Retro Style Graphics: A New Book by Grant Friedman
Hello everyone! Today, I’ve got some exciting news! After nearly a year, I’m proud to say that I am now officially an author! Last year, I was approached by Angela Patchell of Angela Patchell Books about writing a book on retro design. At the time, Colorburned was just starting out and I had honestly never seriously thought about writing a book before. Even though I was a little nervous about the whole process, I enthusiastically agreed and started work.
The task of writing this book was quite daunting. The book was to be about 160 pages and I had to do just about all of it myself. That means that I wrote the text, designed the cover art, created most of the content, and laid out all 160 pages. In all, the book took me about 6-7 months to complete, and another 4-5 months of editing and waiting.
I did have a lot of help along the way. There were several designers, studios, and font foundries who contributed content. Without them, this book would not be possible and I truly owe a debt of thanks to everyone who lent a hand.
Retro Style Graphics is a collection of design elements inspired by the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The purpose of this book is to provide the resources needed to reproduce the look of graphics created during these time periods. Inside this book you will find a free CD that includes retro inspired color palettes, professional quality vector graphics, vector patterns, retro styled Illustrator and Photoshop brushes, and high resolution textures.
This book also includes a reference guide to some of the best retro style fonts and a retro design gallery for inspiration. But because reproducing graphics in the retro style is more than just how you organize shapes, colors, patterns and fonts on a page, this book also includes an amazing list of retro design websites and tutorials to help put these design resources to use.
Purchase Retro Style Graphics
Retro Style Graphics is currently available in most major book stores. You can purchase it today from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
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Great work, I love retro style. And for a low low price you cant go wrong! lol
freshalex´s last blog ..3D Pop Out Wedding Invitations
Excellent book, it looks awesome, I like the retro style and this book looks like it worth it.
Congrats for the publication I hope you get published again. keep the good work
Luis Lopez´s last blog ..Video of the Week #012 – Combo by Blu & David Ellis
hey Grant! congratulations for the publication! I hope that the hard work you put into this will pay off (not only financially, but also with regards to personal satisfaction). It’s a great achievement!
2lip´s last blog ..5 hi-res textures of stones and rocks
Great accomplishment Grant! I wish you the best success with the sales. The book looks awesome, well designed.
christian´s last blog ..How to: Create Holiday Cards Online
Wow that looks awesome! Congrats Grant, that is a big accomplishment!
Just got the book Monday… The longest I have waited for a preorder (May 14th or so of this year).
Good book though for some reason I thought the dimensions would be bigger. The CD was great, well organized, and over all well put together.
wow. that looks amazing. will be going to purchase a copy shortly :) hopefully you sell thousands upon thousands of copies!
Mike Smith´s last blog ..7 essential items from my Freelance Toolbox
Congrats Grant… fantastic.. I will make sure to include this in the Friday Fix.. and pick one of these up for myself as well.
That’s so cool, Grant – congratulations! The book looks fabulous and I can’t believe I haven’t purchased my own copy yet. I’m headed over to Amazon to do just that right now :)
Lisa Sabin-Wilson´s last blog ..Want to go to WordCamp NYC?? It’s on me!
I love love love everything retro..will it been at borders?
Melody´s last blog ..SD Investigates: The Allure of Pinups
Thank you everyone for the comments!
@MelodyNieves, it should be available in most major book retailers. Right now it’s definitely available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon but you should be able to find it in other stores as well. It was literally just released this week so it may be a few weeks before it’s available everywhere.
That is simply amazing, congratulations!
This looks great Grant. Good work.
Very nice and congrats on the publication! I haven’t purchased a copy yet but I’m heading to Amazon in a couple of clicks! ;)
Congrats Grant! Im really happy you included three of my projects. Looking forward to seeing more books from you in the future!
Masood, I would love to write another book. Hopefully, it happens one day. Have you seen the book yet? Actually your work takes up and entire spread on pages 150-151. Looks awesome! Thank you for the submissions.
Yes I have the book and yes the spread looks fantastic! I though you might enjoy seeing the kinetic typography video where those stills came from. Take a look:
http://design.sva.edu/site/projects/show/145
Looks like a suberb book – when can we get it in Australia?
Mike Chanter´s last blog ..Red Bilby Design Blog
Mike, not sure when it will be available in Australia. I don’t know a whole lot about the distribution but I do know that the distribution network that we use is global so I would expect it in Australia soon, if not already.
Nice book. I like this kind of book since I’m fun of making some web banner design and I want to improve my designs.
Grant! Mad props son. The book looks hot. Glad to see things came together, as you seemed pretty excited about it when we talked this summer.
Wohoooo, very nice book!
Very nice!
Design Informer´s last blog ..25 of the Best Free Fonts from Deviant Art
Wow great work!
Just ordered the book from Amazon so I’m eagerly awaiting it’s delivery!
Helikopter Design´s last blog ..30+ *Off the Wall* Free Fonts for Web Designers
Thanks everyone! Helikopter, thank you very much! I hope you enjoy it!
Well done, Grant! I look forward to seeing the book in the shops, I’ll most definitely pick up a copy! Congratulations :)
My knowledge to Retro style is limited. Does this book help to understand Retro design and style? Or its just an inspiration stuff? If there is something from which we can learn and understand the theory of Retro, than I would definitely buy this book.
Congrats for your new book launch.
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There’s a mix of everything in the book. It’s includes mostly design resources; Illustrator brushes, some Photoshop brushes, vector pattern swatches, color palettes, vector stock art, textures, etc. Basically, any element that can be used to create vector graphics. It also includes several sections on inspiration with a gallery and an html file with links to articles and tutorials. One of my favorite sections of the book however is the font section which includes a library of some of my favorite retro fonts that you can page through.