Good questions. Let me take them one by one.

I'll first say that the portfolio is the only truly important thing. When I first came out to NYC to work, I interviewed at 17 different companies/startups/studios. Not a single one even looked at or asked about the school I went to. We just talked at length about my projects. That being said, I think design school is important. Design is complicated. There's a lot to learn. I know people who swear by just going it your own way and not going to school. Those people don't see what they don't do well. They struggle with the fine details. They think their work is fine, but they haven't figured out why it could be better.

Design school taught me a lot. It taught me how to think differently. How to get thick skin and take critique. How to work with grids. How to manage type. All of these skills don't come from hard and fast rules. They come from ethereal concepts that you have to learn. They're much easily learned through someone who can mentor you. You can figure it out on your own, but it will take longer. The cap on your ability to grow in the industry will fall short. I've even interviewed people who had some nice work, but when I discussed with them their process or their theory, they didn't know what they were talking about. They learned how to copy good work, but not how to generate their own creative output.

If you want practice here's what I would do.

1. Sketch. Even if you aren't good at it. I'm still not. Lot's of designers aren't. Sketching is about a quick method of generating ideas.
   
   
2. Read and write. Design is about communication, not visuals. Visuals are important, but if they don't say anything, no one cares. Great designers often tend to be great writers/readers. Don't just read about design. Read about architecture. Read about theater. Read Science Fiction. Just read.
   
   
3. Take pictures. Learn to frame a shot. learn how to compose something beautiful.
   
   
4. Fill your well. Your greatest resource in design will be culture. Learn about things. Experience a full life. If your creative inspiration comes from a design website, you're doing it partially wrong (those things have their value, but they are a simple tool, not a means to good solutions). Dig deep into different things and become broadly experienced.
   
   
5. Play with the software. If you're sketching, try the software too. Learn Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. This leads to my next thing.
   
   
6. Find good work and copy it. Literally. Don't copy to give to a client. Just copy in the privacy of your own studio space. You learn to play the guitar by first playing songs by bands you love. Do the same with design. Copy their work and try to learn their techniques.
   
   Regarding whether I practice, I do. Side projects are a big part of what we do. Client work is always constrained by their needs. Side projects are a good way to push your creativity. Working with constraints is good and important, but balance it with side projects. Design an app. Make a children's book. Do whatever it is that seems interesting to you.
   
   I still struggle with whether my work is good or not. You'll never get over expecting more than you can deliver. If you like the challenge of that and can live with yourself, you'll be a good designer. A good part of knowing what's good is learning to see. Study masters. Find out what makes good work tick. This is a hard question for sure. This is part of why I tell people to go do design school.
   
   Design books I recommend... this is hard. A few to get started...
   
   Steal Like an Artist is good for a newly creative
   
   The Creative Habit is amazing for people who think creativity is magic... it demystifies that notion and explains how Creativity is about practice and routine. Very smart book.
   
   DeBono's Thinking Course is heavy reading but very good in learning how to think creatively. It's a must, in my opinion.
   
   Grid Systems is bland but essential. Learn it. By one of the great masters.
   
   Art & Visual Perception is also mega heavy, but will teach you how to understand how good creative work is composed and why it works. Very interesting if you can take it.
   
   A Smile in the Mind is a great book that shows how wit and messaging in design makes for powerful and memorable work. It's a good primer on how designers work concept into their visuals. It's about discovery and the bliss that comes from that (that's why our honey bottles were so successful... discovery is everything).
   
   Also check out www.designersandbooks.com. It's a long running list of great books that are recommended by designers much more skilled than I am. These are the greats.
   
   Hope this all helps.

Glad I could be of help!

Watts Atelier is really amazing. It is beginner friendly - anatomy knowledge helps, but you wont be drawing the figure immediately. It will still be a good idea to learn anatomy while you continue through the program - I'll link you to some great anatomy resources.

To give you a rough breakdown of how the course works, you start by drawing simple shapes (spheres, cylinders, boxes, cones) focusing on form and value. Then you will start drawing other simple geometric forms applying the same principles. Then drawing fundamentals is finished with still life drawing. Next you move into portrait drawing fundamentals, then figure. If you are interested in painting, you can continue the course to portrait and figure painting, along with other specialized classes (landscape, drapery, composition, etc.)

On the issue of sizing, that is a problem that will solve itself naturally over time. It has to do with proportions and measuring, which is a skill that takes time and practice to get a handle on. Eventually you can visualize where everything goes and place it on the page in the right spot. But yeah, Watts Atelier will definitely help.

The difference between Watts and other free tutorials online is 1.) professionalism and structure: The course is taught by the founder of the atelier Jeff Watts, and it is structured like a true academic art class. Learning online gives you random bits of information which are helpful, but you can't contextualize them. The course is designed to take you from beginner to master. The tutorials online are fun, but don't have that structure.

2.) The teachers are world class artists. To give context, here is some of Jeff Watts work. You may not want to be a painter, but you can be confident that you are learning from a master. You can also google his drawings, they will blow you away. Also, the guy Stan Prokopenko who I recommended - and is often mentioned in this sub - was trained at the Watts Atelier by Jeff Watts.

You probably get the picture, its a great program. My experience with it has been an absolute joy. I wish I could go back in time two years when I started pursuing a career in art and taken these classes immediately. It would have saved me so much time and effort wasted trying to figure out how to grow as an artist on my own. What I do is pay for a month and watch all the videos and print out the handouts for the module (currently on portrait II), and then spend however long I need to get a good handle on it before I spend the 100$ for the next month. Also, if you have the cash to blow, you can spend extra money to get 1 on 1 coaching with teachers at the atelier.

I will note that it can get boring drawing spheres and still life all the time, so make sure you schedule time to draw stuff you love. Once you get into portrait and figure things get way more fun, but just be ready for that in the early stages.

Anyway, glad I could help at all! Feel free to PM me at any time, I have tons of resources I've hoarded over the years that can be helpful. Here are some links that might be helpful:

Here is a video of Jeff Watts drawing and answering questions, it will give you an idea of what his teaching style is like and who he is. Also the drawing is really good.

New Masters Academy is another great tool that has been huge for me. The anatomy and figure drawing courses are amazing. They aren't as structured as Watts, but can be very useful for when you have specific areas you want help for.

This book is superb for figure drawing. Also, this book is the equally amazing book on perspective. Also, a lot of books don't talk about drawing the clothed figure (which is pretty dumb considering most of the time, commercial art has to do with clothed people), which is why I also love this book. You are probably familiar with Bridgman's book, but if you don't have it - get it.

A lot of professional artists in many different industries (concept art, comics, film, animation, 3D, etc.) make gumroad tutorials for a decent price, here is a massive list of tons of these great tutorials.

If you want some inspiration while you work, I love listening to Creative Trek and Chris Oatley's Artcast. They both are mostly interviews with other professional artists and contain all sorts of wisdom and inspiration to help you out.

I have more, but I'll leave it there. I hope the best for you man! Keep up the hard work! Feel free to PM me for whatever reason.

Here are some things I (and I know others) have struggled with. I think the web is exploding with resources and information, so I don’t necessarily think we need to explain what a prototype is. There’s better places elsewhere to learn things about UX, but I think we could provide some good resources for not just people new to UX but everyone else too. I’m coming at this from what I wished I would have access to when I was trying to get into the field. I know that /u/uirockstar has some good walls of text that probably should be included as well. Feel free to suggest any changes to what I have here.

I really want to begin a career in UX/UI. What do I do?

Well, first it’s important to know that UX and UI are not synonymous. While many job postings combine them, UI is a subset of UX, just as research and information architecture are. UI is still important and if you can do both, you do increase your value. While many see UX as a research field at its core, the UX/UI title implies that it’s only about creating pretty things.

The first step is learning more about the field, which brings us to…

What kind of education do I need?

If you are still in school, there are more places recently that are offering courses in human-computer interaction. You can even try to create your own internships. There are very few UX specific schools, though they are starting to pop up, like Center Centre and General Assembly.

Yeah, yeah, that’s great. But I already graduated, so where do I start?

Any focus on people or technology can act as a solid foundation for learning UX. Because there has never been a set entrance path into the field, UX roles are filled with people from many different backgrounds. The most common degrees for those in the field though are design, psychology, communications, English, and computer science. link

There are a number of people in the field who are self-taught. There are tons of books, blogs, and designers (here are some helpful resources) which provide enough UX stuff to keep us all busy. When I first started reading about it, I quickly got overwhelmed because there was so much information available and most of it was intended for those who already had a pretty good grasp on things. The Hipper Element’s crash courses in UX and user psychology are great places to get a fairly quick overview.

There are books like The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan Weinschenk and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug that make for great first books.

UX Mastery has a great eBook for getting started, appropriately titled Getting Started in UX. Kevin Nichols’ UX for Dummies is both very readable, yet detailed. You can even buy the eBook if you don’t want people on the bus to think you’re a “dummy.”

Lastly, Fred Beecher has a very extensive Amazon list of recommended UX books, depending on what area you are looking to learn more about.

Great. I’ve read a whole bunch of stuff and have a pretty good idea how UX works. Now how do I get someone to hire me so I can gain experience?

Hey, easy there. While, yes, there are lots of UX jobs out there, very few are entry level and not many employers will hire someone who has only read about it and not actually done it. You can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job. I know. Frustrating, right?

You have to prove that you can do it. One way to do this is site redesigns.

Go find a website that lacks in it’s user experience and figure out how to fix it. Maybe it’s a small business down the street from you or maybe it’s a feature on eBay you think could be better. Redesigning sites is a good way to practice a process and make mistakes on your own time. If you can involve the owner from that small business down the street, that’s even better because then you can get a sense of the customers (users) that you will be designing for.

Once you have done this, you have (some) experience! Start a portfolio and add to it!

But I have a resume. Why do I need a portfolio?

Resumes are great. But resumes won’t get you a job starting out. It’s a million times more effective to show potential employers what you have done, rather than showing them a resume showcasing that you are a team player and proficient in Microsoft Office. But you should still have a resume that outlines your UX skills.

But I’ve never worked in UX! What should I put on my resume?

You don’t need to put all of your old jobs on your resume if they are unrelated to the field. Most places still want to see some work history so they know you haven’t been living in a cave for the last four years, but they don’t care about how you sold vacuum cleaners or trained circus horses. Maybe you can relate some crossover UX skills to your previous work.

Back to portfolios. They are a lot like elementary math class in that you want to show your work. Potential employers are much more interested in how you made a design decision rather than the final result. If your portfolio just has a bunch of fancy wireframes, that doesn’t tell them how you took specific personas into account and you are simply showing them something that looks pretty. And just because it looks pretty doesn’t always mean it makes sense.

Okay. I have a portfolio with a few unsolicited site redesigns in it.

Congratulations! But I have some bad news. Are you sitting down?

No one wants to hire you yet. You haven’t worked on any “actual” projects that showed how your UX skillz helped a business. I know I suggested you do site redesigns to get practice and you should because that is work you can take to a nonprofit or another small business and say, “here are some trial runs that I’ve done that prove I know what I’m doing and now I can help you for free in exchange for adding it to my portfolio.”

