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Designers and books are a perfect marriage and because we love them so much at FFF we’ve decided to venture into book reviews and save you all some pennies. To kick things off we’re very happy to publish our first review of fledgling title Studio Culture. We’d love to hear what you think so let us know in the comments or via Twitter or perhaps even suggest a future title for us to review. Now for the full story…

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Studio Culture is the first title to be released from fresh faced publisher Unit Editions, a collaboration between Tony Brook of Spin and Adrian Shaughnessy of ShaughnessyWorks , both of whom are luminaries in the visual communications industry. Unit Editions’ manifesto is positive; producing and self publishing graphic design books at affordable prices – which fills us with excitement and anticipation of things to come.

The graphic design studio is something we’re all very familiar with but very little has been written on the subject. Studio Culture addresses this gap very well. Split into four sections – there are a couple of essays introducing the importance and lack of discussion surrounding the concept of the studio, a collection of interviews with 28 leading studios (commenting on everything from set up to interns and employees through to profit sharing and relaxation time), a photographic record of a selection of world renowned studios and finally a reference section on the ins and out of studio life. Each of the essays and interviews are extremely detailed and well referenced offering a probing look into the innermost secrets of some famous studios worldwide. The content has a familiarity by dealing with issues which are of common concern to designers.

Overall the range of featured studios seems a little restricted with the majority based in Europe. Although it’d be great to see a more even breadth of locations, the focus on European studios is more of an observation of Europe as the hub of excellent creative work worldwide. The conflict between the studio as a collective and the individual who represents that studio is constant in the book but makes for interesting reading.

The book has been designed by Brook’s own agency Spin and has clearly been well considered. The reasonable cover price doesn’t come by way of sacrifice to the design and production, both of which are well executed. The choice of 90gsm Cyclus paper stock gives the book a reference like feel—one that you’ll constantly be dipping in and out of—which is also reflected in the relatively small size. The cover is finished simply with a wrap around belly band come dust cover. If we had to be at all critical, the size of images can be a little disappointing, sometimes these are just too small to appreciate. But this is a minor point, overall the mix of images and text works harmoniously.

Unit Edition’s first foray into publishing with Studio Culture is a sterling effort despite it’s minor points, it’s after all a copy heavy book and well produced and written by talented practitioners. The working relationship between Shaughnessy and Brook is clearly one built upon a common interest in the wider subject of visual communications, which overall makes for a book rich in interesting and diverse content that anyone who has or is interested in working in a studio/agency will find extremely inspirational. The book’s design and production mirrors the quality of content demonstrating some of Spin’s signature style such as the folded dust cover that we’ve previously seen on Logo.

This book is a must for every designers’ book shelf and like Shaughnessy’s How to be a graphic designer without losing your soul, it should be a must on the reading lists of graduates. We’re interested to see how Unit Editions develops over the next twelve months. Can they maintain the pace and quality of publications set so high by Studio Culture?

Rating: 9/10

Studio Culture is available from Amazon and all good local book stores now. Signed copies with special edition coloured belly bands are also available exclusively from the Unit Editions website.

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Words: Gil Cocker

Photography: Malcolm Menzies

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And now for some more shots of the book.

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Author: Gil
Posted: 8th October 2009
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Filed as: Books Features