I’ve recently set the entire text of Miyamoto Musashi’s ‘A Book of Five Rings’ into a graphical poster. The text is divided into five sections, Earth, Water, Wind, Fire and Void, lending itself to a literal graphic structure. The full size of the poster is approx. 3′ wide by 4′ tall. Set with varying weights of Univers at 11 points on an 11 point baseline. The print is perfectly legible when reproduced at a smaller size of 27″ x 36″, which is a bit easier to accommodate on my walls. Printing is done on a 192 gsm matte finish paper @ 1440 dpi. I don’t have a proper shop set up at the moment, but if you happen to be interested in one of these I’ll run them on-demand, signed & numbered by request for $30 shipped. If you’re interested, contact me for further details or send a paypal payment to nreeves@tracewerks.com, subject ‘Five Rings’.

A higher-res version of the poster can be seen here.

The greatest opportunity to increase speed in anything is by approaching the most common/repeated tasks and looking for ways to reduce the amount of steps involved/energy expended. I’ve decided to start creating some brief screencasts to document some of my own approaches to these types of process enhancements, starting with Adobe Illustrator. I’m going to start with very simple procedures. I should start with my implementation of keyboard shortcuts, but that’s quite bland, so we’ll begin some actions mapped to hotkeys (just slightly less bland).

These actions are certainly not flashy. At the same time, please consider their implications. Due to the frequency with which these processes are implemented (often in sequence), their capacity for speed enhancement is great. Procedures covered are aligning, pathfinding, and mirroring.

View Alignment Screencast

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The primary action, X and Y centering, is by far the most universal. The individual axis commands are quite useful, however, and mapping them as an F-key variant (shift/cmnd) allows them to be implemented quite naturally.

View Mirroring Screencast

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If it’s not completely obvious, two actions are created to allow for a mirror with welded or unwelded anchors as needed. In addition to the MirrorY actions covered here, I also use a MirrorX action (mirroring across the horizontal axis). I still do the lions share of mirroring manually, using the reflect tool, as it’s commonly necessary to select an arbitrary axis.

View Pathfinding Screencast

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Extremely basic, but that’s what makes them simply indispensable.

In the end it’s prudent for everyone to keep a channel of observation open to what tasks are performed with the most frequency, and to scrutinize all practical measures by which those processes can be optimized.

Without spending some time with a book first it’s really hard to tell whether you’re getting something solid or another half-baked ham from xyz publishing. Which leaves you with buying online. That means reading reviews, listening to your gut-and if you’re lucky, eventually discovering publishers with output you like pretty consistently. Doing so I’ve found books that I can’t imagine living without, and quite a few that give purpose to a post like this. Having spent some time recently rummaging through my book shelves I’ve decided to short list some of my favorites.

IdN 10th Anniversary

A 10-ton anvil of design ga-ga. IdN held nothing back with this one-we’re talking varnishes, metallics, stickers, vinyl, even an injection molded hard plastic carrying case (and a couple CDs in typical IdN fashion). The book explodes in aesthetic value, and does not let up when it comes to content. Huge variety of designers, medias- and taste aside, you’re gonna find something you like (very likely a great many). If you’re into graphic art and you buy only 1 book…

Amano

I know we’ve crossed over into the realm of fine art with this one, but I’m not much into categorizing any way-the principals of color, value and composition are relevant across all visual art disciplines. fine art, graphic art, still, or motion. That being said this book is one I turn to pretty consistently, as Amano has a control and style that seems quite unreal at times. Imaginative, highly stylized, ornate, gritty in places and polished in others. If you like the image on the cover even a little bit, the rest will not disappoint.

Sketching

Product design is rad. It’s not a field I frequent, but it’s one I would like too. This book is a candid look at the ideation approaches of a number of product design studios and internal corporate design groups. Products are all over the place, which keeps it interesting. Sketching walks through the entire creative process, and offers up some great tips along the way. A great book if you’re into that kind of stuff.

The Skillful Huntsman

is to entertainment design what Sketching is to commercial concept design. TSH documents the concept design of a Brothers Grimm by 3 Art Center students, in parallel. In a way this book picks up where Sketching left off, and walks you through the development of an entire world- characters, props, vehicles, buildings, environment. All while discussing the considerations involved in each case. Being able to see it done in parallel by multiple people is really enlightening as well. I wish they’d continue with it, releasing future installments with different artists working on different stories. Another must if you’re at all interested in product or concept design.

Other notables:
Narita Inspected (hard to find, but excellent graphic design book)
The Art of Darkwatch (game concept design process)
Los Logos (should go without mentioning)
Fusion (another IdN release, like a mini-me of 10)
FontBook (the best font reference ever, browsing online is ok but nothing beats printed samples)
StyleFile Blackbook Sessions (any of them, graf)
10×10 2 (architecture, #3 looks hot)

and some publishers to watch:
IdN
Design Studio Press
Rotovision
Phaidon