Self-paced, self-guided instruction is all well and good, but at the end of the day, most people could use a little feedback--especially when they’re ready to build a design portfolio and hit the job market. Not to worry, this book provides actual instructor feedback along with the self-paced, individualized instruction in Photoshop and Illustrator that designers need. Written by the faculty of New York-based, accredited online design school Sessions.edu, the book uses the school’s trademark project-based curriculum to teach essential design concepts with Photoshop and Illustrator. After a brief intro to the world of graphic design, Sessions instructors provide quick "refresher course" chapters on the two programs. Then, armed with Photoshop and Illustrator basics, readers tackle a series of projects that stretch their imagination and creative muscles involving logo design, magazine layouts, illustrations, poster design, digital imaging, book cover design, packaging design, and more. Best of all, readers are encouraged to post their work for expert feedback from Session.edu faculty on "Studio Sessions," the custom Web site created for this book.

Sessions.edu, founded in 1997, brings new media design education to graphic and web designers worldwide, through online education. Once a pioneer and now a leader in the distance education industry, Sessions has delivered tens of thousands of courses to students in over 100 countries. The expertise and experience that has created the proven success of the online school is now offered to select universities and corporations that seek to enter or expand their presence in the competitive world of distance education. Sessions Online Design School offers certificate programs and courses in graphic design, web design, multimedia, business marketing design and digital arts.

Self-paced, self-guided instruction is all well and good, but at the end of the day, most people could use a little feedback--especially when they're ready to build a design portfolio and hit the job market. Not to worry, this book provides actual instructor feedback along with the self-paced, individualized instruction in Photoshop and Illustrator that designers need. Written by the faculty of New York-based, accredited online design school Sessions.edu, the book uses the school's trademark project-based curriculum to teach essential design concepts with Photoshop and Illustrator. After a brief intro to the world of graphic design, Sessions instructors provide quick "refresher course" chapters on the two programs. Then, armed with Photoshop and Illustrator basics, readers tackle a series of projects that stretch their imagination and creative muscles involving logo design, magazine layouts, illustrations, poster design, digital imaging, book cover design, packaging design, and more. Best of all, readers are encouraged to post their work for expert feedback from Session.edu faculty on "Studio Sessions," the custom Web site created for this book.

This book is fantastic!

This book was so very helpful in aiding my desire to build a portfolio! It helped me learn more about Photoshop and Illustrator - plus gave me assignments that were reviewed and critiqued by a very helpful and polite instructor. This is more than just a book it is a full class at a book rate! I would recommend it to anyone looking for this type of work or just to improve what they already know.

One of a Kind

Want to learn Graphic Design and its different forms in one go? Go for this item.
Its uniqueness starts with "How to use this book" section and goes on and on. Top types of graphic design that a graphic designer can come across haven been given in brief and understandable way. All the chapters have been developed by top market professionals.
In Short, this book is "One For All". It makes you learn seven top forms of graphic design in just one go.
One thing that it lacks is a CD or DVD with some material made by these professionals for readers to practice with. Or related type of movie to watch.

Half way through the book, Recommended

Graphic Design Portfolio Builder is a good supplemental book for designers and beginning students. I wrote supplemental because this book does not comprehensively cover the features of Photoshop and Illustrator software (and it wasn’t suppose to) but to help beginners you get familiar with the software and up and running.

The book is very colorful, well laid out and full of useful information. What is comphrehensive is that it covers all aspects of what designers or artists would face and be challenged at work or in classrooms. Each lesson is written by an professional designers and artists with years of experience and I highly enjoyed reading the chapters so far.

The projects in the book are fairly challenging and somewhat time consuming which is good since it makes you explore the software to its full potential if you’re feeling ambious.

For inspirations, I recommend you checkout other students work in the book or on their website. It really challenges you to come up with your best work and experiment with different ideas and creative concepts.

Half way through the book, Recommended

Graphic Design Portfolio Builder is a good supplemental book for designers and beginning students. I wrote supplemental because this book does not comprehensively cover the features of Photoshop and Illustrator software (and it wasn’t suppose to) but to help beginners you get familiar with the software and up and running.

The book is very colorful, well laid out and full of useful information. What is comphrehensive is that it covers all aspects of what designers or artists would face and be challenged at work or in classrooms. Each lesson is written by an professional designers and artists with years of experience and I highly enjoyed reading the chapters so far.

The projects in the book are fairly challenging and somewhat time consuming which is good since it makes you explore the software to its full potential if you’re feeling ambious.

For inspirations, I recommend you checkout other students work in the book or on their website. It really challenges you to come up with your best work and experiment with different ideas and creative concepts.

Some great ideas for students and those redoing a portfolio

Having taught graphic design for the last 13years, I am always looking for material to use as a reference or even text in my classes. This book gives many ideas on projects that students can use to create a quality looking portfolio for that first job interview. Even though I am constantly encouraging my students to go beyond the simple text assignment, many do not. This book my just give them that spark to do just that.

Some great ideas for students and those redoing a portfolio

Having taught graphic design for the last 13years, I am always looking for material to use as a reference or even text in my classes. This book gives many ideas on projects that students can use to create a quality looking portfolio for that first job interview. Even though I am constantly encouraging my students to go beyond the simple text assignment, many do not. This book my just give them that spark to do just that.

Great for getting your feet wet!

PROS:

Easy reading... lots of hands on pratice, which is also worded in an easy to understand language... Comes with a FREE membership to basically a webgroup website, but if you choose to take advantage of the service, the very authors of the book will critique and help you develop your projects, VERY HELPFUL/VERY COOL



CONS:

You have to have photoshop and illustrator in order to take advantage of this product

Great for getting your feet wet!

PROS:
Easy reading... lots of hands on pratice, which is also worded in an easy to understand language... Comes with a FREE membership to basically a webgroup website, but if you choose to take advantage of the service, the very authors of the book will critique and help you develop your projects, VERY HELPFUL/VERY COOL

CONS:
You have to have photoshop and illustrator in order to take advantage of this product

Great for getting your feet wet!

PROS:
Easy reading... lots of hands on pratice, which is also worded in an easy to understand language... Comes with a FREE membership to basically a webgroup website, but if you choose to take advantage of the service, the very authors of the book will critique and help you develop your projects, VERY HELPFUL/VERY COOL

CONS:
You have to have photoshop and illustrator in order to take advantage of this product

Projects to be Reviewed by Professional Designers

[...] The company is centered around on line training in the general area of graphics design. ==This book is designed to go with one of their courses. The goal of this course is to help you create a portfolio of your work. It has a series of projects where you download various components of a project, then you do the project and post your results back on-line. A Sessions instructor will then give you a short critique of your work so you will have specific person to person contact that lets you know how you are progressing. This is kind of like working as a designer and having the client look at what you’ve done.

As you might well guess from the sub-title, these projects are oriented to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. This is not exactly a beginners course in these software package. You should have at least some beginning understanding of how to use these packages. The concentration hers is on improving your design skills, not on the details of the software.

Projects to be Reviewed by Professional Designers

[...] The company is centered around on line training in the general area of graphics design. ==This book is designed to go with one of their courses. The goal of this course is to help you create a portfolio of your work. It has a series of projects where you download various components of a project, then you do the project and post your results back on-line. A Sessions instructor will then give you a short critique of your work so you will have specific person to person contact that lets you know how you are progressing. This is kind of like working as a designer and having the client look at what you’ve done.

As you might well guess from the sub-title, these projects are oriented to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. This is not exactly a beginners course in these software package. You should have at least some beginning understanding of how to use these packages. The concentration hers is on improving your design skills, not on the details of the software.