{"id":690,"date":"2008-06-25T13:57:44","date_gmt":"2008-06-25T18:57:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertlpeters.com\/news\/?p=690"},"modified":"2018-11-16T01:32:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-15T20:32:25","slug":"decoding-design-book-review-in-ca-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/decoding-design-book-review-in-ca-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"Decoding Design (book review in CA Magazine)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"decoding_design.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Decoding Design:<\/a>\u00a0Understanding and Using Symbols in Visual Communication<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOur culture has lost touch with the archetypal principles that underlie simple numbers and shapes,\u201d writes author Maggie Macnab \u201c\u2026principles that lie deep within the unconscious and have a psychological and spiritual impact on us.\u201d A longtime designer and teacher immersed in symbolism and visual literacy, she delivers the leitmotif with fervent zeal: \u201cAs designers, it is our responsibility to create conscious and lucid communications. We can\u2019t afford to contribute to information junk\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

This engaging design theory book fulfills its stated purpose, to: \u201cconnect us back into the language of nature, to revive our understanding of source, and to create communications that flow unobstructed by an intelligence that has lost its way in the world.\u201d A quote attributed to Galileo Galilei sums the author\u2019s intentions in \u201cdemystifying and decoding\u201d visual language\u2014\u201cYou cannot understand the universe without learning first to understand the language in which it is written\u2026\u201d without which \u201cwe wander in a dark labyrinth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having made the case for more cogent design at the outset, the book delves deep into symbolism, pattern awareness, and \u201cthe recursive nature of nature.\u201d (I love that line). Ten subsequent chapters (each introduced with a compelling illustrated plate by Joel Nakamura<\/a>) illuminate the subject by \u201cbringing shape to meaning,\u201d and vice versa by means of case studies, \u201cdeconstructions\u201d of well-known logos, and depictions galore\u2014all-the-while demonstrating how visual communication can \u201ctap into the dynamic energy of the collective psyche.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sources Maggie cites are wide and varied (Jungian psychology, Aztec shamans, Unitarian Universalism, Sufi Enneagrams, sacred sexuality\u2026) and visuals draw from a vast treasure house of the familiar as well as the unexpected, arcane, and esoteric (DNA helices, Buddhist mudras, Arachnid webs\u2026). Through it all, she weaves together a persuasive narrative to support her rubric that what sets humans apart from other mammals is our ability \u201cto understand how basic patterns connect, allowing us to alter our experience\u2026\u201d and thereby to symbolize.<\/p>\n

Decoding Design<\/em> will appeal to anyone interested in the \u201cwhy\u201d behind effective graphic design and communicative form-giving. Well researched, well designed, well referenced, and with hundreds of visual entry-points for the reader, it successfully achieves its claim\u2014a must-buy for design students and visual communication practitioners\u2014even the best-read in our field are sure to learn and benefit from it.<\/p>\n

\u2014Robert L. Peters, FGDC
\n224 pages, softcover, $35
\nAuthor: Maggie Macnab
\nPublished by HOW Books
\nwww.decodingdesign.com<\/a><\/p>\n

+ + + + +<\/span><\/p>\n

The book review I wrote appears in the July 2008 \u2018Illustration Annual\u2019 issue of <\/em>Communication Arts<\/a> (#361). <\/em>Decoding Design\u2019s innovative cover lets you \u201cdial in\u201d a selection to \u201creveal the relationship between numbers, concepts, & symbols.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Decoding Design:\u00a0Understanding and Using Symbols in Visual Communication \u201cOur culture has lost touch with the archetypal principles that underlie simple numbers and shapes,\u201d writes author Maggie Macnab \u201c\u2026principles that lie deep within the unconscious and have a psychological and spiritual impact on us.\u201d A longtime designer and teacher immersed in symbolism and visual literacy, she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,6,7,9,16,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16867,"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions\/16867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertlpeters.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}