They’ll probably be skeptical and say, “hmmm… I don’t think my website needs this newfangled user experience you speak of and—wait did you say free?”

You both get something out of it and you’re doing it pro bono, which relieves you the pressure of making one tiny mistake. (There is a great site called Catchafire that matches non-profits all over the country with people looking to donate their time and skills.)

Once you have a portfolio displaying your work and some experience, start applying! But there is one more aspect that goes into getting hired and that is the people who will hire you.

Ugh, but isn’t networking just using people for my own professional gain?

I had this same mindset and it probably delayed my entrance into the field. I wanted to rely only on the quality of my work and trusted the rest would follow. I avoided networking and meeting people in the field because I didn’t want it to seem like I was only mooching for a job.

But the fact is people are altruistic in nature and like helping others. Many people also enjoy talking about themselves, and those are the two main principles of an informational interview. You’ll also find that people are excited to help others get started since they remember how difficult it was (see: this blog post).

It wasn’t until I started getting those informational interviews and talking with people at UXPA and MeetUp groups that I learned another side of UX, but also got more familiar with more hiring managers or those that knew them. Whenever possible, people will hire those they know and like. Until you get out and start shaking hands and kissing babies, you will be just another faceless name in a stack of resumes.

Meeting with recruiters/staffing agencies is also a good route as they make money by finding you a job, so they have a vested interest in giving you constructive criticism.

I've heard that you have to live in a big city to get a job in UX.

Move. Just kidding. But while it’s true that larger cities like New York, San Francisco, and Seattle are full of opportunities, there are plenty of other places around the country that have jobs. Here are the top 20. If you live in a tiny city, expect a tougher time finding a position.

Okay, I got an interview. How do I not mess this up?

Some great advice is to go all UX on your preparation and treat the interviewer like a user.

.......to be continued.



Blogs:

• Boxes and Arrows
  
• The Hipper Element
  
• UX for the Masses
  
• UX Mag
  
• UX Mastery
  
• UX Matters
  
• UX Movement
  
  
  Other:
  
  
• uxdesign.cc: Methods and Deliverables
  
• CogLode.com: behavioral and consumer psychology
  
• Good UI: Best practices shown in a “don’t do this, do that” way
  
• UX Mastery’s HUGE list of resources
  
• UXarchive: iOS user flows
  
• iOS Human Interface Guidelines

part 2/2

Some resources:

There was a book that really changed my approach to creativity called "The Talent Code" by Daniel Coyle. He basically breaks down the science of how talent is made. Yes, you do need the aptitude to become talented at something (which is really just a combination of having the ability to do it & being interested in it enough to actually work on it), but most people can do most things & get pretty decently good at them. There's an audiobook version of the book available on Amazon, if you're interested in it:

https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Unlocking-Secret-Anything-dp-1598878735/dp/1598878735/

I'd highly recommend that book (or audiobook, I have both & revisit it annually!), especially if you want to combine that pragmatic adult approach with fostering creativity...they can actually work hand in hand! Talent is really about breaking things down into little pieces & making consistent progress on it over time, even when it gets boring & hard, which is where the pragmatic approach has to kick in, because the creative part of yourself hates that crap & will want to quit, lol. Check out this amazing video on the concept of "grit" as a predictor of success & as the engine that drives progress & creativity:

https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance?language=en

Also, you don't need to spend ten thousand hours to get good at something...you need like, 20 hours - for real! Check this video out for more on that concept:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtJy69cEOtQ

I enjoy exploring my creativity in a variety of ways:

• I like to cook & bake, and enjoy trying new recipes & creating new recipes
  
• I like to watch new movies & TV shows
  
• I like to listen to new music (Apple Music is currently touting 50 million songs, also check out /r/bestofsoundcloud)
  
• I like to try new video games (Steam has a huge & amazing library)
  
• I like to create art (airbrushing, drawing, photoshop, etc.)
  
• I like to write (both fiction & non-fiction)
  
  It's incredibly easy to be nothing more than a content consumer these days, and that's a deathtrap for creative people, because we go into ga-ga mode instead of actually creating real output ourselves. Websites & apps are literally setup as addiction machines (I mean literally). So it's important to decide within what fields you'd like to be creative in...whether it's Martial arts, or a sport, or gymnastics, or fashion design, or residential architecture or landscaping or anything really...and then decide what you want to make, learn the mechanics of how to do it, and start creating!
  
  I like to set things up within routines, as my blocks of time are generally fixed during the day due to job commitments, family commitments, and so on. My time for practicing the guitar, trying new recipes, etc., is limited each day, because I gotta go to bed at some point & wake up for the next day lol, so I have had to really get specific about what I want to accomplish & when. I have a huge list of recipes to try & generally try at least one or two new ones each week, which means that every year, I've gotten exposed to 50 new recipes that I've personally made with my own two hands..vs. years prior of simply pinning stuff on Pinterest & never actually bothering to pick a date to make something, go shopping for the ingredients, and then trying it out!
  
  Creativity? Pssh, creativity is easy. Getting serious about picking something (or multiple things) to work on & then getting to work is the real ticket to creativity. Everyone out there is creative in some way, but you have to setup your daily routine to foster that creativity by carving out blocks of time to work on stuff & picking out stuff to work on! And then creating some kindling for that fire, whether it's a big list of recipes or 30 squares of sketches or whatever it may be. Define your creative process, which at first can & absolutely should include copycatting everything out there (be sure to listen to the Bronte sisters section in the Talent Code book about this!!). And remember, everything is a remix!
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc

Hey man, thanks a lot! It's been a few months and I've gotten pretty good fast which scares me because I'm afraid of hitting my first plateau. But to answer your question, I think it deserves a thorough explanation of my experience through the lens of a complete novice artist, so forgive this massive wall of text.

Most if not all of my drawings were flat and 2D and instead of drawing what I saw or imagined, I'd sort of just put marks down on the paper or tablet and course correct until I found something I thought looked good. So I just started practicing anything that could help and boiled it down to this process.

Drawing better figures (drawing anything, really) starts with four components: creativity, mechanical skill, analysis and community. And this isn't just about drawing theory, but also managing your headspace so that you can make it a habit to draw everyday, because nothing substitutes practice.

Creativity is 100% necessary to improving at art, and you need to draw for fun, regardless of your level of practice. Because if it stops being fun, you stop doing it. I've gone days, if not weeks without drawing anything because nothing was coming out how I wanted it to. So I'd stick to practicing fundamentals for weeks only to become frustrated at the marginal improvement I was making, but also bored of drawing because it became a chore. I think the hardest realization at least for me as a beginner is accepting that my art will never get "good enough." You have to swing for the fences with what you know, identify your mistakes afterward, and divide that up into key problem areas to focus on for when you step away from the creative process to practice fundamentals. This all being said, I think the exercise I find most useful for creativity is opening my vault of unfinished story scripts and doing character designs for them. If you for whatever reason don't have any unfinished stories collecting dust on your Google Drive, do what your default state is when you're doing creative work. You really gotta explore your mind and do what feels good. For me, there's nothing quite like the feeling of bringing a character from your own imagination to life. Don't be afraid to make mistakes for this process. That's the point.

Mechanical skill is line confidence. Mine still isn't the best, and I definitely chicken scratch lines loosely before finding the correct one. If you can see in the sketch, I used an orange layer for my messy sketch, and use a few light strokes in black on a second layer for the outline. Eventually those get smudged to create realistic skin tones, but that's a subject on its own. To practice more confident lines, I use drawabox. It's a free series of line exercises you should do. They're time consuming to do at first, but if you do it enough, you should be comfortable enough to use any of the exercises as a 15 minute warm-up every time you pick up a pencil. There’s also an active subreddit and YT community where you can post your exercises and receive criticism. More on community later. Drawing confident lines, in theory, should dramatically cut down the time it takes to sketch something. These exercises also incorporate drawing simple geometric shapes in 3D space. This is important because every visual object you could ever produce is composed of simple or complex shapes. When I get home from work I'll post a video of the timelapse for this drawing, and you can see all the mistakes I made because I couldn't confidently create lines.

Analysis is the act of seeing and interpreting, and in art I feel like it's neglected in the same way listening is in communication. Art is a means of communicating something, and if you're always producing and never observe, it stops holding meaning. It's kind of like when that hipster band sells out and people stop identifying with their music. In order to make genuine pieces of art in my opinion, you have to be constantly observing, or you'll produce the same stuff over and over again, or produce something that isn't you. So to practice analysis, the best exercise by a mile IMHO is drawing from life or photo reference. In art schools, they focus on building rich visual libraries, meaning the number things you can imagine at any angle and can draw from imagination. So say you're practicing architecture for a week. The instructor will have students draw buildings and interior spaces from a particular time period, whilst mixing in exercises that involve drawing from imagination in the style of what was observed. Then they move on to another time period. So if you want to improve your faces, draw all female/male/child/elderly faces doing different facial expressions at different angles both from reference and imagination, then switch when you get bored or exhausted. Then if you get bored of faces do hands, or another part of the body, or animals, or flowers, or buildings! After you finish drawing, compare them to your reference photo, analyze your mistakes, and try again until you're confident enough to draw something completely from imagination. Pretty soon you'll have a robust library of visual elements that you can combine to create complex and believable compositions.

Community is another overlooked subject in this field. I used to be a solitary artist. I mentioned earlier that I always believed I would just get "good enough" one day and only then will I show off my work. That was the single most damaging belief I held. There will always be someone better than you, but they should be a source of inspiration, not envy. Because if you get involved in local art galleries, you'll meet the artists and learn they're genuinely nice people. I do security work at this newer young company and they put commissioned art pieces in their buildings, so over the weekend I got to watch a few of them work. They had friends come from their community and help them scale and paint. They convinced me to start an Instagram for my work, because the fundamental purpose of social media is to give artists you meet irl something to look at after meeting you. The problem with the artiste hermit is that you'll never be confident to show people without worrying about the quality of your art. As they say, "an artist's work is never finished", so you'll always feel a bit of doubt when showing people your work, but that's natural and you learn to manage it better. Additionally, it just helps to be around other artists because we view the world differently. I asked one of the commission artists I met, "Is it a bad time to be an artist?" He replied, "It's always a bad time to be an artist." We shared a hearty laugh, and it was at that moment I realized community is also an important tool for life enrichment. Nothing is worse than being stranded in a sea of people who can't comprehend why you would want to be an artist in the 21st century.

I don't think any of these four components are more important than the other. The more you understand each one individually, the more you see how they all affect each other. If you draw a lot of cylinders in 3D space, foreshortening an arm will just make sense more because you've drawn a similar shape at that angle several times. If you go out to a gallery and observe art, you might see something that evokes a feeling that you'll need to recreate. If your lines get really confident, you'll spend less time fixing mistakes and more time putting more ideas on paper/canvas/tablet. They work in tandem, and I wouldn't give each component a structured dedication of time everyday, but I would switch off whenever the process gets stale or boring.

I hope I answered your questions and more. Sorry I went off on such a long post, but I would have liked a road map when I first started. Happy drawing, don't forget to have fun and take breaks.

