By Sean Adams and Noreen Morioka with Terry Stone

240 pages, hardcover, $40, published by Rockport Publishers, www.rockpub.com

This book is the first in Rockport’s new “practical” series which attempts to go beyond merely showcasing submitted work under one umbrella topic and give insight and guidance on specific areas of design. AdamsMorioka, a Los Angeles design firm whose clients include Old Navy, Frank Gehry Associates and Nickelodeon, does a solid job of outlining what goes into good logo design. They begin by defining terms: mark, trademark, wordmark, symbol, identity and brand. They offer “ten rules” that include “Identify, don’t explain,” “Be seductive” and “Design for a variety of media.” There are also sections on typefaces, color (complete with color wheels), iconography and other elements. They give good advice on creating a “kit of parts” where the identity is presented to the client as a dynamic system and on how to build a standards manual.

The rest of the book displays current work from a variety of studios and there are a lot of tasty designs here. There’s Cahan & Associates’s work for Pottery Barn Kids, Doyle Partners’s for Martha Stewart Everyday, VSA Partners’s for Cingular, and AdamsMorioka’s own work for CalArts. The book ends with three galleries of logos: one for the participating studios, one with a curious selection of defunct logos (most of which seem to be by either Michael Vanderbyl or Clement Mok) and one with other random logos that may have come in on the call-for-entries (most of which, though, are quite charming and eye-catching).

Designed by AdamsMorioka, the book is bright, clean and fun. The writing is clear, concise and filled with aphorisms like, “A logo is not a brand, unless it’s on a cow” and “A logo is not a magic lantern. It can’t make a bad product successful or save a poorly managed corporation.” If you’re stuck over the drawing board suffering for logo-brain-freeze, this Workbook might be worth a look. —Angelynn Grant