Jared Spool

For nearly 20 years, designers and non-designers alike have been introduced to the fundamental principles of great design by author Robin Williams. Through her straightforward and light-hearted style, Robin has taught hundreds of thousands of people how to make their designs look professional using four surprisingly simple principles. Now in its fourth edition, The Non-Designer’s Design Book offers even more practical design advice, including a new chapter on the fundamentals of typography, more quizzes and exercises to train your Designer Eye, updated projects for you to try, and new visual and typographic examples to inspire your creativity. Whether you’re a Mac user or a Windows user, a type novice, or an aspiring graphic designer, you will find the instruction and inspiration to approach any design project with confidence. This essential guide to design will teach you The four principles of design that underlie every design project How to design with color How to design with type How to combine typefaces for maximum effect How to see and think like a professional designer Specific tips on designing newsletters, brochures, flyers, and other projects.

In today’s economy, marketers need a new strategy to earn trust, act with transparency, and help consumers and citizens make confident decisions. But undermining confidence is cynicism: it erodes trust in the media, government, public institutions, and consumer brands. To regain the trust of consumers and citizens, marketers talk about empathy and authenticity. But how do you get beyond those buzzwords? Give more control to your audience―and they’ll put more trust in you. It might be a scary proposition, but trading control for confidence fuels a surprising range of high-performing organizations. Airbnb, Zoom, the FBI, TED, the United Kingdom Government Digital Service, The New York Times, America’s Test Kitchen, local election commissions, and other organizations have all embraced strategies of content and design that transform their audiences into empowered decision-makers. Smart organizations teach their audiences to evaluate product options, engage in continuous self-education, and make more informed choices. Examining what works among these teams of all stripes and sizes, content strategy expert Margot Bloomstein casts a broad net to capture the experiences of copywriters, designers, creative directors, and CMOs―people who work to build trust through imagery, editorial style, storytelling, and retail design. In an actionable framework focused on voice, volume, and vulnerability, this book will teach you how to employ concrete tactics to help your brand regain trust, respect, and customer loyalty. Lead your organization and audience from cynicism toward something far more productive: hope.

Gallup presents the remarkable findings of its revolutionary study of more than 80,000 managers in First, Break All the Rules, revealing what the world&;s greatest managers do differently. With vital performance and career lessons and ideas for how to apply them, it is a must-read for managers at every level. Included with this re-release of First, Break All the Rules: updated meta-analytic research and access to the CliftonStrengths assessment, which reveals people&;s top themes of talent. What separates the greatest managers from all the rest? They actually have vastly different styles and backgrounds. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They don&;t hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They don&;t believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything they set their mind to. They don&;t try to help people overcome their weaknesses. And, yes, they even play favorites. In this longtime management bestseller, Gallup presents the remarkable findings of its massive in-depth study of great managers. Some were in leadership positions. Others were front-line supervisors. Some were in Fortune 500 companies; others were key players in small, entrepreneurial firms. Whatever their circumstances, the managers who ultimately became the focus of Gallup&;s research were those who excelled at turning each individual employee&;s talent into high performance. Gallup has found that the front-line manager is the key to attracting and retaining talented employees. This book explains how the best managers select an employee for talent rather than for skills or experience, set expectations, build on each person&;s unique strengths rather than trying to fix their weaknesses, and get the best performance out of their teams. And perhaps most important, Gallup&;s research produced the 12 simple statements that distinguish the strongest departments of a company from all the rest. First, Break All the Rules is the first book to present this essential measuring stick and to prove the link between employee opinions and productivity, profit, customer satisfaction and the rate of turnover. First, Break All the Rules presents vital performance and career lessons for managers at every level &; and best of all, shows you how to apply them to your own situation.