From Guy Kawasaki, the bestselling author of The Art of the Start and Enchantment, The Art of Social Media is a no-nonsense guide to becoming a social media superstar.

By now it’s clear that whether you’re promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of what will determine your success or failure. And there are countless pundits, authors, and consultants eager to advise you.

But there’s no one quite like Guy Kawasaki, the legendary former chief evangelist for Apple and one of the pioneers of business blogging, tweeting, facebooking, tumbling, and much, much more. Now Guy has teamed up with his Canva colleague Peg Fitzpatrick to offer The Art of Social Media – the one essential guide you need to get the most bang for your time, effort, and money.

With more than 100 practical tips, tricks, and insights, Guy and Peg present a ground-up strategy to produce a focused, thorough, and compelling presence on the most popular social-media platforms. They guide you through the steps of building your foundation, amassing your digital assets, going to market, optimizing your profile, attracting more followers, and effectively integrating social media and blogging.

For beginners overwhelmed by too many choices, as well as seasoned professionals eager to improve their game, The Art of Social Media is full of tactics that have been proven to work in the real world. Or as Guy puts it, “Great Stuff, No Fluff.”

Guy Kawasaki, who helped make Macintosh a household name, now runs Garage Technology Ventures, a venture-capital firm. He has held his workshop, “Boot Camp for Start-ups,” around the world. Kawasaki is the author of seven previous books, including Art of the Start, Enchantment and Rules for Revolutionaries.

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David Ogilvy is remembered as one of the most influential admen of all time. His bestselling book Ogilvy on Advertising gave no-nonsense, essential advice to those in marketing, PR, advertising and other related industries wanting to improve their success rate. It has become the industry handbook.

Ogilvy wrote his book before the Digital Revolution, and in this sequel, Miles Young brings the same erudite scrutiny to advertising in the digital age as he examines the challenges that agencies and their clients have faced with the arrival of ‘digital’. He demonstrates how to respond astutely and successfully to the myriad possibilities the digital world has to offer. The book is comprehensive in its reach, touching on all areas, from brand response to social media, pervasive creativity, smart content and good storytelling, to cautions about the power of big data, and what we can learn from the latest neuroscience findings and emerging markets. Backed up by sound research and an illustrious career working out of offices in the UK, US and Hong Kong, Young cuts through the ‘noise’ surrounding digital to outline some essential truths and offer sound practical advice.

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Chapter highlights include:

Chapter 1: Before you Begin
– Find out which accessories are most useful, and how you can create home-made versions of some of them to save cash.
– As well as the most well-known software from Adobe, read about lower cost and free alternatives that you can use for editing your portraits.

Chapter 2: Photography Basics
– Learn how to use aperture to get that professional-looking blurred background effect.
– Understand ISO and its link to exposure; plus, how adjusting this setting enables you to shoot in lower light levels without resorting to using flash or getting camera shake.

Chapter 3: Working with Light
– Understand why light plays such a crucial role in photography and learn the three key qualities of light that will have a dramatic affect on your portraiture.
– Find out how to use cloudy days and window-light for beautiful, naturally-lit portraits, with minimum kit and maximum impact!

Chapter 4: Finding Locations
– Ugly house? No photography studio nearby? No problem. Find out how you can take great portraits almost anywhere – even in front of a garage door!
– Find out the three key things that the best backgrounds provide in portraiture, and how you can use elements of the background to make your composition stronger.

Chapter 5: Babies
– Get to know the best time, location and even the temperature that you need for best chances of success when photographing newborns.
– For slightly older babies who are not yet able to support the weight of their own head, find out how you can create a set of images that look distinctively different.

Chapter 6: Toddlers
– Learn what questions to ask the parents before you even pick up your camera, to improve your chances of capturing and holding the toddler’s attention.
– Experiment with loads of top techniques to get even the most difficult toddler beaming!

Chapter 7: Children
– Find out how to break longer shoots down into mini shoots to get the best results, and why it pays to capture expressions other than cheesy grins.
– Try out loads of ideas for mini games that will get the children where you need them to be, and loving every second of it!

Chapter 8: Teens & Adults
– Learn how to start right, to gain teens’ and adults’ confidence and trust so they relax and – even better – enjoy themselves!
– Learn how to get your subject to pose in a way that looks natural and comfortable yet flattering.

Chapter 9: Couples
– Interaction is key! Try these ideas for getting your couple to interact – with each other and with you – for great expressions.
– Want to create a feeling of romance? We ll show you how it can be done, including our killer high chemistry pose that immediately creates an air of intimacy.

Chapter 10: Families
– One of the objectives of portrait photography is to ensure everyone s faces are close to each other – but families have people of all different heights! Find out how to remove those gaps and get people closer… and closer still!
– With a range of different ages to entertain, the pace and momentum that you set is key. Use these suggestions for gradually increasing the energy to keep everyone engaged throughout.

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52 Assignments: Black & White Photography – This book is a mission brief, a portfolio of photographic workshops, a personalised journal, and an inspirational guide to putting the creativity back into your craft. It is filled with a year’s worth of weekly commissions and concepts for conceiving and composing powerful black and white images. From capturing clouds, reflections, and water to shooting cityscapes, architecture, and vehicles, all the assignments in this book have been written to inspire you to embrace this timeless art and convey the essence of your subject through shades of light and dark alone. Whether you’re photographing natural elements or manmade landscapes, each assignment encourages you to look at the world in a new way, relying on shape, texture, and the source, direction, and intensity of light, rather than colour, to create eye-catching images. Full of technical advice and professional tips, the book includes journal space for you to add your own notes, lists and tech specs, creating a unique journal in which you can record the journey you have made with your imagery. Complete the assignments weekend by weekend over the course of a year, or dip in every time you need to bring a new concept or creative approach to your monochromatic photography.

Assignment topics include:

• Reflections
• Texture
• Tall Buildings
• Streets at Night
• Creative Selfies
• Silhouettes
• Minimalism
• Motion Blur
• Negative Space
• Sunrises
• Decisive Moments

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Created in collaboration between Dark Horse Books and the developers at Naughty Dog, The Art of The Last of Us Part II offers extensive insights into the making of the long-awaited sequel to the award-winning The Last of Us.

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With its captivating characters, striking visual design, and intense gameplay, Final Fantasy VII set a new standard for the RPG genre and became one of the top video game releases of all time. Now, with Final Fantasy VII Remake, players return to Midgar in a stunning new rendition of a timeless classic. This World Preview volume offers both new players and longtime fans essential information on characters, settings, gameplay, and more, as well as introductory comments from producer Yoshinori Kitase and director Tetsuya Nomura.

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A gorgeous, scientifically up-to-date exploration of the prehistoric world, written and illustrated by leading palaeontologists.

An elegant factual guide to the prehistoric world of Hell Creek from the successful indie survival game Saurian. A beautiful, detailed exploration of the creatures and environment of this stunning game, and perfect for all fans of paleoart.

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