Book Brew

A 192-member jury of leading creatives and designers gets down to the business of judging the 51st D&AD Awards on April 15, so it's the perfect time to look back on the first five decades of excellence in visual thinking with D&AD 50, new from Taschen. The anniversary tome spotlights the best in design and advertising through the eyes of D&AD presidents and other key figures who each share his or her favorites from one of the last 50 years, from the birth of TV advertising in the '60s through the digital revolution and smartphone-optimized world of today.

Serenity now! Ditch the yoga mat, grab a pencil and that fresh Rhodia jotter you've been saving for a special occasion, and curl up with a copy of Zen Doodling, out this month from Barron's. Veteran illustrator and artist Carolyn Scrace walks readers through a range of stress-busting sketching exercises, from simple yet soothing patterns using lines and shapes to more complex mandalas, portraits and unique personal alphabets. One disclaimer for the typographically sensitive: the art director of the book apparently got a little too relaxed and decided to set most of the body text for this book in...Lucida Handwriting. Just take deep breaths and repeat after us: "It's not Comic Sans. OM."

Once up on a time, travel involved more than clutching bar-coded documents and wheeling one's black case through identical airport concourses. Return to the golden age in the gilt-edged pages of World Tour, out next month from Abrams. Chilean-born, Paris-based travel writer Francisca Matteoli draws upon the vintage hotel labels collected by trunkmaker and traveler Gaston-Louis Vuitton (whose grandfather founded the leathergoods juggernaut) as fodder for a 21-city global adventure illustrated by hundreds of illustrations, photos, vintage postcards and more than 900 labels that live on as graphic souvenirs of getaways from Athens to Zermatt.

Long a staple text of designers and design students around the world, Michael Johnson's Problem Solved is now available in an updated and expanded second edition from Phaidon. Conceived as a primer in design, branding and communication, the book is organized as a series of problems -- such as avoiding repetition, reinventing a tired brand, using shock tactics -- that are presented and solved, drawing upon real-world examples. The newly added nineteenth chapter considers the craze for flexible and ever-changing logos. Notes Johnson, "Everyone is exploring the idea that perhaps an identity no longer needs to be static, and could change and modulate with time."

How do I find new clients? How much should I charge for my design work? When should I say no to a client? Answers to all of these questions and more can be found in Work for Money, Design for Love (New Riders), David Airey's handy-dandy guide to starting and running a successful design business, from finding your niche and naming your brand to navigating issues of "legalities, integrity and morality" and dealing with difficult clients. "This is the book I wanted to read when I became a self-employed graphic designer," writes Airey in the book's introduction. "It's the advice I'd give my younger self -- teachings that would have put me years ahead of where I am now."

Having proven that vegetarian cuisine can be exciting and delicious, chef Amanda Cohen of the NYC restaurant Dirt Candy was up for a new challenge: to combine a cookbook with a graphic novel. She teamed up with illustrator Ryan Dunlavey and her husband, writer Grady Hendrix, and two years later, Dirt Candy: A Cookbook (Clarkson Potter) was born. Daring recipes--pass the "Fennel Salad with Candied Grapefruit Pops and Grilled Cheese Croutons" -- and talking vegetables abound. Notes Cohen of one memorable panel, "In a lot of ways, Dirt Candy is my way of saying, 'Lighten up!' So a comic book with talking drunk eggplants at a bar was the perfect way to convey that feeling to readers."