“The Little Know-It-All” Wants To Be Your Best Friend

Substantial but small book quick reference for those little things we may tend to forget, or for help in hitting the ground running in an unfamiliar territory

The Little Know It All Cover

The Little Know-It-All, Die Gestalten Verlag, 348pp w/index, softbound (vinyl). USD$ 45.00. Link to Publisher.

We don’t know how many designers’ compendia are out thereâ€“we suspect there are quite a few. We’ve seen a few ourselves. So far, of them all, few cover the many aspects of the subject in quite the way that Die Gestalten Verlag’s The Little Know-It-All does.

The clue is in the book’s tag line, “Common Sense for Designers”. The Little Know-It-All aims for being the concise yet thorough description of the basic rules of the designer’s road, which tips on the rulesâ€“and sometimes, when it’s a good idea to break them.

From the foreward:

In view of the wide array of specialist literature available, there is a conspicuous lack of concise yet comprehensive works on the essential issues today’s designer is likely to faceâ€“from typography to production, from digital media to legal concerns…brimming with essential facts, this little helper is always on hand to fill each designer’s individual knowledge gap with concentrated information.

Each of us finds that, despite whatever we think of our schooling, there was something that was “left” outâ€“by necessity, scope of coverage, whatever. This book has a wealth of essential basic data to fill in those gaps that you may have in your own knowledge. Moreover, it has a whole lot of little details about subjects that we may take for granted and leave out under certain circumstances.

Organized along ten major subject areas, from Design and Typography through Digital Media and Production and Law, this is a clearly written, well designed book. Illustrations are small yet apt, and extensively cross-referencedâ€“there are quite a few textual hyperlinks to other areas of the book where certain terms one may run across are further defined.

In looking through the Production chapter we were explained exactly what was meant by “screen angle”, for example:

A spread in the Production section of DGV’s The Little Know-It-All; screen angle is clearly and succinctly explained. A heap of essential graphic design knowledge is similarly distilled throughout the book. Click to enlarge.

After looking through the book quite thoroughly we found ourselves impressed with the coverage and the basics-oriented approach. With a vinyl cover and aptly-chosen paper, this book is designed to go the distance. We think DGV meant for it to find its way to the corner of many a designer’s desk, ready and waiting to deliver that little concentrated bit of knowledge that a designer might need to ensure that all the bases get touched.

It has what it takes to get there. We recommend taking a serious look at it.

It can be had for US$45.00, from Die Gestalten Verlag. Follow this link to the publisher’s page with complete information.

11 October 2007