Without words, apps would be an unusable jumble of shapes and icons, while voice interfaces and chatbots wouldn't even exist. Words make software human–centered, and require just as much thought as the branding and code. This book will show you how to give your users clarity, test your words, and collaborate with your team. You'll see that writing is designing.

From product documentation to menu labels to marketing emails, writing for the web can feel challenging-even insurmountable. But it doesn't have to be that way! Whether you're new to writing or looking to hone your skills, Scott Kubie's guide will empower you to get organized and get going. Learn to scope and articulate writing assignments, build a repeatable workflow, and develop methods for productive editing, collaboration, version control, and delivery. Don't struggle with writing-get the writing done.

This anthology turns a critical eye on advertising, newspapers, commercial photography.

How do designers get ideas? Many spend their time searching for clever combinations of forms, fonts, and colors inside the design annuals and monographs of other designers' work. For those looking to challenge the cut-and-paste mentality there are few resources that are both informative and inspirational. In Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton, best-selling author of such books as Thinking with Type and Design It Yourself, and design educator Jennifer Cole Phillips refocus design instruction on the study of the fundamentals of form in a critical, rigorous way informed by contemporary media, theory, and software systems

We do not see empty figures and outlines; we do not move in straight lines. Everywhere we are surrounded by dapple; the geometry of our embodied lives is curviform, meandering, bi-pedal. Our personal worlds are timed, inter-positional, and contingent. But nowhere in the language of cartography and design do these ordinary experiences appear. This, Dark Writing argues, is a serious omission because they are designs on the world: architects and colonizers use their lines to construct the places where we will live. But the rectilinear streets, squares, and public spaces produced in this way leave out people and the entire environmental history of their coming together. How, this book asks, can we explain the omission of bodies from maps and plans? And how can we redraw the lines maps and plans use so that the qualitative world of shadows, footprints, comings and goings, and occasions—all essential qualities of places that incubate sociality—can be registered? In short, Dark Writing asks why we represent the world as static when our experience of it is mobile. It traces this bias in Enlightenment cartography, in inductive logic, and in contemporary place design. This is the negative critique. Its positive argument is that, when we look closely at these designs on the world, we find traces of a repressed movement form. Even the ideal lines of geometrical figures turn out to contain traces of earlier passages; and there are many forms of graphic design that do engage with the dark environment that surrounds the light of reason. How can this "dark writing"—so important to reconfiguring our world as a place of meeting, of co-existence and sustaining diversity—be represented? And how, therefore, can our representations of the world embody more sensuously the mobile histories that have produced it? Dark Writing answers these questions using case studies: the exemplary case of the beginnings of the now world-famous Papunya Tula Painting Movement (Central Australia) and three high-profile public place-making initiatives in which the author was involved as artist and thinker. These case studies are nested inside historical chapters and philosophical discussions of the line and linear thinking that make Dark Writing both a highly personal book and a narrative with wide general appeal.

When you depend on users to perform specific actions—like buying tickets, playing a game, or riding public transit—well-placed words are most effective. But how do you choose the right words? And how do you know if they work? With this practical book, you’ll learn how to write strategically for UX, using tools to build foundational pieces for UI text and UX voice strategy. UX content strategist Torrey Podmajersky provides strategies for converting, engaging, supporting, and re-attracting users. You’ll use frameworks and patterns for content, methods to measure the content’s effectiveness, and processes to create the collaboration necessary for success. You’ll also structure your voice throughout so that the brand is easily recognizable to its audience. Learn how UX content works with the software development lifecycle Use a framework to align the UX content with product principles Explore content-first design to root UX text in conversation Learn how UX text patterns work with different voices Produce text that’s purposeful, concise, conversational, and clear

• Authors are top game designers • Aspiring game writers and designers must have this complete bible There are other books about creating video games out there. Sure, they cover the basics. But The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design goes way beyond the basics. The authors, top game designers, focus on creating games that are an involving, emotional experience for the gamer. Topics include integrating story into the game, writing the game script, putting together the game bible, creating the design document, and working on original intellectual property versus working with licenses. Finally, there’s complete information on how to present a visionary new idea to developers and publishers. Got game? Get The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design.

Good design systems can help you create digital products with efficiency and consistency. But great design systems will support and strengthen your team’s creativity at the same time. In Expressive Design Systems, Yesenia Perez-Cruz shows you how to build useful, dependable systems that not only maintain harmony across your products, but also flex to accommodate inspiration and experimentation. Learn to communicate your brand, collaborate across teams—and do so much more than standardize components.

How We Write is an accessible guide to the entire writing process, from forming ideas to formatting text. Combining new explanations of creativity with insights into writing as design, it offers a full account of the mental, physical and social aspects of writing. How We Write explores: how children learn to write the importance of reflective thinking processes of planning, composing and revising visual design of text cultural influences on writing global hypertext and the future of collaborative and on-line writing. By referring to a wealth of examples from writers such as Umberto Eco, Terry Pratchett and Ian Fleming, How We Write ultimately teaches us how to control and extend our own writing abilities. How We Write will be of value to students and teachers of language and psychology, professional and aspiring writers, and anyone interested in this familiar yet complex activity.

Presenting a significant selection of seventy-eight essays, interviews, and symposia from the pioneering AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, Design Culture examines the coming of age of graphic design as a profession and its role in shaping our culture. A diverse group of leading designers, editors, academics, and professionals both within and outside the field offer stimulating views on the impact of graphic design on everyday life. Topics range from skateboard graphics to the NASA logo to Lucky Charms cereal, and are grouped under ten intriguing chapter headings, including: Love, Money, Power; Facts and Artifacts; Modern and Other Isms; Design 101; Public Works; Understanding Media; and Future Shocks. Design Culture brings new meaning to design issues for anyone interested in contemporary culture. Essays by: Philip B. Meggs, Fath Davis Ruffins, Natalia Ilyin, Rosemary Coombs, Steven Heller, Paula Scher, Rick Poynor, Michael Bierut, Lorraine Wild, Ellen Lupton, Paul Rand, Jeffery Keedy, Peter Fraterdeus, Gunar Swanson, Roy Behrens, Veronique Vienne, Paul Saffo, Jessica Helfand, Robin Kinross, Milton Glaser, Michal Rock, Ellen Shapiro, and many more. Co-published with the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.