D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself by Ellen Lupton

D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself Reviews

• 
  Jasmine

  this has some great ideas in it and it breaks everything down for you in simple terms.
• 
  Peter Wolfley

  One of the greatest joys of my work is designing stuff for the city. When I see people around town wearing my t-shirts there is sunshine in my soul.
• 
  Bailey

  This book is laid out in a very user-friendly way. Each chapter clearly lets you know what will be discussed. Skipping one section and reviewing another would be simple and would not leave the reader at a loss. The graphics, images, diagrams, and system for explaining expense and time are stellar. The color, fonts, and organization helped to keep me intrigued. Also, each section is written by a different person, so it stays fresh. It does assume the reader knows how to do certain things without ever explaining them in detail. If I wasn’t an art teacher, I could have been intimidated by those assumptions. If I were to use this book in my classroom, I would do so after introducing the basic skills needed to screen print and use stencils.
  
  The first few chapters really explain the “D.I.Y.” (do it yourself) movement. They talk about what design is, how it is used, and who sees it. It does this with excellent graphics, catchy quotes, and interesting ideas. They also go into detail about the theory behind DIY by defining public, capital, and property. The most interesting part of this section is the topic of copyright. I hadn’t given much thought to the “public domain” and “fair use.”
  
  When the book delves into the subject of design it really held my interest and made me think of ways I could use this book as a tool in my class. It said, “For every problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious and wrong. A problem worthy of the name is seldom accessible to sudden and simple solution.” I enjoyed that quote. While explaining design, it gave very clear examples to help clarify the meaning. It discussed basic elements of design, hierarchy, visual path, white space, symmetry and asymmetry, contrast, and much more.
  
  The next section of the book is separated into specific design projects. They talk about blogs, books, business cards, brands, press kits, flyers, gifts, invitations, logos, and many other topics. Some chapters have diagrams of “how tos.” Others tell the history of the item and provide details about how these things are used in the “public.” They provide lots of ideas on how to make one thing. For example, the chapter on blank books shows you ten images of different ways to create a cover and bind the book. Each image is accompanied by a graphic that tells you how long it will take and how much it will cost (both on a scale of 1-3). They also give brief written instructions on how to create the book. All of the chapters are filled with excellent examples and images. Some of my favorite project ideas from the “meat” of the book are screen printed stationary, complete with handmade envelopes, tote bags, and vinyl wall graphics.
  
  The book wraps up with interviews of D.I.Y. artists. I really enjoyed the interview with Leia Bells. She creates posters for rock shows with a home print studio. The posters are interesting and she sites her high school art teacher as her inspiration for a lifetime of screen-printing!
  
  According to the Fry Graph, this book is at the 11th grade reading level. When I did the General Readability Chart it scored very high in all sections. I think that sections of this book could be very useful to my students. I would need to be sure to review and reinforce what the reading goes over.
  
• 
  Jaclyn

  This book gave me some useful ideas and general information on design techniques, which I appreciated. I was actually looking for more of that -- like a Design 101 crash course for DIY non-designers -- but I don't know if that was entirely this book's goal. As such, I'm unsure how to rate it.
  
  The beginning of the book offers a very brief rundown of key design concepts and techniques. Then it launches into several chapters addressing specific design applications. For example, t-shirts, business cards, zines, websites, and tote bags.
  
  Where things broke down for me was, there isn't room for a full treatment of production and design techniques for all of these applications. The reader gets a brief glimpse at a few examples and a quick, high-level review of some DIY techniques. If you are unfamiliar with how to make the stuff in this book, I wouldn't go into it thinking you'll learn it all here. The book is more like a jumping-off point for what to Google. The examples provide some ideas, but there is very little technical breakdown of what makes something a good/effective visual design. I think the reader is expected to infer that from the rundown at the beginning.
  
  Rather than get into technical processes for DIY production, I would've liked to see more analysis of the actual design. The book is titled "Design It Yourself," not "Make It Yourself," and I was expecting a little more support on the design end of things.
  
