The 10 Best Graphic Design Books
Special Honors
Adobe Photoshop Any working graphic designer will tell you that Adobe Photoshop will be one of the most important and oft-used tools in your creative arsenal. This professional-level imaging application can be used to manipulate photos, create graphics, crop, remove objects, retouch, play with color and effects and more to make posters, packaging, banners, logos, and websites. adobe.com
Fiverr If you're thinking about picking up a book on graphic design to gain some insight to the industry, then you should also consider spending some time on Fiverr. It's an online marketplace where freelancing creatives provide an extensive variety of projects for paying customers. You can check out the Graphics & Design section to see the types of products and services professionals offer as well as sign up to be a vendor if your design chops are up to snuff. fiverr.com
Editor's Notes
April 15, 2020:
We wanted this list to include a healthy sampling of the many facets of graphic design, so you'll find volumes on color theory like Interaction of Color, texts that focus on logos and branding such as Symbols: A Handbook for Seeing and Logo Modernism, and visual feasts meant to inspire and educate, like Pretty Much Everything.
When updating this list we decided to remove Super Graphic and Show Your Work!. Super Graphic is extremely visually appealing and could in itself give inspiration to a graphic designer simply from its layout, however, its main focus is the comic book universe. Because it doesn't provide much in the way of instruction and is mostly meant for entertainment, we replaced it with Just My Type. A more useful volume, this book covers over 500 years of typeface history and will do much to expand the reader's knowledge on the subject, which easily translates to graphic design. Typography is quite vital to the profession, so if you're looking to learn more, consider our list of typography books.
And because Show Your Work! is largely based around very basic concepts and mostly centers on being affirming and inspirational after that, we felt something more practical could take its place. You'll find Graphic Design School in its stead. If you love structure and appreciate the pedagogical aspects of a textbook, then this selection should serve you well. It is accessible, comprehensive, packed with a wide range of examples, and perfect for beginners. It covers practical aspects of the profession, like coding, software, preparing files for print, creating banner ads, and a lot more.
We also updated 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design to reflect its most recent edition, rather than the 2014 printing.