I’m one of those stubborn people that upon installing a new piece of equipment or software I skip the instructions and assume right away that I can make things work without some kind of manual telling me how to do things.

I’m one of those stubborn people that upon installing a new piece of equipment or software I skip the instructions and assume right away that I can make things work without some kind of manual telling me how to do things. More stupid than stubborn I guess. But I also guess that it has to do with the fact that most manuals are a pain to follow or just go around in too many circles before getting to the point. Heck, sometimes there is no manual to begin with. And that’s where books like Peachpit Press’ Visual QuickStart Guides Series come in: with easy to follow, streamlined, step-by-step instructions for how to do things for those of us who are stubborn, stupid or, less self-deprecatingly, simply need an amicable hand to learn how to do things. With 276 titles listed on their web site, the QuickStart Guides cover everything from learning CSS to Photoshop CS5. With a 15-year-old logo identifying the series, it was a time for a redesign, courtesy of San Francisco-based Mine™.

The primary challenge was to retain the equity of the current mark, while giving it a noticeable refresh. We began by determining how radical an evolution the client was comfortable with. Based on that understanding we agreed that the only essential essential elements were that it be white on red, a bunny, and forward moving. I felt strongly from the outset that the cartoonish rabbit — with its motion lines, rough-edged style and anthropomorphic stance — conveyed a sense of amateurism that ran contrary to the content and style of the series. The new streamlined form catches the bunny suspended in mid stride. Just as the books do, the logo is free of extraneous elements and gets directly to the point.

Typographically we took our cues from the interior layout which makes heavy use of Proxima and Avenir. Those open forms inspired a cleaner, simpler cover design with much more whitespace than previously. Research showed that when customers looked for Visual Quickstart titles they looked for the “books with the bunny on the cover.” With that in mind we opted to make the bunny the dominant visual element — a decision that also allowed us to make a dominant color statement with the red and white — again reinforcing only those brand elements that people remembered.
— Christopher Simmons, Principal, Mine™

The old rabbit looked more like the thing that came out of the swamp that would first eat you and then teach you some HTML. By contrast, the new bunny is an adorable companion that I would snuggle with in a second. Its shapes are simple and concise and even though it doesn’t have streaks of air like the old one, it conveys a fresh dynamism by being captured mid-stride. Plus, how awesome is that tail?

The new cover is also a fresh improvement, although if you look at the old collection, you can see a slightly crazed way of adding variety through color and photos that the new cover doesn’t allow — perhaps for the better, as some of the old covers were getting out of hand, but maybe working in some flexibility down the road would be beneficial. Overall, this is a vast improvement that gives the Visual QuickStart Series a much more sophisticated and trustworthy look.

PS. The Peachpit Press web site shows a previous version of the logo with a different tail for the bunny. The one shown here is the correct and final version.

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The rest is here:
Step-by-Step Bunny