  Also, the focus on DIY maker techniques does unfortunately make the book less evergreen. I read it in 2022. It was published in 2006. The website and blog chapters were obsolete both technically and aesthetically. Design for textiles and posters is a little more consistent and stable, so chapters about those sorts of things have held up better. However, this is a good example of how a sharper focus on design, and less on production, might have kept the book current. An analysis of what makes some of the many t-shirt designs work would have held up -- and been super helpful to me right now. While I know how to screen print, I no longer find it economical or practical because there are so many print-on-demand services in business today. So that page space, in my mind, could have been better used with more how-to-design content as opposed to how-to-get-the-design-onto-the-shirt content.
  
  All the same, this was an easy-reading book and it did give me some helpful ideas! It was also available from my local library, which was greatly appreciated. I don't regret picking it up but I will definitely need to find some more design-for-beginners type content.
• 
  Jina

  While thorough in covering the many mediums of art people can use, where this book failed was providing its readers with a comprehensive guide that would truly allow them to produce these things completely on their own. They mention screenprinting multiple times throughout the book, but never once, even so much as briefly touched on how one screenprints. However, they do tell you how to prep to submit your work to a screen printing company, which is not very do-it-yourself. If you’re just trying to find new things to make, then this book could give you ideas on all of the sorts of mediums that are out there. Otherwise, I found their examples very dated (it was published in 2006) and their instructions vague. It was an interesting read, but it honestly wasn’t a very satisfying one and I had a hard time finishing it. Also, Ellen missed a very obvious typo, in large font on page 33 in the book (“...let the world know what’s one your mind…”)
  
• 
  Charlie Easterson

  Very artistically arrogant. Offers little useful advice and a good portion of the designs held up as examples are pretty non-functional in a real way (see the pages of missing cat posters, all of which offer minimal valuable information). I’m all for more design sense but the design recommend here is constipated with its own high minded self-congratulation.
• 
  Sivyu

  It's a design book about tons of things ranging from logos, tee shirts, business cards, CDs, and more. It's a good jumping point if you are looking to design your own stuff, which I am for work.
• 
  Stef

  A bunch of great ideas for useful crafts that you could actually sell and display, although the how-tos are very sparse.
• 
  Sagan

  A very basic intro into doing it yourself.
• 
  Daniel

  Very shallow; half a page on postcards, next page is about tote bags. What's going on here. If you don't know that scissors exist, this book is great.
• 
  Martin Keith

  Lots of cool wee bits of advice on a wide range of different design projects. A lot of the contributors' advice is transferable to other projects too.
• 
  Elizabeth

  There were a lot of great things about this book—there were some very good projects featured, and some clever ideas here and there.
  
  However.
  
  The chapter about photo albums that begins on p. 125 did me in. I am pretty much finished with the notion that scrapbooking is some kitsch hobby stuck in 1984, one "real" design professionals can snicker at behind scrapbookers' backs. Case in point:
  
  "You can make personal and original photographic documents while avoiding the extra layers of vellum, lace, and buttons that drape the overdressed albums of today's scrapbooking scene. Off with the corset, on with the idea! If you really need your wedding album to look like a wedding cake, make your icing out of materials and images that you find yourself. Hey, it's a scrapbook—use real scraps, not fake ones that come in cellophane bags."
  
  
  I could go on. But I'm not going to, because my soap box would get worn out.
  
  Oh, but one more thing that really annoyed me, found in the resources section under
  www.flickr.com:
  
  "A resource of amateur photography with free hi-res downloads. Don't be surprised if you stumble upon some pretty decent work."
  
  OK, Design Gods of Maryland Institute College of Art.
  
• 
  Daniel J

  D.I.Y. is well-designed--as any "design handbook" should be--though its best, most interesting parts come, unsurprisingly, from the book's experienced editor and her sister, Julia, an experienced designer. Their essays on D.I.Y. theory and history start the book off right, but the essays and craft ideas that follow are often merely serviceable, if somewhat spotty. You should, however, expect as much from a beginner's design handbook whose contents comes mostly from current design students.
  