Other resources:

YouTube is helpful, but most of them aren't for beginners despite being labeled as such. Shapes in 3D space will always be the most beneficial exercise for understanding space and perspective so do that more often than looking up "how to draw (a specific thing) tutorial)" on YT. There's this app called Magic Poser, and many others that let you put objects into 3D space and adjust for angles and lighting. Just play around with the light, observe how it behaves, trace it, draw it from imagination, add shapes, and so on.

Books are also a great resource and I'd start with Scott Roberson and Thomas Bertling's How To Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments From Your Imagination. It's a great jumping off point, because there are book recommendations at the start of most chapters for specific topics. Books are also extremely useful because there are detailed, hi-resolution photos for you to observe. It also makes you look sophisticated when you have a library.

Oh, another classic book is the Loomis guide on head and hands. It gives you a detailed guide on drawing any type of head and face, but it is a dry read. Great resource, but very dry and a little dated.

Lastly, never pay for anything unless it's absolutely necessary for self-study. If you have books you haven't read about perspective or anatomy yet, don't buy a $300 course from an online school. If you have paper and a pencil, don't go buy a tablet. I did, and though I don't necessarily regret it, I didn't need to get a tablet to get started.

I started writing some comments, but then decided to just post it all here. Hope this helps:

• How did you come across your first clients? Did you just know some people that knew some people that needed some design work?
  
  Yes. My first freelance gigs were basically from people that I had history with. Coworkers and friends knew what I did and what I was capable of. They would ask me if I could help with 'X project' or whatever, and it would lead from there. Small projects would lead to other small projects. Thats how the work could trickle in.
  
  
  
• Generally speaking, how did you get leads?
  
  Primarily my leads have been through people I know. Coworkers, friends, family. Everybody. I highly recommend just literally emailing everyone you know simple explaining what you are doing or what you are trying to do. Offer your services, send a link to a website, and ask for any referrals. It's easier via email because you will either get someone to reply w/ something helpful, or they can just ignore you. Either way, it can't hurt to let people know.
  
  
  Another way I'd get design work was from random inquiries either off my website or from online portfolio sites like Behance.net or Dribbble.com. I also had a small group of design friends that I'm in contact with. I feel that they were getting better work than I was, and they were more 'ahead' than me, so often if they didn't have time for client work, or didn't think the client was worth their time, they'd tell me about the work, so I could pick up the work.
  
  
  
• Did you register as a business/LLC/etc?
  
  At first I didn't register as an LLC or anything. I just worked as a sole proprietorship and used my Social Security number as my ID. Years later, after I had a chance to team up with a small team of designers, I was an independent contractor and after discussing it with another designer friend, and a CPA, I decided to become an S-corp. I did it primarily to help juggle and save some money during tax time. I'm able to save $ at the end of the year because of it, but I didn't handle any of it personally. I paid my CPA to do my taxes and figure it all out.
  
  If you choose to register for a biz license, it's very easy and you can do it online. When I did it, i used mycorporation.com, but I hear legalzoom .com is good too. When I registered, I believe it cost me about $250.
  
  
  
• How did you handle billing? A percentage up front and the rest on delivery?
  
  
  In terms of billing client, it really depends on the situation. Generally speaking, I suggest trying to get partial payment upfront. To be fair flexible I offer multiple payment options to make it easier for the client to say yes. Sometimes its half upfront/ half when complete. Sometimes its 1/3 for initial concepting, 1/3 for further development of chosen concept, and 1/3 for final files. I also over monthly payments if the scope of work ends with a really high price. I don't have any special payment gateway or anything. I just offer to payment in check to me, or through paypal. No one has ever taken me up on the monthly installment plan, but I feel that the more willing you are to work with payment options with a client, the more willing they are to say 'yes' to a proposed quote.
  
  
  Having said all this, there are plenty of times where I don't set up a contract and things work out just fine. Through the years of doing this, you start to get a 'gut feeling' for who the hell clients will be. There are real personality traits or certain things said that will trigger you to know to stay away. Until you know those things, I'd suggest keeping a contract in the process.
  
  
  There have been times where I was burned by not having a onctract. I have had delayed payments etc, where I ended up trying not to make waves, and waiting months and months before I got paid. One instance, I figured out what forms I needed to file a small claims court locally, and threatened with that. I got paid 2 weeks later. From all the work I've done, I've never flat out never been paid. Typically its just really late late payments. Heh.
  
  
  
• Did you charge by the hour or for the total project?
  
  
  Today, I charge for the total project, but in the beginning of my freelance career I used to charge by the hour, but sometimes it'd be unfair because If I could complete a 10-hr job in 5 hrs, I'd get screwed. Or if I needed to figure something out and it took me 12 hours to figure out something that should've taken 3 hours, that's not fair to the client.
  
  
  After doing this for a while, I've come to realize that generally, a lot of clients want a final price. They don't care about hourly rate, or how long it should take you. Generally, if you can deliver 'project X' in 3 weeks for '$XXX' they'll be happy. A final number is easier to react to. There's less guessing for the client.
  
  
  You get an idea of how long certain things could take, and how much you'd like to make hourly. You basically estimate that, and quote your price accordingly. At first you may screw up the estimate, and lose money, but after a while you'll know what you're doing and you'll do well for yourself.
  
  
  Also remember, for your best interest, and so the client can't make endless revisions, be specific on your deliverables, as well as your number of revisions per project. Anything outside of the agreed upon requirement will result in extra charges to the client.
  
  
  -With the above in mind, did you consult a lawyer before getting started?
  
  Have them write up some kind of contract ot use when taking clients?
  
  
  No I haven't consulted a lawyer at all with my contracts. Generally I've found random contracts or contract templates online and picked and chose parts and pieces of what I thought sounded good to use.
  
  I highly recommend buying this book - The Graphic Artists Handbook to Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. It guides you in pricing as well as showing sample contracts for your projects.
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Artists-Handbook-Pricing-Guidelines/dp/0932102166/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464717064&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=desiners+guide+to+ethical+guidelines
  
  
  
• What kind of kind of questions should the client be asked (that may not be common sense) at the onset of a project?
  
  
  The questions you ask really depend on what the project is. Here are a few to get you started.
  
  -Tell me about your company
  
• What do you want to achieve with this design?
  
• Who is your target audience?
  
• What do you want me to produce?
  
• What exists already?
  
• What do you think makes a design good?
  
• Whats your budget?
  
• What designs DON'T you like?
  
• Who will i be working with, how will we communicate? What's your preferred way of communicating?
  
• What is your payment schedule, who do you contact to submit payment information?
  
• Is there anything we haven't covered that you'd like to add/suggest?
  
  I hope these answers help you. If you need more answers, feel free to reach out. I'll try to help if I can.

Sup. A previous poster had some useful points (make sure your portfolio is the best it can be), but, I'll offer some knowledge without the need to stress about the competition or talk about 'settling'. Beating yourself up is not conductive to creativity, I'm sure you've found out already.

Having graduated from a major art school (RCAD) - art degrees are certainly more a curiosity than a direct translation to the work force - although congrats! I'm sure a lot is a blur to you right now. The last month of my senior year certainly was, and the month after, after days at a time sleeping in computer labs getting our senior thesis shows done, and then in my case, moving back home across country. Sleep, take a bit of time to recharge your battery, so long as your parents are cool with that.

Your portfolio is okay to get freelance work - you may be a little hard up to find a studio job - unless you can convince the right person you can translate your style to their pipeline. I don't really see stuff that would automatically peg you into a position of need like UI/UX (software development), tech art, or VFX. From personal experience, softer skills like design/concept art/illustration have a long list of candidates, and jobs in those areas aren't always priced well for 1st world candidates. If you haven't been good at pricing your contracts, make sure you get a hold of a pricing guide for industry standards. I see so many freelancers underpricing themselves out of desperation, it's not funny. Don't be one of those folk, it only leads to more of the same clients (cheap ones).

Right now: Get your portfolio into as many hands as possible, most places have art directors/recruiters who are relatively friendly. If you're right out of college (6mo-2 years), you may still be able to get internships at places, at the very least, you'll get some feedback as where to improve. You may have to travel to conventions to meet people who can then introduce you to recruiters/art directors. If people at your alma mater can get you in touch with people, don't be shy on hitting them up for help. Networking is key in this field, since there are a heap ton of candidates.

No matter where you go- establish a social media platform for your work, if you don't have one (if you do, you need a link somewhere on your portfolio, and vice versa). At the very least, Instagram, I tend to get the most views from there, but I also have Twitter and a somewhat neglected Facebook page (lol) . I've also heard decent stuff about ArtStation, although the folk there tend to skew towards concept art more than anything else. Post frequently, people enjoy feeling like being a part of an artist's 'life', and recruiters will check those pages to gage soft skills and process work. YouTube can be good for tutorial/process videos. People will give you feedback through these outlets, and may lead you to further ventures like merchandise, commissions, picking up new skills like webdesign/programming languages, or a personal project like a webcomic, illustrated novel, etc.

(Reddit has some decent subs like /r/SketchDaily that are fun to play around with, too...)

Be flexible. So long as the gig is fairly priced with an equal contract (ie termination clauses, proper copyright negotiation, etc), the small client job is just as good as working at a big studio. If you have skills in graphic design or front-end web design, or are willing to pick it up, it may help.

As for the day job - There is no shame at taking a day job, a lot of us have had to do it. At one time when I lived in Boston (having moved there from my smaller hometown on the west coast to start my career), I was working 60 hr work weeks at a position not requiring my degree, then, after shoving food in my mouth for supper, was either networking at gamedev / artist meetups, or going home to work on my portfolio/freelance. Weekends were more freelance work, with maybe some errands and the occasional event for gamedev or comics, or a local convention. Rinse, repeat for a few years, until I decided to move back home to save money.

There's no shame at staying at home if it keeps your costs low, either. I'm in my late 20s and after moving back, still live with my parental unit. On the other hand, I don't absolutely hate my life, I have a lovely pair of cats who keep me company, I'm finishing up a manuscript to submit to literary agents, applying to grad schools, and I just got back from research work with said parental unit (who works in higher education) in New Zealand. Mostly because my COL and lifestyle is flexible enough to allow things like that. Keep your art number one, and you won't allow yourself to get stuck in a day job, unless you find something else that you truly enjoy (teaching, a related field, etc!) That goes for any sort of career- many of my friends who don't directly do art, have branched out into related stuff like teaching, or found another field they liked more. Some of them started families. None of it is the wrong thing to do, just, do what makes you happy and keep your options open. Be prepared for a lot of people to convince you that you're wrong, just because of their perspective, but, not all of that critique is constructive, is it?

Tl;dr: Get your portfolio into many hands as possible, be aware of your rights as a creative professional. Be flexible with gigs you pick up, establish a social media profile to engage the right audiences, and if you have to pick up a day job or move back home, so long as you keep your eyes on the career you want, eventually things click together. It takes a lot of work, time, and mental strength to not give up in the creative fields. Good luck.

