“Skaggs explains the process of creating letters and images in the most enticing and inspiring ways. A must-read primer for neophyte and veteran mark-makers.”
—Steven Heller, New York University
“Quick, grab your brushes and pens! Skaggs unearths the tactile joy buried in the formalizations of design.”
—Ellen Lupton, author of Thinking with Type
“Skaggs’s masterful visual design and clear writing buoy us along, with mystery and delight…”
—Jamin Pelkey, editor of Semiotica
“The whole book is a gift for typography lovers.”
—Dora Ivonne Alvarez Tamayo, UPAEP University, Mexico
Intended for a general audience, The Hidden Factor argues that while we are consciously aware of the importance of images and words in our visual communication, there is a third, hidden, factor at work: marks. Mark-making is so inherently a factor in almost everything we see that we generally overlook its importance. Yet, the gestural mark in particular is contributing to the expression of our graphic forms in ways that become hard to overlook – once they are exposed.
“FireSigns looks to a future already visible. It enriches MIT Press’s new “Design Thinking, Design Theory” series”
— A. Schoenfeld, Pratt Institute
“[The Semiotic Moment] is not only a useful concept for graphic design, but indeed for all forms of cultural semiotic analysis.”
— Gary Shank, Duquesne University
“FireSigns is a keystone work.”
— Christian Moesbak Johannessen, S. Denmark University
“Skaggs’s gamut is bold both as theory and as a practical device.”
—David Lidov, York University, Toronto
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Graphic design is the planning of visual entities that are intended to become signs in the process of visual communication. Written for scholars and semioticians but also for advanced design programs, FireSigns presents the fundamental sign exchange process and introduces five creative analytical tools including the visual gamut; all of which helps us to understand how graphic design is meaning-making in action.
>> Go to FireSigns at MIT Press
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Logos recounts the design of a particular trademark design for BIOS Corporation in 1986, back when these things were drawn completely by hand. It includes every sketch of the design process (254 in all), telling the story of how logos communicate and some of the design concerns along the way. Originally published by Crisp Publications in 1994, later acquired by Thompson Learning, now long out of print.