  Unsurprisingly, the tone of some essays comes across as overly knowing, if lacking in expertise. Even less surprisingly, the book is no substitute for a good design course or major, but certainly worth the money for an easy-to-follow introduction to graphic design. Don't expect to become a great graphic designer overnight and especially not after reading a single book.
• 
  Tara

  This is a book about designing all sorts of products to promote yourself or your business. It takes you through the basic processes of setting up a blog, designing T-shirts and business cards, or putting together a press kit, but it’s primarily a book of ideas and inspirations, with tons of photos of other people’s projects. Some of the ideas are immediately accessible (you can use their gift wrap suggestions right away), whereas others (such as putting together a website) are going to require some additional resources and technical expertise that this book doesn’t get into. The book’s focus is on teaching you to think like a designer, rather than giving you the technical skills to execute all of the projects.
• 
  Alison

  This was interesting -- it's not quite a craft book, and not quite a design book, though there are elements of both. There are projects you can make (but without super detailed instructions) there is information on a variety of design principles (layout, branding) and there are tons of ideas to steal and repurpose.
  
  It's the kind of thing I might pick up again if I wind up doing some specific project that's covered in the book -- branding for an organization, creating a newsletter.
  
  The cool thing about this is the projects/chapters were all put together by students at a local art school -- I thought that was a really neat collaboration.
• 
  Katie

  I am so glad I didn't ask for this book for Christmas, because I just read the whole thing in an hour. While it has a lot of great ideas, DIY doesn't really explain how to do much. It only points to where you should start. It's great for a beginning, but I was looking for something less basic and more instructive.
• 
  Desiree

  Great concept. Illustrated well. Clearly done as a project of some sort by the grad students in the program, all of whom are artists and not writers, so I suppose I can forgive the truly egregious repetitive spelling errors and similar... A good glimpse of what makes designers better than the rest of us at seeing what works and what doesn't in form, color, etc...
• 
  Homestic

  Excellent range of topics covered. All covered quite lightly but get a good feel for design in general from the entire book. One of the best over views. BUT not that technical other than a few scant pages at the beginning & there could be more practical advice. Some of the examples might quickly look dated.
• 
  Meg

  Nice idea generator. Provides a little background info about starting out with different forms of media, and then shows off some possibilities. Some of the sections are quite short (especially the zines one, unfortunately), but it is good visual fodder for getting the creativity churning.
• 
  Phoebe

  I have to say I was impressed by this overview of design principals (for the untrained masses) -which is clearly written, engaging, practical, and fun to flip through. Makes you want to get your DIY on. Don't skip the interviews in the back -they are insightful and worth the read.
• 
  Melanie

  There were some clever things peppered here and there throughout the book. I think this would be somewhat helpful for someone who has no design background and is looking to embark on doing some projects (ie, making a business card or invitation) on their own.
• 
  Rachel

  I wanted to love this book and I had such high hopes for it. What it does is tell you to design everything yourself, which I totally agree with it. Unfortunately it doesn't show/teach you how to do it yourself (DIY) so I felt this book was falsely advertised.
• 
  Waziri Garuba

  Great book - gets you thinking about how to design everything around you to fit YOUR tastes and not somebody in a dark room sketching out ikea furniture and poorly designed jeans.
  
  If you have the spark to actually go and create your own stuff - then this is the book for you...
• 
  Louise Wylie

  Anytime I'm at a loose end and want to kick start a new project, I find myself coming back to this book again and again.
  
  Although some of the examples of work can look a bit dated, the processes behind them are still relevant and can be applied to your own personal style and way of working.
• 
  Cari

  I really, really wanted to like this, but it just wasn't practical. Some sections were way too complex to actually be undertaken by a novice, while others were just common sense. Plus, the whole thing is riddled with typos. Guess they DIY-ed the editing, too.
• 
  anique

  Not nearly as helpful as I was hoping it would be, but a good way to get started. Provides you with some good ideas, but falls short on the execution instruction.
• 
  crafty_puppy

  *OWN IT*
  FANTASTIC BOOK!!!
  I love reading the projects over and over.