A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design

There are hundreds of books at the moment claiming to be the experts on Graphic Design.
Too many either take themselves much too seriously or fall back on the picture book format where
thousands of images lack structure and editing resulting in visual wallpaper.
The classic `Smile in The Mind` however, does neither and has the perfect balance of information and inspiration.
Its no wonder then, it is on the `essential reading' list of any graphic design course worth its salt.
(It could however, be revised to include a few more recent examples)

Quite one of the worst books I have ever bought. (I have a lot of books.)
The quality of the paper is very poor, matching the quality of the content.
Fat, overpriced, and valueless. Should I feed it to the dog or just throw it on the waste pile?

This is a must have for any graphic design student about to start university, buy it before you go as it will be added to your reading list when you start. It includes many examples of where humour has been used in graphic design. Very insperational!

The previous reviews of this book were missing one important thing: nobody mentioned that the book is not meant to be funny. The back cover of the book says this without hesitation, which was kind of a put-down. The book agrees that wit is essentially a sub-category of humor, and with that previous understanding I was hoping for many more elements of humor. Just don't expect too many laughs...

Overall: the text in the book is great. Thoughtful and well-written. But, it was very straining to look at endless amounts of pictures, that usually require more context (than is given) to be fully understood (and to be funny). The presentation of graphical wit in book format is difficult, as the authors acknowledge, but I still think the authors could have squeezed in some explanations with punch lines to make the presentation witty as well. As it is, the reader has to do all the work to squeeze the wit out of each example.

My view is that this book tried to be too ambitious. Instead of picking only the best wit to be found in each category of wit (the book makes some kind of divisions), the authors have put in many many *small* pictures, none of which are elaborated on. I just felt my enthusiasm/creativity drained by trying to check out all of them.

This book helped me out a great deal when completeing my Graphic Design degree. It displays a variety of different types of wit, and so many things that are so simple and obviously so effective. It opened my mind to a new world of ideas in design and is a great source of inspiration. It is great to have a flick through when you feel as though you have hit a brick wall! Definitely a must for any design student.