Well drawing for me started out as a coping mechanism when I was a kid and still is for me today (especially these days). I had a lot of problems with depression and anxiety as a child coupled with a fairly ignorant father that didn't recognize these things as mental problems. I was forced to try to find a way to deal with hordes of feelings and emotions that as a mere child I was incapable of understanding and drawing helped me do that. Around the time I was about 13 or so some close friends of mine started drawing and where WAAAAY better than I was, so that pushed me to start working on things like technique and different styles. I really liked Dragonball Z at that age so I started drawing pictures I printed out from the internet regularly and started drawing in an anime style and eventually began coming up with my own characters, my friends were really good at drawing in anime styles so they taught me a lot about it.

When high school rolled around (I'll say sophomore year or so) I took basic art 1&2 but I never really did too much because the course material was SO rigid that it didn't interest me. Ms. Huelett (the art teacher) felt like I had a lot of talent and took me under her wing in a big way. She knew A LOT about art and helped me learn and meld multiple styles together in order for me to create my own. She taught me a lot about anatomy and how to draw people/characters in different poses, how to properly shadow characters and apply light sources to my pieces, creating expressions and applying drama through a characters poses, she poured as much knowledge into me as she could and I couldn't be more grateful for all she taught me.

I know it isn't much (you've also been given some great advice already I see, which is fantastic) but I'll give you a few links to some books that really helped me learn more about various styles and techniques (I still have most of these books and refer to them fairly often, even now)

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954561&sr=8-9&keywords=how+to+draw

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Urban-Sketching-Location/dp/1592537251/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954800&sr=8-19&keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti

http://www.amazon.com/Street-Art-Doodle-Book-Outside/dp/1856696820/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954800&sr=8-28&keywords=how+to+draw+graffiti

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Head-Figure-Perigee-Jack/dp/0399507914/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954902&sr=8-28&keywords=how+to+draw+books

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Manga-Mark-Crilley-drawing-ebook/dp/B006WUD10S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954990&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+draw+manga

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-Manga-Bodies-Anatomy/dp/4766112385/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1404954990&sr=8-6&keywords=how+to+draw+manga

http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Cutting-Edge-Anatomy-Reference-ebook/dp/B00G8ELT2K/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1404955084&sr=8-10&keywords=how+to+draw+comics

http://www.amazon.com/Draw-Comic-Book-Action-Garbett/dp/1440308136/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1404955084&sr=8-14&keywords=how+to+draw+comics

I think that's most of the books I've got, at the very least it'll give you some ideas to practice with and all of those books together isn't too bad of a price and it's a good way to get experience in the things you want to learn (I think) if you're not able to afford the classes you were suggested.

Good god this post is long as hell and I apologize for that, I'm just trying to be as helpful as I possibly can with what I know (call it a flaw)

I'll leave you with a few pieces of advice that help me out regularly and that I feel have gotten me to the level I'm at now (though I think I'm just ok at best truthfully)

1. Sketch whatever idea you have in your mind for something as fast as you can and just let your ideas flow through you. Don't give yourself time to say this part sucks I have to redo it, just go for it and you'll be surprised at what can come out of it.
   
   
2. Try to take inspiration from artists you admire but don't try to copy their style. What worked for me was incorporating my inspiration with various artists and merging them with my own ideas which eventually lead to me developing my own style(s)
   
   
3. Do your best to not look at your art as inferior to another persons artwork. Absolutely, have those people you look up to want to be like artistically and draw inspiration from, but do your best not to doubt yourself. It's YOUR artwork and YOUR ideas, the only person's opinions that matter are your own. If you're truly happy with what you've created and feel you've done the best you can then I promise SOMEONE out there WILL like your work as well, at least in my opinion.
   
   Sorry again for the book, I just hope I was at least a little bit helpful with the advice I was able to give and didn't come off as arrogant sounding or anything
   
   Best of luck and I can't wait to see what you do in the future :)
   
   

Your friend is sort of right about the pen. It can help do away with the "chicken scratch" method of drawing by forcing you to be more confident with your lines but you should stick with pencil for now.


I'm mostly self-taught as well (although I learned a bit from Watts Atelier until it got to be too expensive) and the sheer amount of information out there can be really overwhelming. I mean, there's so many things to learn: perspective, line weight, figure drawing, portraiture, landscape, etc.


What definitely helped me is realizing that I'm never going to stop improving as an artist. That means that I'm going to have my entire life to hone my skills. Even if you have to unlearn a lot of bad habits, you've still got plenty of time to practice slowly, deliberately and mindfully.


If you understand that you've got your whole life to get better, it's easier to formulate a strategy to get better. You've got to think about this in the long term. That means taking a month to work solely on anatomy, another month to work only on perspective, another month to work on tone and values, while always revisiting the skills that you've already cultivated.


For example, I've laid out my artistic goals 3 months in advance. That means that for the next 3 months, I'm only focusing on anatomy and gesture/figure drawing. My daily schedule this week looks like this:


warmup

1, 2, 5 and 10 minute gesture/figure drawings

study/copy hands from Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy book

draw 50 hands

spend about 10-15 minutes drawing hands from memory and comparing them to the references I was using earlier

work on something fun


If I have extra time, I'll work on some more anatomy studies but it depends on how busy I am with work/life. After this week is up, I'll move on to arms, then the core, then legs, head, etc, following the same setup I've made. Maybe the next 3 months, I'll move on to perspective drawing but I haven't thought that far ahead yet.


If you're confused about where to start, just pick something that you're the weakest at and start drawing that. It's a grind and you're going to be producing hundreds, if not thousands of drawings but that's the way to get better.


Like I said, if you start thinking in the long term, it gets less overwhelming. I'm gonna link some resources that really helped me out.


Books

Perspective Made Easy

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Fun With a Pencil Actually, anything by Loomis.

How to Draw Kind of a technical book but goes into really great detail about perspective


Youtube Channels

Watts Atelier Highly recommended. Watch his figure drawing videos. Also, if you can spare the cash, join his online school. It's fantastic and very structured course in drawing. Definitely look into this if you have trouble deciding what to learn next.

Proko This guy has great intro videos for figure drawing. I think he learned at Watts Atelier as well.

New Masters Academy They have a ton of great videos about everything. Definitely look into Glen Vilppu's figure drawing series. He's the god of figure drawing.

Alphonso Dunn Really great pen and ink tutorials


Sorry if I overwhelmed you (ironic, considering your original post) but I just wanted to share some stuff that's really helped me develop a schedule and get better. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to help you a fellow art student out.


TLDR: You have plenty of time in your life to get better, so make a schedule and stick to it.

I've posted this before but I'll repost it here:

Now in terms of the question that you ask in the title - this is what I recommend:

Job Interview Prep

1. Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
   
2. Programming Interviews Exposed: Coding Your Way Through the Interview
   
3. Introduction to Algorithms
   
4. The Algorithm Design Manual
   
5. Effective Java
   
6. Concurrent Programming in Java™: Design Principles and Pattern
   
7. Modern Operating Systems
   
8. Programming Pearls
   
9. Discrete Mathematics for Computer Scientists
   
   

   Junior Software Engineer Reading List
   

   
   

   Read This First
   

   
   

10. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

11. Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
    
12. Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
    
13. Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
    
14. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
    
15. Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software
    
16. Perfect Software: And Other Illusions about Testing
    
17. Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application
    
    

    Understanding Professional Software Environments
    

    
    

18. Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
    
19. Software Project Survival Guide
    
20. The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky
    
21. Debugging the Development Process: Practical Strategies for Staying Focused, Hitting Ship Dates, and Building Solid Teams
    
22. Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
    
23. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

24. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
    
25. Against Method
    
26. The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
    
    

    History
    

    
    

27. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
    
28. Computing Calamities: Lessons Learned from Products, Projects, and Companies That Failed
    
29. The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management
    
    

    Mid Level Software Engineer Reading List
    

    
    

    Read This First
    

    
    

30. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

31. The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
    
32. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
    
33. Solid Code
    
34. Code Craft: The Practice of Writing Excellent Code
    
35. Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative
    
36. Writing Solid Code
    
    

    Software Design
    

    
    

37. Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide
    
38. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
    
39. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
    
40. Domain-Driven Design Distilled
    
41. Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design
    
42. Design Patterns in C# - Even though this is specific to C# the pattern can be used in any OO language.
    
43. Refactoring to Patterns
    
    

    Software Engineering Skill Sets
    

    
    

44. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
    
45. Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools
    
46. NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating
    
47. Object-Oriented Software Construction
    
48. The Art of Software Testing
    
49. Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
    
50. Working Effectively with Legacy Code
    
51. Test Driven Development: By Example
    
    

    Databases
    

    
    

52. Database System Concepts
    
53. Database Management Systems
    
54. Foundation for Object / Relational Databases: The Third Manifesto
    
55. Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design
    
56. Data Access Patterns: Database Interactions in Object-Oriented Applications
    
    

    User Experience
    

    
    

57. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
    
58. The Design of Everyday Things
    
59. Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications
    
60. User Interface Design for Programmers
    
61. GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Don'ts and Dos
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

62. The Productive Programmer
    
63. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    
64. Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
    
65. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering
    
    

    History
    

    
    

66. Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
    
67. New Turning Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science
    
68. Hacker's Delight
    
69. The Alchemist
    
70. Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages
    
71. The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
    
    

    Specialist Skills
    

    
    In spite of the fact that many of these won't apply to your specific job I still recommend reading them for the insight, they'll give you into programming language and technology design.
    
    

72. Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC
    
73. Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets
    
74. Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself in the Foot: Rules for C and C++ Programming
    
75. The C++ Programming Language
    
76. Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
77. More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
78. More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#
    
79. CLR via C#
    
80. Mr. Bunny's Big Cup o' Java
    
81. Thinking in Java
    
82. JUnit in Action
    
83. Functional Programming in Scala
    
84. The Art of Prolog: Advanced Programming Techniques
    
85. The Craft of Prolog
    
86. Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting
    
87. Dive into Python 3
    
88. why's (poignant) guide to Ruby

Hey there, I'm a game designer working in AAA and I agree with /u/SuaveZombie that you'll probably be better off with a degree in CS. BUT... don't give up on wanting to be a designer!

 

You should realize that it's not giving up on your dream at all, in fact, it's great advice for how to reach that dream. A designer with an engineering background is going to have a lot more tools at their disposal than one who doesn't.

 

Design is way more than just coming up with a bunch of cool, big ideas. You need to be able to figure out all the details, communicate them clearly to your teammates, and evaluate how well they're working so you can figure out how to make something people will enjoy. In fact, working on a big game often feels like working on a bunch of small games that all connect.

Take your big game idea and start breaking it down into all the pieces that it will need to be complete. For example, GTA has systems for driving and shooting (among many other things). Look at each of those things as its own, smaller game. Even these "small" parts of GTA are actually pretty huge, so try to come up with something as small as possible. Like, super small. Smaller than you think it needs to be. Seriously! You'll eventually be able to make big stuff, but it's not the place to start. Oh, and don't worry if your first game(s) suck. They probably will, and that's fine! The good stuff you make later will be built on the corpses of the small, crappy games you made while you were learning.

