetic objectives one must go back to the basic principles of graphic design. And this is exactly what The Design Manual provides. It is informative and insightful, and to quote what Tom Peters said about another publication, ‘a practical reminder of the importance of the subject matter’ – the importance of how to make design decisions, and how to get the design job done. The Design Manual is comprehensive, written in a readable style and supported by extensive tips and step-by-step checklists on how to think, analyse, organise and do.There are plenty of examples to support theories and observations, and to stimulate ideas and strategies.
Who should use this manual? Practitioners and aspiring designers; educators and students; clients and allied professionals. In fact, anyone who is interested in design and would like to learn more.
At a time when rapid change is considered to be the only ‘bankable currency’, The Design Manual is a comprehensive road map that is an essential design companion and I am sure will be a treasured reference with a healthy shelf life. No landfills for this one!
Luminant Design: Booklist (online) The Design Manual by David Whitbread, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2001
Solid, comprehensive resource on a wide range of design topics. Like other books that try to cover a lot of ground, this one also suffers at times from being a bit cursory. However the explanations are clear and for the younger designer this book offers a lot of troubleshooting advice.
Recommended by Bittenbydesign (online) The Design Manual
Any graphic designer can use this as a great reference piece.
Covers pretty much everything you need for print design, and gives you a good grounding of what the whole process entails.
As a reference piece, it is worth every penny.
Updated Nov 19, 2008.
Interview transcript
Philip O’Brien (PO) interviewing David Whitbread (DW) on ‘ArtScope’, Artsound FM 92.7, 11.30 am, Saturday 8 December 2001
[Aeolus Wind Trio recording]
PO: Dvorjak’s Humoresque performed by the Canberra ensemble, Aeolus, featuring, in that particular recording, Jane Linstead on flute, Lis Hoorweg on clarinet and David Whitbread on bassoon. It was a recording made at the School of Arts Café in August of 1993, eight years ago. Well, the makeup of Aeolus has changed a little over the years, but one member who’s remained through thick and thin is David Whitbread, and he joins us now. Good morning to you, David.
DW: Hi, Phillip.
PO: David is not just a bassoonist, he is also a very accomplished pianist and accompanist; but he’s also a professional graphic designer. It’s in that capacity that he’s joined us this morning. And his new book, The Design Manual, has just been released by the University of New South Wales Press. David, the first thing I wanted to ask you about was this connection between the precision of graphic design and the precision of music. We’ve long been aware that mathematics and music have a compatibility, but is graphic design as mathematically precise as music?
DW: Graphic design has become probably more mathematically precise since the introduction of the personal computer. There was always the technical side of graphic design, of producing artwork that was print-ready originally. Much of that is now digitally manipulated and so it does help to have a bit of a mathematical mind behind it. Yeah…
PO: So how did you get into graphics—from university days?
DW: Yes, I studied graphic design in Melbourne in the late ’70s – early ’80s. I was working professionally, musically, at that point as well. And, I guess part of the thing with music in Australia, as a career, is that it’s a small audience that you’ve got and—you can choose to pursue music professionally as a performer—but I found that it was going to lead me down to music teaching, which I didn’t particularly want to do. So I went into graphic design which was another string to my bow.
PO: But as we’ve heard, you kept the music going, and you must keep enormously busy.
DW: Ah, yes, it’s an incredibly busy, rich life. But, no, it’s a good balance. It’s a good foil for an industry to have something that’s entirely separate.
PO: Now, in your career as a graphic designer, you’ve headed up a unit within the old AGPS, the Australian Government Publishing Service; you’ve been the head of graphic design at the University of Canberra; you now have your own consultancy. But as I understand it, this book began out of a series of monthly articles that you write for Australian MacWorld, but also from your lectures. So in a sense, is it fair to say that the book formed itself?
DW: Yes, I guess it probably did. The magazine articles have been running for ten years—ten years in October actually, so I’m into the eleventh year of that series—and I guess they provided the basis for the content of the book. And then the lecture notes I had—I’d been teaching for about 12 or 13 years—sort-of filled it out a bit. I think it will be very useful for students, as I think it covers a lot of the material that they need to know and perhaps some of the material that is cut from courses these days. But it’s generally aimed at anybody that’s got a personal computer and is trying to do communication in print [and on screen].
PO: You see, I think that’s the key. The design function that used to be done—government-wide by AGPS—now is done, not only within units within each department, but even by people who once upon a time, without the technological wizardry of the computer, would have just been at sea.
