the Yellow Book

Sample pages from the Yellow Book

The Yellow Ampersand Book is a collection of short essays about graphic design in relation to society, education, art, and change.  The ampersand signifies compromise, collaboration, and connection between things – complementary or disparate. Peanut butter & jelly.  War & peace.  Holmes & Watson.

In this book, I connect graphic design and typography to daily life, messaging, responsibility, education, copyright, and art.  In our media saturated society, design has a greater impact than people realize. Design contributes to corporate culture and consumerism – most design eventually ends up in the trash.  But design can also be part of the solution and work for the social good.

The topics in this book have all been heavily debated in the design world for many years, and are still at the forefront of dialogue today.  My aim here is to introduce the key ideas in these discussions to newcomers, and synthesize my own thoughts on them.

The essays:

Design & Daily Life
Fonts & Messaging
Design & Responsibility
Fonts & Copyright
Design & Education
Design & Art
Design & Circus