 

If you're truly interested in design, you can learn a lot about usability, player psychology, and communication methods without having to shell out $17k for a degree. Same goes for coding (there are tons of free online resources), though a degree will help you get in the door at companies you might be interested in and help provide the structure to keep you going.

 

Here's some books I recommend. Some are specific to games and some aren't, but are relevant for anything where you're designing for someone besides yourself.

 

• Universal Principles of Design

• The Design of Everyday Things

• Rules of Play

• The Art of Game Design This and the one below are great books to start with.

• A Theory of Fun This is a great one to start with.

• Game Feel

• Depending on the type of game you're making, some info on level design would be useful too, but I don't have a specific book to recommend (I've found pieces of many books and articles to be useful). Go play through the developer commentary on Half-Life 2 or Portal for a fun way to get started.

 

Sounds like you're having a tough time, so do your best to keep a positive attitude and keep pushing yourself toward your goals. There's nothing to stop you from learning to make games and starting to make them on your own if that's what you really want to do.

Good luck, work hard!

Perspective is critically important, and in my eyes, the number one area of focus, if you had to pick. However, I would tie learning perspective with a re-evaluation of basic shapes and start thinking about structure and form. Drawing basic shapes in space allows you to construct and build anything you can imagine, realistically and even a cartoon. It's the first thing that people notice is wrong about an image including non-artists, even when they can't place their finger on why it's wrong. Everyone with functioning eyes have great vision. You could say that we are all black belts at seeing things, because it is one of our senses since our birth, and the one that we are always using. So when you're drawing and painting, you are a visual magician. You're using these fundamental tools to fool these people into believing that an image on paper is as deceiving as reality. It's all an illusion. You cannot avoid the importance of perspective. If you aren't practicing it, no cheap tricks will be able to deceive a person into believing what you created.

You learn as early as elementary school about the 2D shapes. The square, the circle and the triangle. You know about their 3D counterparts, the cube, as well as a sphere, cone and a cylinder. In geometry everything is perfectly symmetrical and easy to solve. But when you step out into reality, everything is thrown into disarray, all of these shapes are merged together mechanically and organically, and on top of that, your vision is deceiving you. Very advanced forms of mathematics were created to solve those problems accurately, but we are not interested in that. You'll also realize this when you come across proportion diagrams, and why it does nothing when you are drawing from the model. You will also need to understand what circles look like in perspective[ellipses.] Do you know how to draw an ellipse properly? Do you see what happens to these shapes in space? Learn to draw these basic shapes correctly in space, it requires knowledge of perspective. Would it help you to think of a basic game like Snake? Imagine what it would be like to play that game in 3D. Although we aren't playing a game, we are just observing reality and interpreting it in 2D, that's where perspective falls in. You can use perspective construction thankfully. You can simplify areas into basic shapes. You can measure and draw pipes and cubes, aligning them to their current vanishing points. Until you're finally building whatever you need for your own worlds.

The other fundamentals are critically important as well. But drawing in space with perspective is what you need for your drawings to look structurally correct. Yes, it can be a complex hurdle. It's both easy to understand and difficult to wrap our eyes and brain around. Thankfully there are dozens of great free resources available, and no threat of them going away, any time soon. If you have great reading comprehension, there is a free resource that pretty much covers every single thing you would ever ask about perspective. Otherwise many instructors have done a great job simplifying what you need to understand for your own work. Here are links to two great resources that have emerged more recently.

Mow some lawns, shovel snow, baby sit, beg for money, sell a game, buy these.

• $12 - Marshall's 1994 Perspective Video Series
  
  
• $20-$40 - Scott Robertson Book
  
  And some nice free ones.
  
  
• Perspective 101: conceptart resource
  
  
• CtrlPaint Video: Constructive Form
  
  
• ProkoTV Video: The Basic Elements - This one will explain the other important areas of focus
  
  
• ProkoTV Video: Structure
  
  
• ProkoTV Video: How to Shade a Drawing
  
  
• Handprint - Advanced article on perspective principles
  
  
• Fox Orion DeviantArt Tutorial
  
  There's dozens of others, but that'll take all day. These will get you started. Good luck OP.
  
  

I seem to get asked this a lot, but here is my list, posted here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/graphic_design/comments/1uq58s/good_graphic_design_books_for_a_beginner/ceklj3y



> These are all books that I absolutly love, and bought for either personal use or to accompany different courses while I was getting my BFA in GD. I have seen some of them both are brick and mortar book stores, and college book stores. If you get a chance to see them in person before buying, leaf through them to get a feel.
>
> Megg's History of Graphic Design, absolutely essential to understanding where graphic design comes from historically. IMO the best GD history book on the market, at least the most encompassing. One of my favorites, was very helpful writing different papers and researching historical styles.
>
> Graphic Design School. Another great book, focuses more on design process and stuff like that. This one more walks you though being a designer. Gives tutorials on different things too, which is useful.
>
> Graphic Design Referenced is a really great book that is a bit of a hybrid. This book describes a lot of design terms, styles, and general knowledge while referring to historical and modern examples.
>
> Those three for me are really essential books for new graphic designers, I learned more from those three than I can express. Below are a few more books I really like, but might be a bit more advanced than someone just getting started might want.
>
> Another book I have used a lot, and almost included with those three is above. Thinking with Type. Really great intro into typography.
>
> More advanced even.
>
> How to be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul
>
> A Graphic Design Student's Guide to Freelance
>
> Hope this helps!
>

Keep in mind this is just a starting point. There are tons upon tons of inspiration books out there for graphic design stuff, not to mention educational books on all sorts of specialties. I love graphic design books, the hard physical copy of them. When I'm stuck on a project I like to flip through them, read a bit, and then revisit my work again.

Here are the books currently in my amazon wishlist, so I can't vouch for them, but I do plan on eventually owning them.

Wish List:

• Graphic Design Solutions
  
• Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills
  
• 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design
  
• Graphic Design Thinking
  
• Burn Your Portfolio: Stuff they don't teach you in design school, but should
  
• Making and Breaking the Grid

First-timer here who's hoping to go without pain meds. Here's my plan, loosely based on things I've picked up from reading Ina May's guide to childbirth and some Bradley Method books.

1. Avoid an induction if at all possible, i.e. let my body begin labor when it is ready to.
   
   
2. Labor at home for as long as possible. (Keep in mind, I live five minutes from the hospital. If you live farther away or might run into traffic, take note of what others have said here about how much it sucks to labor in the car.)
   
   
3. Change positions as needed. Know what positions are helpful in what circumstances (such as all fours to help ease back labor). There was a helpful one-page document posted here a few days ago about labor positions, but I'm having trouble locating it. If I find it, I'll update this post with a link. Try out other things like laboring in the shower or on the toilet, too. I really don't think there is one single perfect position for each woman to use the entire labor - I think it will help to move around into different positions as things progress.
   
   
4. Think of the pain as "work." As in, this is my body working to get my baby delivered. Don't be scared of it; know that it's happening for a reason. Prior to labor starting, read about what the uterus and cervix are doing during contractions, and what to expect as far as how the contractions will change in timing/strength and how your mental/emotional state will change throughout labor. I've been finding the information in Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way really helpful for this. Not only does it go into how the uterine muscles work to dilate the cervix, but it also goes through the "emotional signposts" of labor so that you can know in advance how you might feel at each stage.
   
   
5. Focus on relaxing through the pain. This goes hand in hand with number 4. I think that if I tense up and fight the pain, it will make the whole process take longer, so I'm going to focus on relaxing into it. That is totally not a natural reaction to pain in humans, so this is the one that I'm most unsure I'll be able to do properly when the time comes! This is one area where I still feel unprepared at this time. I think the biggest key will be breathing. I'm not planning to do the Lamaze-style breathing, because I think it will make me tense. Instead, I'm going to try for deep, slow abdominal breathing.
   
   
6. Labor support - if you can get a doula you like and feel comfortable with, I'd do it. If you have an SO who will be there with you, encourage him or her to prepare for the labor and birth alongside you, learning the same things about what your body will be doing and how you might feel. They can also learn some techniques for helping you, like backrubs and counterpressure.
   
   
7. Don't start "working" until you have to. Early labor can take a long time, and I think if you're intensely focused on "holy crap, I'm in labor!" that entire time, it can really wear you out and increase your feelings of "I've been doing this forever, I can't take it any more!" later on in labor. I'm planning to have a bunch of other stuff I can do/focus on in the beginning, such as: painting my nails, coloring in a coloring book like this one, watching a movie, watching ASMR videos on YouTube, going for a walk, baking cookies, playing with my dogs, and playing cards and board games with my husband.
   
   
8. Try to get a care provider who is on board with your unmedicated birth goal. I'm still working on this myself! I currently have an OB, and I don't think she is really on the same page as me with regard to my desire to not use pain meds. I'm interviewing a midwife this week to see if I can find a better fit there. Either way, talk to your care provider beforehand and explain your goal. I'd present it as, "this is what I am hoping to do; I know things can change in the moment, but my goal is to avoid using pain meds." I'm also putting together a one-page birth plan, and in it, I ask the staff to please not offer me pain medicine; I will ask for it if I want it.
   
   If you can't tell, I've been thinking about this a lot, too! I hope there is some useful info for you in what I've rambled about here, and good luck for your upcoming birth!

You've already taken the first step (i.e., reading books about typography and teaching yourself) the only thing you have left to do is put what you've learnt into practice.

The best way, and probably the most fun way, is to just create stuff. I know how unhelpful and nebulous this sounds, but it's hard to put into words. Design posters, or books, or anything. Illustrate. The best bit of advice I can offer in this regard is to use your interests and hobbies. Anything you're into could be turned into design work. Music, TV shows, practically anything. Are you into Jazz? Jazz has a particular visual style associated with it, create a album cover for your favourite jazz band/musician. Like a particular show, or genre of show? Study the visual identity of it and create something that fits. Maybe a poster, or a promo image. The important thing is to just practice, on whatever.

The second way is easier, but I would also consider it less fun. There's plenty of free resources on the net for a budding graphic designer. Specifically, there's lots of free exercises, where they tell you what to do, and you create along those lines. A lot of them are really informal, though. I used to do this when I was studying Graphic Design, for practice. It felt like just more uni work to me, so I wasn't massively enthused. It might be different for you, who knows.

There's lots of free exercises available if you just google it. However, if you want something more in the form of a textbook, I can suggest this book: Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills. It's not cheap, but I found it really useful, and I'm not ashamed to say that I definitely stole some ideas from that book for some of my work.

So yeah, do some designs with heavy emphasis on Typography, and get feedback. /r/design_critiques is a great little community, and people will be more than happy to help you refine your skills as you progress. Just go in there with a thickish skin, sometimes people can be a little bit raw with their criticism, but it's all a learning experience.

> For beginners learning to draw accurately, just focus on the Elements of Art.

I'd actually like to chime in here to give OP another option (not looking to argue about fundamentals haha. We all know how that goes).

Quick backstory:

I studied art for two years and went through pretty much the same training that you described above. I had a wonderful experience, but decided that it wasn't for me. I then decided to pursue Industrial Design, which meant I had to study the fundamentals all over again, only this time they were different.