DW: Yes that’s right. I think that you’ve got lots of people that are attempting to produce documents that communicate, and they don’t necessarily understand the tools that they are using—in terms of what they’re actually achieving with those tools. There is a difference between having some software and knowing how the software operates, to actually knowing what you’re doing with your software. And I guess that’s where this book fits.
PO: What do you think is the biggest mistake that people make when they’re setting out something graphically or visually?
DW: I think that it’s very easy to fall into something that has a ‘professional gloss’ because it’s got some tricky technique. And, in many cases, that tricky technique that you’ve spent a long time perfecting, isn’t actually helping the communication. So it’s the inappropriateness of the technique to the message that you’re trying to send.
PO: But I think, analogously, as a performer, you’d know that the secret of communicating with the audience is communicating directly with them.
DW: You’re right. It’s to do with audiences and I think that’s the direct correlation with performance and graphic design. It’s to do with understanding the audience that’s going to receive that piece of communication, whether it’s on the web or whether it’s in print. The person that is actually receiving the message is who you need to focus on when you’re designing that message.
PO: The book’s especially well laid out. I mean, after a general introduction, it falls pretty much into a project section and a production section. I mean, was this the manner in which your lectures were structured?
DW: I guess the ‘Project’ section is to do with a lot of graphic design teaching [which] is done through projects, through project-based learning. But I actually felt that readers were more likely to have a project and want to research that particular project. So the idea was that, if you had to do a stationery system, that you would just look up ‘Stationery’ as your project and it would then give you some of the ideas or some of the things you should consider in producing that stationery. And you could go to the ‘Production’ section when you were actually nutting it out on the computer.
PO: I wonder if computer technology is, in making these tools so readily available, in a sense ‘dumbing-down’ the art of graphic design?
DW: I think for a while it did. And I think also that graphic designers—and this is going to be terrible for my colleagues in the industry—but, for a while, graphic designers got sidetracked into the technology and forgot they’re part of the communication continuum as well. And I think that’s turned around now and I think that the quality of design is beginning to surpass where it was—in say, 1984, when it [technology] really hit the graphic design industry in a big way.
PO: I mean, do you think it matters that students of graphic design no longer learn lettering, for instance?
DW: In many good courses, they do continue to learn lettering. And they don’t necessarily do that from the point of view of being able to produce final artwork in a hand-lettered manner. It’s, in fact, just so that they understand the letterforms that they’re working with. And then they will often translate that into creating their own typefaces—for example, in computers—and, in fact, you find there is more typeface design being done now than ever before.
PO: Now, as someone who’s been involved in the industry for many decades, have you noticed that the availability of this technology is in a sense doing professionals ‘at the shop-front’ out of a job?
DW: I think that that’s probably happened with the introduction of technology everywhere, but I think that professionals—and I guess that’s what I’m trying to address in the book—is that professionals understand how to get that message across better. And so what the book is about is saying, ‘Well, you can do that—and you can do that by yourself—but there are ways that you can do that better. And there are things that you should think about when you’re making design decisions that can make your design more effective.’
PO: This book reminds me very much of the old Style Manual which the Australian Government Publishing Service put out. Therefore it didn’t surprise me when I opened it up and discovered it was meant to become a companion volume. Why didn’t it become that?
DW: Ah, well, it was originally commissioned as a companion volume to the Style Manual and then unfortunately AGPS ceased to exist—and so the rights reverted to me.
PO: Does not the Style Manual still continue to be published by the government?
DW: Yes, the Style Manual—a new edition of the Style Manual—is coming out. Next February it’s supposed to be hitting the streets. And I’ve been involved as one of the authors of that one.
PO: Now, of course, having gone through all the pain of getting it prepared for print and now published and in the bookshops, now you’ve got the business of selling it. David Whitbread, just finally, one would have thought that, like a school textbook, the fact that a book like this could go into every school and municipal and university library, would mean that its readership would be fairly wide. Do you think that transfers into number of copies sold?
DW: Well I’m hoping it will transfer into numbers of copies sold! I think it is something that once people get to see it and flick through it, they’ll find that there are many aspects of it that they didn’t necessarily expect. And they’ll get trapped into it—I think it’s one of those books that’s quite a good ‘flick-through’ book—and you just catch a new idea each page basically.
PO: Yes, and if you’re like me, you sort of follow it through, and then cross-reference it to something else, and before you know it, half an hour’s gone by and you’ve gone in a stream of consciousness of pleasure.
DW: Yes, oh well, that’s good. Thank you very much.
PO: David Whitbread’s book, The Design Manual, is published by UNSW Press. And he’s been our guest this morning. Thank you very much for coming in, David.
