I've recently purchased a couple more design related books, one of which being Creative Workshop: 80 challenges to sharpen your design skills, by David Sherwin.
As the title suggests, this book is filled with 80 different mini-briefs. I bought this as it would be something for me to get my teeth into and keep my brain ticking over the summer. I'd say the book was well worth the purchase. Each brief is a small challenge, with its own set time-limit and the book also provides ways to take the challenge fruher and really test your design skills.
There are 7 different sections to the book; Innovation, Interpretation, Foundation, Execution, Materiality, Instruction and Observation. Each section has a range of relating briefs, each challenging in their own way and very interesting. The challenges really encourage you to be individual, think out side the box and approach briefs in different ways, such as including mixed media and steering away from the computer a little.
As well as providing the briefs, the book also shows examples of how others have tackled the briefs which is of course very helpful and inspiring. As well as this, the book also provides tips on how to tackle new briefs and mind-mapping and how to really find your design potential, as well as a "Designrandomizer". This is a section of the book which has a range of statements which could be said from potential clients. These are to be chosen at random once you finish a brief, to act as potential feedback, these include such statements as "You're just wrong, start over with another concept from your brainstorm" "Use purple as the anchor colour in your design" "Add twenty years to your target audience" "Make things feel more 'edgy'" etc! I thought this book was a pretty good buy, and definitely something to dig out when I'm lacking a bit of creativity, or looking for something to do!
