Writing for Visual Thinkers: A Guide for Artists and Designers (Voices That Matter)

Writing can be a challenge, especially for artists and designers who tend to be more visual than verbal. Writing for Visual Thinkers: A Guide for Artists and Designers is designed to help people who think in pictures--a segment of learners that by some estimates includes almost 30 percent of the population--gain skills and confidence in their writing abilities.

Writing for Visual Thinkers approaches the craft of writing from many directions, all with the ultimate goal of unblocking the reader's verbal potential. It offers a guide to mind mapping, concept mapping, freewriting, brainwriting, word lists and outlines, as well as provides student examples, tips on writing grant proposals, reasons for keeping a blog and more. Critique methods, criticism, narrative and storytelling, hypertext, editing, graphic novels and comics, and many more topics round out this groundbreaking book. Both experimental and pragmatic, Andrea Marks's methods will result in stronger, more verbally confident artists and designers.

This book comes with eBook and ePub versions included on a CD bundled into the back of the book. The electronic versions take full advantage of rich media and include a wealth of imaes and links to articles, books, websites, blogs, wikis, video, and audio podcasts. Marks offers a feast for the eyes--from Leonardo da Vinci's sketchbooks to video of Jack Kerouac's On the Road scroll--adding depth and dimension to the written word and encouraging readers to explore their thoughts and ideas in text. The print book also contains handy workbook and sketchbook pages.

Developed in partnership with AIGA, this book is for the visual learners everywhere who have always wanted--or needed --to improve their writing skills, whether they specialize in graphic design, web design, industrial design, interior design, allied design, or fashion design.

Writing can be a special challenge for artists and designers, who tend to be more visual than verbal. Writing for Visual Thinkers is designed to help people who think in pictures gain skills and confidence in their writing abilities.

Andrea Marks approaches the craft of writing from many directions, all with the ultimate goal of unlocking the reader's verbal potential. This new and expanded edition introduces brainstorming techniques that focus on writing and explores the various connections between verbal and visual thinking.

Writing for Visual Thinkers includes a companion CD with an ebook containing hundreds of links to articles, books, websites, blogs, wikis, video, and audio podcasts by writers and designers including Ellen Lupton, Steven Heller, and Jessica Helfand.

With the addition of new exercises that push the reader to explore a wide range of writing strategies, the second edition of Writing for Visual Thinkers is a great resource to help visual communicators enrich their work with writing.

Andrea Marks is a design educator and coordinator of the graphic design program at Oregon State University. Her interests in design curriculum extend to exploring ways in which technology can enhance learning. She is the recipient of several grants and awards including an NEA Design Arts grant for her interactive CD project Women of the Bauhaus. Her design work is included in the AIGA Design Archives and her film, Freedom on the Fence, about Polish poster artists, is in MoMA’s permanent collection.

1 The Writer's Toolbox

2 Thinking Words and Pictures

3 Verbal and Visual Connections

4 Narrative Structures; Verbal and Visual Working Together

5 Writing and Editing in the 21st Century

6 Writing in Practice Podcasts Resources Letter from Ric Grefe, Executive Director of AIGA