Just like the elements of art, we still started out with the basics of line, shape and form, but with a much heavier emphasis on accurate perspective. In fact we were taught about the different kinds of perspective and how/why they work from the get go. The equivalent of "value" in Industrial Design was "rendering", only it was much more technical (how to construct shadows in perspective, how light decay and occlusion work, the Fresnel Effect etc.)

Of course this all just sounds like a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo, so let me make a small change to what you said above to summarize what I am trying to say.

>For beginners learning to draw beautifully, just focus on the Elements of Art.

and likewise

>For beginners learning to draw accurately, learn perspective.

I am personally in favor of learning the rules before you break them. Want to paint a pretty cottage? Paint a convincing one first using perspective. Again, this is not the only way to learn. It is just what I would recommend based on my experience. This is, of course /r/learnart and not /r/learntodrawperfectly, so please take all of this with a grain of salt.

"Well gee, thanks a lot Mr. useless design person."

Wait! Don't go, OP! I have some actual, useful advice!

1. Avoid digital for as long as possible. Nothing beats the muscle memory you will gain from drawing with a real pen/pencil on real paper.
   
2. Exercise those muscles every day! Here are some of my favorite exercises: 1- Straight, parallel lines. Keep your wrist as still as possible and draw from your elbow and shoulder. Grip the pen lightly and DON'T rotate the page. 2- Dots connected by lines. Draw lots of dots on the page and then draw nice, straight lines connecting them. You may rotate the page for this one. 3- Lines through a point. Draw a dot on the page and try to draw straight, intersecting lines through the center. Don't rotate the page. This one is tricky. 4- Circles! Just fill the page. Try to do these quickly. "Ghost" the shape of the circle over the page before putting your pen down, and then try to draw the whole thing in 2 or 3 quick gestures. 5- Ellipses! Draw some line segments on the page and then draw some ellipses with those lines acting as the minor axis. 6- Cubes in two point perspective. Draw your horizon line, and then just fill the page (I didn't fill the page here but you get the idea). Try to relax while doing all of these warmups. They might not be very exciting but eventually they can become sort of a calming, zen exercise. Your lines will look horrible at first, but you will get much much better if you just practice.
   
3. Listen to everything /u/cajolerisms said above, and if you're up to the challenge, try approaching things from the technical route as well. Once you learn how perspective works you will literally see the world differently. It seems daunting now, but the more you practice, the more it will all make sense and your artwork will become more convincing as a result.
   
4. As much as I hate telling people they need to spend money to learn how to improve their drawing/painting, I highly recommend this book. Scott Robertson does a great job of breaking down how perspective works and has some great tips on shortcuts for constructing accurate drawings. Plus, once you get the book, you get access to video lessons that break down all of the topics in the book.
   
   Remember that every time you put your pencil to paper you are creating something that has never existed. No one has ever seen the things that you will draw. You are a creator, and that is just about the coolest thing to be in the universe. Don't give up, and happy arting!

Sounds like you really want to help the guy develop professionally; and you also really want to use his work because you think it would sell. Great.

Numbers are hard to put out there without seeing his chops or the style you are asking for. Perhaps a base of, say, $500-$2000 per illustration with rights included so you own them, but with him cut in on the calendar (and other calendar year products) profits; so there is real potential and investment on his side. Then you have this great art to monetize in perpetuity and your friend has seen the light of using his talents — and, if you use the opportunity to teach him, become more comfortable with the process of doing so.

Those are opinions, this is advice:

Tell him you are interested and want him to write a quote. Tell him to base it on the Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines and Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers. It's okay to mention you expect consideration for your part in this opportunity for him, but let him know you want the ownership at the end of project. If he gets the books and builds a good quote in a few weeks, good sign — have him Xerox the pages he used to make the quote and you will learn as much as he.

Have a schedule carefully set up in case he flakes. First few concepts in two weeks to develop rapport and trust — then full concepts in four, line work completed and the first few finals for approval at six-eight, finals for approval weeks eight-twelve, revised finals in sixteen. Add your slide time in secretly and only give it away harshly. Expect 12 new paid works after a life of casual attention to be a bit overwhelming for him; and if you really want to be a hero put him in contention for the next year ... but you have no responsibility to.


Because this is one of those amazing chances to really make someone's life better.

(edit: fixed studio-artist level deadline times)

I'm going to edit this with my actual post in a minute, but when you said 3 items, $20 or under, I'm assuming you mean in total, or did you mean 20 each?

EDIT:

Okay so here is my real entry! I'm creative in all sorts of areas! I was in school for music for a year but have more recently decided to pursue my passion for art/design! I love drawing, design, and music!

Here is me singing with my friends.

Here Is a skull I drew a while back!

Here Is a poster I recently designed for a local event!

and Here Is a flyer I did for my church!

I'm still never satisfied with anything I make because I know it's not how I want it to be, or as good as I'd like it to be. But I'm hopefully going to school again soon!

I forgot to mention I love calligraphy too! I've just started learning so this would be awesome!

I enjoy painting as well and have been meaning to do more, so this would be so handy!

Annnnnd I've wanted this book for a while to help get some projects going!

Welcome to RAOA and thank you for the contest :) I'd love to see some of YOUR work!

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Know-All-Designers-Expanded/dp/3899555430

This one is fun and handy to keep at your desk. Ofcourse, you could just google questions, but it feels nice to fan through it sometimes.


https://www.amazon.com/Draplin-Design-Co-Pretty-Everything/dp/1419720171

There's a lot of mixed opinions about this one. Some people don't like how he makes logos, others love his 80's inspired, fun branding. Nevertheless, it's great for inspiration.

Edit: The graphic guidelines for NASA and the New York Subway are great and fun for inspiration, grid systems and structure.

Edit 2: I love Pentagram, and luckily there's a book with all their marks. It's called Pentagram: Marks, and It's a great book to keep in your bookshelf.

https://www.amazon.com/Pentagram-Marks-Partners/dp/1856696685

Well I still go to school for Industrial Design, well I should say Transportation Design. I can tell you some of my ups and downs. I went to the Academy of Art in San Francisco and basically hated it. I didn't think the teacher were qualified enough and the school was run like a for profit. Then I left and took Art Center College of Design night classes and I fell in love with design all over again. I kind of regret not knowing of this program earlier. After taking a couple classes their I recently got accepted to their school and I'm going to start next semester. This school is insanely good, it's also insanely expensive but it's a top notch education. I would recommend if your into product design to start looking into your favorite products, see who designed them, find their biography and see what schools seems to come up again and again. Go to that schools website and see what type of things they require to enter their program. After the Academy I started doing research and the two schools that kept coming up was Art Center in Pasadena and CCS in Detriot, but these are better known for their transportation programs. I'm not entirely to sure on product design. You should buy some books on product design, I love this book and this book. A lot of schools don't like portfolios that show you can draw, they want to see that their is a purpose to your design. Why did you do it, what was the market, why is it better, is it innovative, try to put a lot of thought behind your ideas. Ofcourse you need a certain level of drawing ability but they are looking for people that have great ideas, then they torture you for 2 years making you an artist, then they torture you for 2 more years making you a industrial designer. It's insanely hard at school but I honestly love every moment of it. I mean you get to draw all day, then do clay or foam models, then do 3d models, then make working prototypes. It's crazy to go into this room see all these awesome renderings on the walls, so much creativity and artistic ability. It's honestly the best career you can chose, that's not even a joke, it was like ranked 9th on best career choice. My only real advice is do a ton of research before you commit to a school and never give up.

I don't really have the time to do a fully fledged critique right now, but the most prominent issue to me is your line work. It's very chicken-scratchy and not confident. The quality of line is what separates okay artists from great artists, and you will be able to sketch a LOT quicker once you get better at it.

This reddit has some great resources and lessons

It's by a guy who did lessons with a well known artist at CDA (Concept Design Academy), this guy is a freaking genius and I can only hope to even scratch the surface of his ability!

The owner of this sub also recommends this book - Which I'm sure you can get in a more illegitimate manner, but it's fantastic and a must-have for any budding artist.

I want to recommend this to /u/Anagram-Daine, too, if he's here at all.

As a final note, this video on line weights is great, too.

Line weight can really help establish forms in your work without needing to add value, and being able to think in 3D forms can help a lot. The idea behind this is that you simplify everything you see into primitive shapes, such as boxes, spheres, cylinders and cones. All of these shapes can be warped, distorted and bent to form anything you can possibly think of, so being able to know these shapes and how light would pass over them will give you the ability to draw ANYTHING, should you know what it looks like.

Have fun!

First, I want to say that you have a pretty nice finish on this drawing. Your line weights are good, your use of spot blacks could use a little work, but you've got the right idea. I like the fact that you're lines thin out as you go back in perspective, really sells the idea that there is some distance between cyclopse and that cactus in the background.

Also your anatomy is pretty good, though it seems to me more like copying from other comics rather than taking the time to actually learn the muscles/muscle groups.

That being said, there's a lot of construction issues in this piece. I could go through and list off all of them, but really what it comes down to is the understanding of perspective. This is integral to creating a piece that has objects in it that feel 3 dimensional.

Now when I say lack of understanding of perspective, I don't mean that you have no understanding. You seem like you could probably construct some cubes in space, or even a rudimentary street view with a horizon roughly in the middle of the page. But the way to push your work further towards what you see in a an issue of X-men.

To get you where you want to go, I would either suggest Scott Robertson's How to Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments from your Imagination. Or if you'd rather you can search the internet for some tutorials like this Ctrlpaint Tutorial

I wish I had more examples, but it's been a little while since I was looking for this stuff. But it's something that I've practiced almost every day for many years and I've still got plenty of room to learn.

You're definitely headed in the right direction. It looks like you enjoy the work, so hang onto that. I'm not saying to bore yourself to death with technical practice, but take a little bit of your drawing time that you've set aside and practice some perspective and you'll see a huge improvement in your work. And once you feel comfortable, start checking out Proko for stuff about how to translate those perspective skills into bettering your figures (people) that you draw.

Good luck and keep up the good work

♥ Ethan

I recently graduated with my B.S. in psychology and will be heading to graduate school this fall to study Human Factors, also known as engineering psychology or ergonomics. Basically it's the application of psychology to the design of systems (hardware as well as software) and the environments they're deployed in. UX certainly falls under this umbrella, as the professor who will be my adviser is doing research in that area.

To answer your question, it's a yes as well as a no in my opinion. A background in psychology would be tremendously helpful in the field you're thinking of entering - knowledge about human behavior and mental processes is a pretty good thing to have when your goal is to design and improve the user experience.

As others have said, however, the minor itself won't necessarily be of any use. Employers generally won't care, and neither will any graduate schools you apply to. In other words, it's the knowledge you gained from studying the minor that will be attractive on your resume (or curriculum vitae), so be ready to explain exactly what you learned from studying psychology and how it makes you a better candidate for the position. Remember that the minor, if you choose to take it, will be little more than a footnote on your transcript in the long run.

