This foundation design book was written over the course of 10 years while teaching at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD. My incentive for writing this book was not the lack of good design books available. On the contrary, a stimulus was the availability of so many good sources. My intent in the following pages is to bring together the thoughts of many people with my own. It is my hope that I have arranged the basics of design with some clarity and made them accessible to the beginning design student. It has also been my purpose throughout the text to relate the design fundamentals not only to the process of producing art but also to many areas of knowledge outside the visual arts, which are the source of inspiration for the artist and designer. I have written this text in a more personal, first person, manner than is traditional for a textbook approach. This reflects my belief that art and design is a subjective field of human endeavor, even in its basics. I have attempted to write more as an artist than an academic.