Peachpit is a publisher of books focused on graphic design,

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, eColleg ...

, 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 B ...

, 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, 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 ...

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, non- ...

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 ances ...

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 Mac or MAC most commonly refers to: * Mac (computer), a family of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * A variant of the word macaroni, mostly used in the name of the dish mac and cheese * 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 ...

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 comed ...

. 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 totalita ...

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 Southeast As ...

). 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 Pr ...

, Deke McClelland,

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 e ...

Don Rittner Don Rittner is an American historian, archeologist, anthropologist, environmental activist, educator, author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An ...

, Joe McNally, Larry Magid, Steve Krug,

Jeffrey Zeldman Jeffrey Zeldman is an American entrepreneur, web designer, author, podcaster and speaker on web design. He is the co-founder of A List Apart Magazine and the Web Standards Project. He also founded the design studios Happy Cog and studio.zeldma ...

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 automorphi ...

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 Ce ...

, Fred Davis,

Seth Godin Seth W. Godin is an American author and former dot com business executive. Background After leaving Spinnaker in 1986, he used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in ...

, 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 ne ...

Ben Forta Ben Forta is Adobe Systems Inc's Senior Director of Education Initiatives. His primary responsibility is a focus on students, both K-12 and higher-ed, with an eye towards digital and visual literacy, and the role that Adobe services and tools pl ...

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 A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and expressed ...

later together by

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