To wrap this up, I'd like to wish you luck on this career path. UX is a really interesting subject that many people aren't even aware of. If you haven't already, check out the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Their site has some great resources for anyone who wants to learn more about the field (I used it to find grad schools to apply to). Lastly, I recommend reading Donald A. Norman's The Design of Everyday Things. It's the book that got me interested in this field in the first place, and is a really fun read.

If you have any further questions, I'll be happy to try and answer them to the best of my ability. Otherwise, good luck once again!

All of these are linked to Amazon, if you have an account, you can make a wishlist to keep track of ‘em:

• Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
  
  This one teaches you how to see shapes objectively, which will improve your drawing from photo or real life. I recommend getting it from the library because you’ll only need the book once. Drawing a lot of still lifes/self-portraits helps achieve the same goal even without the book, though the exercises are awesome and will speed up the process. You can ignore the author’s rambling about the brain, it’s been debunked by science~ I’ve republished the first exercise of the book on my blog here - trying to build a step-by-step guide for beginners, but I only have a few hours a week. :)
  
  
• For anatomy and portraits, after “Fun with A Pencil”, you can also read “Drawing the Head and the Hands” and “Figure Drawing for All It’s Worth” by Loomis. See sidebar. They’re all about the same material, just more in depth.
  
  
• “Perspective Made Easy” by Ernest Norling.
  Do the exercises! They’re simple yet awesome. After you finish the book, apply perspective to stuff you draw from imagination. When I finished it, I didn’t use what I learned, but once I started applying perspective to every drawing I made, my skill skyrocketed. I believe perspective is the second most important drawing skill, but it can be tedious.
  
  
• "Drawing Comics the Marvel Way"
  Teaches you a variety of solid fundamentals, like construction and composition. Useful for after you’ve got the basics down with Loomis and Perspective.
  
  
  
• Hardcore: “How to Draw" and “How to Render” by Scott Robertson. His books are intensive. Most of my friends bought them but didn’t use them because they’re so technical. You have to be prepared and comfortable with sketching before tackling these. Even I haven’t finished the books cover to cover, yet I use his techniques for every single artwork that I make (I was taught them by FZD).
  
  
  
• Here’s the most important: have FUN. You can start studying and struggling but remember why you are drawing and doodle for fun every now and then. Play some good music while sketching. If you have fun, you will keep doing it. No matter how fast or slow you learn, stick with it and you’ll be damn good someday.

hmm. Where to get started. Learn the gestalt principles of visual design. If you're designing interfaces - these little tips will help you associate, and differentiate well enough to be able to direct attention like a conductor.

Learn to do everything deliberately. If you don't have a reason for something, you're not designing, you're arting. Know the difference and when each is appropriate. For example - want a big splash screen with a fancy colorful image? Is it so you can attract the user to a particular part of the screen? Or is it because you have some extra space and feel like filling it with something. If it's the former, go for it. If it's the latter - you're just making an art project.

Learn about design methodologies, from a university if possible. Industrial design technique is very good for digital problem solving as well. Defining a problem, exploring solutions, and determining a valuable path are things that will help you in every project.

Understand why you are doing what you are doing. And who are you doing it for. Never go past page one without establishing those facts.

Stats will help you in that do everything intentionally part. If you can say 80 of people do this, 20 percent of people do that, you can from this say, that this gets center position, bright colors, dark shadow and lots of negative space. That thing that 20 percent of people do, gets bottom right, lowER contrast, and is there for people that expect it.

Good luck, conferences will help. Podcasts will help. Reading interviews from design teams at larger companies will help.

Asking reddit will help. What you should ask for is paid time off to study lol. Good luck.


edit:
Also get this book universal principles of design I think there's a pocket version. This teaches you what works and why and when to use it.


Get the design of every day things. This book teaches you what good design is. It asks the questions - what is design. When is design good. What is an affordance? How do we signal what things do what? How does all that work? Is a coffee cup good design? What about a scissors? How about google.com vs yahoo.com...

Check out don't make me think... or just think about the title for an hour and pretend you read the book.

a popular one now is hooked. Pavlov's dog experiments except with people, basically operant conditioning for designers.

And learn about grid systems and bootstrap for prototyping. Get a prototyping account. For something, proto.io, invision, framerjs.... Invest in omingraffle and sketch, get a creative cloud license if need be. You will need to show people things a lot. You will need to convince people of your ideas and your paths. You will need to constantly throw together quick and dirty visualizations of what you want to say. Invest in tools that make it simple.

Learn how to sell your ideas. You will be asked a ton of questions as people poke holes in your design. You need to figure out how to soothe their worries. They will your decisions, and you will have to show them that you have the answer. Learn how to present. Learn public speaking. Learn how to communicate with superiors. Learn how to talk with programmers. Learn how to give the programmers what they want from you. Learn how to negotiate, learn how to deliver on time. Learn how to handle stress.

Good luck.

I've been on a total typography book binge recently!

• Letter Fountain - This book is AMAZING! It's comprehensive, gorgeous and heavy. Note: There's a lot of overlapping information in all these recommendations, so if you buy just one book on typography from my list, make it this one.
  
• Designing Type by Karen Cheng - This book is a great one to get if you are designing a typeface yourself. It takes a close look at all of the letters and characters (serif and sans-serif) describing their key features, comparing and contrasting notable variations of significant typefaces and basically serving as an excellent reference.
  
• Logo Font & Lettering Bible by Leslie Cabarga - This one is a lot of fun, with a focus on practical tips, ie: software tips and tricks. If you're interested in illustration or decorative typefaces, this is the one to get. (I know if you judge this one by its cover and Amazon's 'look inside' preview it may not look the best, but the actual printed volume is attractive, dense and a joy to browse.) [EDIT: The paperback has a much nicer cover! This is the one I have.]
  
• Book Design by Andrew Haslam - Everything you might want to know about book design, naturally! I haven't read much else on this subject, but this seemed excellent to me. A great mix of history and practical advice for designing all kinds of book.
  
• Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works by by Erik Spiekermann and E.M Ginger - Smaller, but full of good information. This was one of the first 'proper' books on typography I read and I think it serves as a great introduction to the subject. If you only have a passing interest in the type, try this book. It reads like an opinionated personal essay. Perhaps skip it if you are looking to get hands-on quickly.
  
  Finally, I strongly don't recommend Type Matters! If you see it in the store you may be tempted - it's a very attractive leather-bound book with sexy black and red illustrations - but I found it to be overly simplistic. It also looks like there's quite a lot of reading to be had, but the vast majority of the text in there is all repeated sample copypasta. (And if I wasn't disappointed enough in the book, the elastic came loose on my copy!)

This probably isn't the most helpful answer, but any resources I might have used to learn the fundamentals myself are probably pretty outdated now. Honestly I'd just try to find highly rated books on Amazon that are reasonably priced. I haven't read this one for psych research methods, but looking through the table of contents, it covers a lot of what I'd expect (ethics, validity and reliability, study design and common methods) and according to the reviews it's clear, concise, and has good stats info in the appendix. I had a similar "handbook" style textbook in undergrad that I liked. For practicing stats, I'm personally more of a learn-by-doing kind of person, and there are some free courses out there like this one from Khan Academy that covers the basics fairly well.

But if you can, take courses in college as electives! Chances are you'll have a few to fill (or maybe audit some if you can't get credit), so go outside of HCDE's offerings to get some complementary skills in research or design. I usually find classrooms to be more engaging than trying to get through a textbook at home on my own, and especially for psych research methods, you'll probably have a project that gives you hands-on experience doing research with human subjects (most likely your peers). There are lots of free online courses out there as well if you aren't able to take them for credit.

You guys are making me miss school.

Getting specifically into UX self-study, in addition to a UX-specific research methods book (this is a newer version of one I read in school) I'd also go through the UX classics like Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design, Krug's Don't Make Me Think, and Casey's Set Phasers on Stun (this last one being more of a fun read than a practical one).

Just some I like:

Dev

• [You Don't Know Javascript (series)(]https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS). Short and sweet mostly. Well written. Some are still pending publishing but there are a couple available now. I believe you can read them for free online, I just like paper books and wanted to show some support.
  
  
• Elequent Javascript (second release coming in november). Current version here if you are impatient. I have not personally read it yet, waiting for the next revision. I recommend it due to the high regard it has in the web community.
  
  
• Professional JavaScript for Web Developers. Sometimes called the bible of js. Big ole book. I have not read it through and through, but have enjoyed the parts I have perused.
  
  

  Design
  

  
  (I am weak in the design side, so take these recommendation with a grain of salt. I recommend them off of overall industry cred they receive and my own personal taste for them.)
  
  

• The Elements of Typographic Style. Low level detail into the art and science behind typography.
  
  
• Don't Make Me Think, Revisited. I read the original, not the new one that I linked. It is an easy read (morning commute on the train was perfect for it) and covers UX stuff in a very easy to understand way. My non-designer brain really appreciated it.
  
  below are books I have not read but our generally recommended to people asking this question
  
  
• About Face.
  
  
• The Design of Everyday Things.
  
  
• The Inmates Are Running the Asylum.
  
  
  You can see a lot of these are theory based. My 0.02 is that books are good for theory, blogs are good for up to date ways of doing things and tutorial type stuff.
  
  Hope this helps!
  
  
  Battery is about to die so no formatting for you! I'll add note later if I remember.
  
  EDIT: another real quick.
  
  EDIT2: Eh, wound up on my computer. Added formatting and some context. Also added more links because I am procrastinating my actual work I have to do (picking icons for buttons is so hard, I never know what icon accurately represents whatever context I am trying to fill).
  

I'm late to the party, but I made a cheat sheet for my boss niece last week: here's all the ressources I can think of to kick butts at matte painting.

The sites where we pay per month

Gnomon Online School
Super school of vfx in California. They have on their site a lot of tutorials from 8 to 20 hours to learn to make your own camera projections. You can either pay (expensive but worth it) for a private class with a teacher via Skype. Or you pay (cheaper) for a bank of tutorials.

private lessons
https://www.gnomon.edu/courses/online


the bank of tutorials
https://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials?tags[]=matte-painting


I recommend: All the tutorials of Dylan Cole (vol 1, 2,3), Camera Projection Techniques in Maya, Matte Painting Production techniques, etc.




Plural Sight (formerly Digital Tutors)


a site that has courses on a little everything. This site is very good when you want to learn new programs. Excellent serie on the 3D which becomes more and more present in the matte painting, and some tutorials


https://app.pluralsight.com/library/


related to 3D

Quick start to modeling in Maya (volume 1,2,3)
Professional Tips for Modeling Complex Shapes


related to matte painting

Photo manipulation and Clean Plating Fundamentals
Matte Painting Basic and the Static Camera Shot


Sites where we pay per tutorial (Gumroad, etc.)



