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Looking Good in Print
by Roger C. Parker
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Ventana Press,U.S. (1990-09)
ISBN: 0940087324
EAN: 9780940087323
Paperback: 275 pages
Edition: 2nd
SKU: 108488
Condition: Very Good
Comments: 0940087324 No markings in this 2nd Ed. book. Its cover shows shelf wear esp. at edges, corners, sm. dk. glue stain top edges. It shows no evidence of having been used. Your book will be carefully protected for transit in sturdy, weather-resistant packaging. We are prompt, efficient, communicative.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
A completely updated and expanded version of the most widely used design companion for desktop publishers, this book features new information on service bureaus and working with color and printing, color lasers, new technologies, and much more. Part of Ventana's "Looking Good" series, it covers newsletters, ads, brochures, letterhead, flyers, business reports, and charts. .
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Amazon.com Review
This book is an excellent choice for anyone aspiring to become a successful desktop-publishing professional. In fact, it's the guide, long respected in the desktop-publishing community, and this fourth edition has more examples of good and bad designs than ever. Parker and Berry first discuss essential design concepts such as relevance, proportion, consistency, contrast, restraint, and attention to detail. Next the authors teach you about basic tools for organizing layouts: grids, columns, gutters, headlines, kickers, captions, bullet lists, and pull quotes, to name a few. They delve into the intricacies of typography and font families, highlighting such concepts as type size, alignment, and leading and kerning. Next you learn about the use of white space and about rulers and accents such as borders, boxes, drop shadows, and bleeds. The authors discuss illustrations, clip art, backgrounds, charts, diagrams, tables, and maps and advise you on positioning those elements on a page. There's also a lot of information on selecting, resizing, and placing photographs. A full-color chapter illustrates how to choose color and use spot color, full color, and duotones. At this point the authors move from theory to hands-on projects--you apply the design concepts that they have already put forth. You learn about the appropriate design, graphic, and text elements for newsletters, ads, catalogs, and other business correspondence. Each chapter in this section offers plenty of illustrations and ends with a checklist of reminders that you can refer to as you design. Especially useful are chapter 12, which features common design mistakes along with illustrations and explanations of what's wrong, and chapter 13, which highlights redesigns of poorly produced publications. The latter is a before-and-after glimpse of designs of almost all types of publications, from newsletter to survey. These two chapters drive home succinctly and with great visual impact every point of design that the authors have previously discussed. Finally, the appendix offers extra tips on printing in color, and choosing image databases, paper, and service bureaus. The authors don't refer to the Windows or Macintosh operating systems or to any software programs. The understanding is that you will learn how to use your software tools elsewhere and consult the book for elements of design. That's a reasonable goal, as the authors maintain a clear, concise tone and offer many tips that are tangential but still relevant to the subject matter. For example, the chapter on type has a short sidebar on the difference between kerning and tracking and a longer sidebar on font substitution. All in all, this book functions well as both a how-to manual for beginning designers and as a design reference for more advanced designers. --Kathleen Caster
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Customer Reviews
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A Good Second Book on Design
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-01-24
Once you've covered first base with the "Non-Designers Design Book" you are well equipped to start reading this book. Since this book also covers the basics (though not as well I find), you could also decide to skip ahead and go directly to second base.
Here you'll also learn about managing grid systems, white space management, basic text composition and the effective use of fonts and illustration. The last sections of the book applies your new found knowledge to the design of various types of documents. Finally, in the last section is a hoge-poge of trap to avoid (the counter examples if you like).
A book well worth the money (all books are cheap compared to IT books ;-)
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VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-09-05
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Are you discovering the challenges of desktop publishing? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Roger C Parker, has done an outstanding job of writing the sixth edition of a book that has been in print for 16 years, which is for those who want to make the most of their publishing investment.
Parker, begins by exploring the organizational tools you'll use in creating your published projects. Then, the author discusses in some detail the rules you must follow when selecting and arranging type. Next, the author explores the graphic page elements that are used in conjunction with type, to highlight and enhance the printed word. The author then shows you how to choose graphic elements and position them on the page for maximum effect. He continues by focusing on the techniques of designing a range of documents from newsletters to business communications to coupons. Then, the author discusses planning and design techniques that are important for any larger project. He then lists and illustrates the most common errors that sabotage otherwise effective designs. Finally, the author takes a look at some sample documents that are riddled with errors, while others are teetering on the brink of success; and, shows you how they can be improved, through the application of basic design concepts and a smattering of common sense.
This most excellent book has grown over the years to become the "Bible" for many students and publishers. More importantly, the best part of this book is that it will encourage you to learn while practicing your craft.
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Excellent guide to what works and what doesn't...
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-06-13
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
If you do anything with print or web media (aka desktop publishing), you probably know how easy it is to make mistakes and produce amateurish results. Looking Good in Print (6th Edition) by Roger C. Parker gives you the background and practical advice you need to start, well... looking good in print.
Contents:
Part 1 - Elements Of Design: Getting Started; Tools of Organization; The Architecture of Type; Building Blocks of Graphic Design; The Art of Illustration; Working with Photographs
Part 2 - Putting Your Knowledge To Work: Publications; Advertisements; Sales Material; Business Communication; Response Devices - Forms, Surveys, and Coupons; Designing Large Documents and Publications; Common Pitfalls; Redesign; Designing Documents for Web Distribution
Appendix; Prepress Tips and Techniques
Index
Any book that makes it past the 2nd edition is one I usually figure has stood the test of time, and must have something to offer. This book definitely fulfills that. It starts off with the basics of fonts, lines, alignment, and all those things that you probably just take for granted. There's a real science behind it, and Parker does a good job of clearly explaining it. But rather than just dealing in generalities and theory, he applies the knowledge to real areas of writing. Part 2 is valuable both for the explanation of how things should be done, as well as visual examples of how things go wrong. Unless you can see "what's not right", it's often hard to know why something would be considered a good practice. There's an abundance of example layouts and samples to illustrate his points, and you'd be hard pressed to find this much quality information in a single source anywhere else.
This will be a book I'll keep close at hand when I do my writing assignments. I'm normally more focused on content rather than form, but knowing what an editor might do to your work (both good *and* bad) can help you make sure that you come out looking polished, and that your content doesn't get lost in the layout.
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Essential Resource For Print Design
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-05-09
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
'Looking Good in Print' by Roger Parker is an absolute must have for anyone working with print media and how it travels from the production house to the reader/end-user. Now in its 6th Edition, this guide provides essential advice, tips, and tricks from someone in the know who has been working with said topic for over a decade and a half.
Discussion in this book revolves around layouts, design, working with images, text, and how to output content itself in the wisest and slickest way possible.
For anyone that works with the design of laying out information in Print form (live or online), this book is an absolute best buy!!
***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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Covers the latest potentials of desktop design.
Rating (5)
Date: 2006-04-14
5 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
The sixth updated edition of Roger C. Parker's LOOKING GOOD IN PRINT tops fifteen years in print with another edition addressing the latest potentials of desktop design. From creating professional-quality letterhead and business cards to learning how to print Internet documents, advice for desktop publishers assume no special program or experience but survey different design pitfalls, how to work with large documents, and how to create designs which 'wow'. Design tips apply to either PC or MAC users alike and are packed with techniques and tips that avoid the common pitfalls.
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