Peachpit is a publisher of books focused on

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscip ...

web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...

, and development. Peachpit's parent company is

Pearson Education Pearson Education is a British-owned education publishing and assessment service to schools and corporations, as well for students directly. Pearson owns educational media brands including Addison–Wesley, Peachpit, Prentice Hall, eCollege ...

, which owns additional educational media brands including

Addison-Wesley Addison-Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson PLC, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributes its technical titles throug ...

Prentice Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari ...

, and New Riders. Founded in 1986, Peachpit publishes the ''Visual QuickStart Guide'', ''Visual QuickPro Guide'', and ''Classroom in a Book'' series, in addition to the design imprint New Riders and its ''Voices That Matter'' series. Peachpit is the official publishing partner for

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the cre ...

, Lynda.com, Apple Certified at

Apple Inc Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

, and other tech corporations.

History

Peachpit Press was founded in 1986 by

Ted Nace Ted Nace (born 1956) is an American writer, publisher, and environmentalist, known for his criticisms of corporate personhood and his support of a fossil fuel phase out. In 2009, he was described as "one of the amazing brains and strategists be ...

and Michael Gardner, and the two co-authored the company's first book, ''LaserJet Unlimited.'' Gardner served on the board of the company from 1986 to 1994 but did not take an active role in the company. Nace and Gardner named the company Peachpit because at the time, Nace and several of his friends were "living and working in a

peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, n ...

colored house in Berkeley that was such a dump it was considered a 'pit.'" Computer writer Elaine Weinmann described how Nace let authors typeset and illustrate their own books and described his publishing approach as user-friendly and innovative. The company grew in size and sales, and had a publishing orientation towards books relating to

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

computers, and was described as a leader in books about digital graphics. Nace served as publisher from 1986 until 1996, when Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel assumed the publisher position. In 1994, Nace sold Peachpit Press to London-based media conglomerate

Pearson PLC Pearson plc is a British multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England. It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s. Spender, J. A., ''Weetman Pearson: F ...

. Peachpit continued to operate out of Berkeley until a move to San Francisco in 2012. Although known as a Mac publisher Peachpit started out publishing

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

related books. Its first Macintosh books were ''The Little Mac Book'' and ''The Mac is not a typewriter,'' both by

Robin Williams Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and come ...

. In 1992, Peachpit purchased the ''Macintosh Bible'' series from Arthur Naiman's Goldstein and Blair (named after characters in the

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalit ...

novel

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

). In 1998, when Apple user share was down to 4% of the computer user market and

Power Computing Power Computing Corporation (often referred to as Power Computing) was the first company selected by Apple Inc to create Macintosh-compatible computers (" Mac clones"). Stephen “Steve” Kahng, a computer engineer best known for his design of ...

was making Mac clones, Peachpit was still publishing a large portion of Mac books. Peachpit published Visual QuickStart Guides for Mac.

Notable authors

Some notable Peachpit authors include: David Blatner,

Thom Hartmann Thomas Carl Hartmann (born May 7, 1951) is an American radio personality, author, former psychotherapist, businessman, and progressive political commentator. Hartmann has been hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, ''The Thom Hartmann Prog ...

Deke McClelland Donald Hugh McClelland, Jr., known as Deke McClelland (born 1962), is an American author and expert in Adobe products, most notably Photoshop, but also Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop Elements. Bibliography Training videos He has hosted ...

Scott Kelby Scott Kelby (born July 7, 1960) is an American photographer and an author and publisher of periodicals dealing with photography and Adobe Photoshop software, for design professionals, photographers, and artists. Photography career Kelby is edi ...

Don Rittner Don Rittner is an American historian, archeologist, anthropologist, environmental activist, educator, author and film maker living in the Capital District, Schenectady County, New York. He is the former Schenectady County Historian, responsibl ...

, Joe McNally,

Larry Magid Larry Magid (born 1947) is an American journalist, technology columnist and commentator. He is the author of several books. Early life Lawrence J. Magid was born in 1947 in Brooklyn, NY. He grew up in Los Angeles, California. He received his BA f ...

Steve Krug Steve Krug is a UX (User Experience) professional based in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He is best known for his book '' Don't Make Me Think'' about human-computer interaction and web usability Web usability of a website are broad goals of usab ...

, Jeffrey Zeldman,

Jakob Nielsen Jacob or Jakob Nielsen may refer to: * Jacob Nielsen, Count of Halland (died c. 1309), great grandson of Valdemar II of Denmark * , Norway (1768-1822) * Jakob Nielsen (mathematician) (1890–1959), Danish mathematician known for work on automorphis ...

Bruce Schneier Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Cente ...

, Fred Davis, Seth Godin, Gary Wolf,

Lynda Weinman Lynda Susan Weinman (born January 24, 1955) is an American business owner, computer instructor, and author, who founded an online software training website, lynda.com, with her husband, Bruce Heavin. Lynda.com was acquired by online business net ...

, Ben Forta and Maria Langer.

Publications

*''Zap!: How Your Computer Can Hurt You - and What You Can Do About It'' by Don Sellers. *''Kid's Web Kit'' by Lisa Lopuck *''Ecolinking: Everyone's Guide to Online Environmental Information'' by Don Rittner *''Computer Privacy Handbook'' by Andre Bacard *''Gay and Lesbian Online'' by Jeff Dawson *''Avatars! Exploring and Building Virtual Worlds on the Internet'' by Bruce Damer *''Inside PostScript'' by Frank Merritt Braswell, published originally in 1989 by Systems of Merritt later together by Systems of Merritt and Peachpit Press.

Imprints

Peachpit Press also publishes or partners with Adobe Press, Apple Certified, lynda.com, and New Riders.

References

{{Authority control Online publishing companies of the United States Educational publishing companies Commercial digital libraries Publishing companies established in 1988 Companies based in Berkeley, California Publishing companies of the United States Pearson plc Publishing companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area American digital libraries