Logo Font & Lettering Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to the Design, Construction and Usage of Alphabets and Symbols by Leslie Cabarga (2004, Hardcover)

I had originally found this book on the internet while doing some searches for logo design. As a full time sign painter and designer for 30+ years, I am always looking for fresh ideas and concepts to incorporate into my work. I was intrigued by this book and was anxious to add to to my library of sign and reference books. I found my copy here on eBay and purchased it in an auction.

What really impresses me about this book is the ease at which it reads. Carbaga utilizes an outstanding writing technique that kept the text informative yet flowing. He uses correct terminology while not allowing it to become stuffy and overbearing. By keeping the text light and humorous, he focuses his train of thought on the issues and complexities of design and techniques all the while keeping it from reading like a tech manual.

The generous use of pictures provides heaps of eye candy for the times when one feels like looking rather than reading. The use of many illustrations in the step-by-steps makes the processes easy to grasp. Carbaga does an outstanding job selecting the illustrations and examples and that provides fodder for future projects.

While I am a Corel user and this book dealt with the use of Illustrator and Photoshop, I had no problem referencing the cross program commands. The techniques are well laid out in each step-by-step and are well within the grasp of a serious graphic artist.

I like the fact that my book is a hardcover but feel that a spiral bound book would have been great, especially for the step-by-steps. I found myself propping the book open and using clips to keep the pages I needed to look at exposed for viewing. A spiral binding would allow it to lay open and flat.

I have no regrets in my decision to obtain this book. I have used many of the techniques and fine tuned ones I already used with the techniques Carbaga outlines in this book. This book should be in the reference library of every serious graphic designer.

My daughter need this for her graphic design class and she loves it for her research for her projects at college. I got to take a look at it and it was the greates resource a person could use in their graphic design class!

This book is a masterpiece for the working graphic designer. Chock full of both tips and broad outlines. This book is especially useful to the vector-based designers (ie: illustrator) since it dedicates a lot of time to working with beziers.

I've worked with computer graphics in the printing industry for the past 15 years and now I work in the sign and retail decor business. I've never found as good a resource as this book. This book is the most comprehensive volume on fonts and logos anywhere.