The Designer's Lexicon: The Illustrated Dictionary of Design, Printing, and Computer Terms

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The digital revolution has brought with it a dizzying multiplication of new styles and techniques in the field of graphic design-not to mention a whole new professional jargon. The Designer's Lexicon is the only cross-disciplinary technical dictionary that captures this rich and often confusing profusion of design-speak. It is packed with over 4000 terms that cover the broad pectrum of practices a modern designer must be familiar with: traditional graphics, pre-press, photography, printing, typography, and computers. Four hundred color diagrams and illustrations visually supplement the definitions. With a sturdy concealed spiral binding that reduces wear-and-tear, The Designer's Lexicon exemplifies the criterion designers seek most in a reference book-utility. For established professionals navigating new design terrain, as well as students, production managers, and printers, this is an essential dictionary for a new century.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirk McElhearn - Electronic Review of Computer Books

In recent years, page layout and graphic software has become more commonplace and easier to use. Long the purview of specialists, layout, web design and printing are things many of us are regularly confronted with. As printing techniques have become more complex and design options have increased, the need to understand the terminology that is specific to this field has grown.

Like all specialized fields, design and printing have their own unique jargon and terminology. General computer dictionaries contain some terms for these fields, but a specialized dictionary is a boon for those who need to regularly deal with new terms and concepts.

The Designer's Lexicon, by Alastair Campbell, meets this need perfectly. With more than 4000 definitions, it covers such fields as photography, printing, typography, prepress, paper, finishing and more. This book is not set up exactly like a dictionary -- there is a first section, called the "word finder," which is an index that gives cross-references to the different terms. These are arranged in sections according to the different categories. This is a bit confusing at first, but after looking up a few words it makes sense. It allows similar terms to be grouped together, so you can quickly see related terms that would not be nearby in a simple alphabetical presentation.

This is an attractive book. Not only does it have hundreds of color graphics that illustrate terms, but it is also well designed and laid out. It is a hardcover book with a twin-wire binding (as you can imagine, I didn't know that term before, but found it easily in the Lexicon) that opens flat for easy reference.