The tutorials of Anthony Eftekhari

Good DMP tutorials that show you the latest techniques and how to do it step by step.


https://gumroad.com/anthonye

The tutorials of Eytan Zana

More concept art, but the main lines apply just as well to the DMP.

https://gumroad.com/eytanzana


Free sites and tutorials


Garrett Fry's blog

He also has a Facebook group that helps each other in DMP, it is THE technical reference for matte painting. His blog is full of technical stuff for camera projections (aka moving your matte painting). A treasure of information.
https://www.gfryart.com/blog



Other


TEXTURES! (Or can we find good textures to make DMP)


CGtexture

http://www.textures.com

Flickr (Matte Painting References)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tjframe/sets/72157605581901392/

Flickr (Matte Painting Resources)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dman3d2000/sets/72157629164518650/

Photobash.org (paying a card)

https://www.photobash.org/

Pictures of Jacek Pilarski

https://gumroad.com/jacekpilarski

Books (yes yes, it's a thing)

Digital Matte Painter Handbook

it's old, the drawings are ugly, the photoshop stuff in it is pure candy though. Full of stuff in DMP that I have never seen elsewhere but that is the basis of the trade. Still actual today. The matte painting of the castle in is also an excellent starting point if you start from scratch.

https://www.amazon.ca/Digital-Matte-Painting-Handbook/dp/0470922427/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1523975893&sr=1-1&keywords=Digital+Matte+Painting+Handbook

How to draw and How to Render

Scott Robertson, a big shot of concept art, shows the basics of traditional drawings, perspective, etc. An essential.

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=GWB27RDDYF5E0JG7TTY0

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Render-fundamentals-shadow-reflectivity/dp/1933492961/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=K9W1RK5K9KVWMPY14EAE

Imaginative Realism and Color and Light

James Gurney is an illustrator who specializes in realistic fantasy artwork with traditional mediums, excellent cues on light and color

https://www.amazon.ca/Imaginative-Realism-Paint-Doesnt-Exist/dp/0740785508?th=1&psc=1&source=googleshopping&locale=en-CA&tag=googcana-20&ref=pd_sl_2y2j9az9y9_e

https://www.amazon.ca/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=YCNYYJCTNJ4405KD1S6B

Nuke 101

We can make the projection of matte painting in Nuke or Maya. An excellent book for Nuke.

https://www.amazon.ca/Nuke-101-Professional-Compositing-Effects/dp/0321984129/ref=pd_sim_14_8?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FNST5YS1F7464SZY3QZV

Nice to see someone just hop into drawing :)
As /u/Lotusbunny mentioned, everyone learns differently. You need to find the right way that fits for you. If you really want to improve and don't hesitate to spend some money, search for some drawing and sketching books. There are tons out there. My approach was a bit more techy because I like Industrialdesign and Scifi, so I bought myself How to Draw from Scott Robertson and How to Render from Scott Robertson

Same goes for environment, anatomy, rendering, etc, there is a huge amount of books you can choose from. Also Imagine FX is a nice magazine with tutorials and cool stuff to read, see and learn. They also got a Youtube Channel Give it a try.

But of course you can entirely come back to Youtube videos. A quick search with 'How to draw X' and you're ready to go. Also twitch is really nice where you can see people drawing in realtime. BUT don't rely enterily on videos - you won't get better by watching hours of tutorials without actually drawing :)

For anatomy Posemaniacs is awesome! Tons of poses you can choose and study from. Grab you Wacom or pencil and keep drawing. The 30 seconds drawing option is very nice to improve your time limit output.


The keywords are practice and patience. Art and drawing is a skill you need to obtain, digitally or mechanically. It won't grow overnight so don't force yourself with every piece to get better and better. You will automatically with every minute you're drawing.

And the best thing to do is to improve your visual library. Look at pictures and try to adapt. You need to see and remember things before you can draw them without looking them up first. Always open up references you can rely on. I'd suggest you start to paint studys first. Open up Daily Dozen and redraw/study a picture you like. First start off with black & white and if you're confident, get into color. Also, a great way to improve your skill is to limit your time. Start with quick and small thumbnails with a 10 minute limit, then 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hour and open end. With this you are first forced to concentrate on the overall look and composition rather than details and with the 1 hour and above ones you can do more and more finished paintings.

One thing that scares many is a blank canvas. If you want to start, first get rid of the blank white space. Fill in a gradient, quickly paint some diffuse silhouettes or fill it with a colour but get rid of the plain canvas.


I don't know which software you're using (I assume Photoshop) but for the brushes and functions - just test them out. You don't need a ton of textured brushes but sometimes they're a nice addition. Search online for brushes and test them. Keep the ones you like and get the best results with.

Besides that - keep on and practice a lot :)


Btw, I did a small redo in Pixelart some time ago for someone :)

I think it's not bad, I would say the biggest things are around typography.

1. Add more padding around some of the typography.
   
   
2. On the second image that "intro paragraph" is kind of weird, its two paragraphs I think, but in it's own style? Usually those type of things are one headline sentence which leads into the content.
   
   
3. Fix what is called a "widow" basically one word on the last line of a paragraph.
   
   
4. If you are using InDesign, select your text, go to paragraph styles and uncheck "hyphenate" to remove all the hyphenated words.
   
   
5. Some of your text is just oddly aligned, the yellow box quote, each line starts more and more to the left
   
   
6. Look at the "Working in the industry" page, I would redesign to be left aligned, the "rivers" pattern (white space between words) as we call them in typography looks more like lakes in these pages.
   
   
7. I like the fifth image, but add more padding around the text so it's not to the edge of the bounding box.
   
   
8. Pros & Cons page, I like the title design, nice job here; But the box below again with justified text, not working too well.
   
   
9. On the note of the above, make sure your paragraphs have a clear space between the previous paragraph.
   
   
10. You've got a lot of different font types, and styles going on each page, which is fine, but you should come up with a look and feel, that makes it so if each page were looked at separately (like we are here) someone could say "Yes these pages are from the same magazine."
    
    
11. On the contents page (last screenshot) left align the text, it's generally not a good idea to right align text as it makes it difficult to read. (the numbers can stay right aligned)
    
    And Finally:
    
    If you can - try to learn more about grid systems and typography, there are some great books out there that if you have cash or can ask your parents to buy you a couple books, here are some recommendations (even to just look at for inspiration):
    
    Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A Visual Communication Manual
    
    Thinking with Type - This one is one of my favorites
    
    The Typography Idea book
    
    I hope this helps :) And keep at it!! Definitely better than I was doing in high school!

/u/LeadGenDairy:
> GO TO SCHOOL

This is good advice. Before I did some career counseling to figure out what to do with my life, I didn't know industrial design was even a thing. (I figured you needed a degree in engineering to do that sort of thing, but learned that it's common for a company to employ engineers who figure out how to make the thing work as well as designers to determine how it should work and, moreover, how it should look.) Once I realized that ID was definitely what I wanted to do, I looked up programs in my city, and found a good one. It was at an art school. I decided to apply.

"Apply with a short statement and a portfolio of 10-15 images of your recent work."

Welp.

I had never even taken an art class. I had no recent work. I had no "work" at all. So I made some. It took a few months, and I had some late nights, but by the application deadline, I had 12 pieces, including a few pretty solid drawings and some screenprints that started out in Illustrator. Got in, and got my degree.

If you're looking to learn drawing skills good enough to get into school, get a good book - I recommend Sketching: drawing techniques for product designers and Rapid Viz - and practice the techniques therein. You can also find a lot of tutorials online for programs like Illustrator, Photoshop, SketchUp, and Rhino if you're interested in building those skills too (and can get your hands on the software).

If your background is in CS, you probably have a good bit of experience coming up with weird creative workarounds for tough problems. This kind of problem-solving comes in very handy in ID. I wish you the best of luck!

Honestly mate, seems like you need to broaden your minds creative library. The best way to do this is to do a lot of studies of things from life and combined them with the things you love. So if you want to design cool vehicles then you need to do studies from vehicles we have around us today. Best way to learn this is to use your perspective knowledge and draw those vehicles/buildings. Scott Robertson honestly breaks this process down the best. And if you don't already have it I suggest picking up How to Draw, by Scott Robertson. https://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541794749&sr=8-1&keywords=scott+robertson He goes pretty in-depth on how to create vehicles and buildings with perspective.


Also check out Feng Zhu on YouTube. He talks about how to go about expanding your creative library. And being able to pull from it when concepting.

​

Hope this somewhat helps. Good luck with your art journey mate!

Everything starts w/ making a good product

Marketing

• Find a niche, go to where they go and target them with thoughtful cool posts like /u/koleraa and /u/ccrama said. Be real, responsive, and follow up
  
• This works better for apps than games b/c you can engage ppl in problem solving your app, but I'm sure there are gamer communities
  
• For a game you might need more of a "stunt", read Growth Hacker Marketing for ideas here
  
  Don't have a "leaky bucket"
  In normal words: make sure ppl who install your game have a good experience right away and come back. Set up analytics so you can track this. If you are failing, work on the game and don't market yet. You should watch all of these free Y Combinator online startup classes, but #6 is most relevant here.
  Design the game to be viral
  This is where you've got it easier than normal apps, games can be designed to share and engage other users. I recommend reading Hooked for ideas on how to build a habit forming app that ppl will want to share. NOTE: annoying tricks don't work and no one wants that.
  
  Crossing the Chasm is less relevant to a game but an insightful classic on the old "how do I develop a market for a technology product".
  
  All of these strategy require focused and consistent effort to have a chance. I'm in the same boat you are so hopefully we can make something happen :)
  
  BTW I'd be happy to share my notes on all these books if ppl are interested.

Are you asking how to become a better designer, or how to recognize good design?

They are different, but not separate things.

This might help, if you're after the former.

If it's the latter you're after, there's a wealth of books out there: this one among them. But really, learning to recognize good design is a long process of ingestion, regurgitation, trial and error, and experience.

Good design can mean many things. Does it look good? Is it usable? Is it actionable (Does it make you want to do something)? Does it convey a certain mood? Does it reinforce the brand? Does it speak to the target audience? Is it fast? Does it get across a certain message as fast as possible? Is it memorable?

You really have to ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish when it comes to design. What are your goals?

You might not look at something like Amazon and say, "That's great design!", but having your design as understated as possible and maximizing usability is as good design (for their purposes) as much as something like this is meant to be the opposite.

It all really comes back to: What are you trying to accomplish?

Mmmm... it's hard to say really, I'm self-taught so my way of learning is most likely very inefficient. The few tips I can give you though is:
at the very beginning, just make drawing a consistent habit, draw whatever, but dedicate some time and try to draw daily. Little but consistent steps are much more powerful than ''drawing entire day once a week''.
fall in love with the process and don't care much about result, aka never compare yourself to others. Your drawings will suck, a lot, for a long time - and that's completely okay, because we all go through that. Comparing yourself to someone with years of experience will only demotimate you. This video perfectly illustrated what I mean: https://youtu.be/lRtV-ugIT0k
once you get into ha bit of drawing relatively often, you can try learning some fundamentals like anatomy/perspective. For those there are many resources online, and books.
AND PRACTICE - a lot, on paper, with pen, or wahtever you got, there's no such excuse ''I odn't have a tablet or fancy pen or whatever'', in fact most of your studies if not all, in the beginning should be on paper, before you get into digital things.

Books I recommend for a begginer:
Perspective: https://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732
Anatomy: https://www.alexhays.com/loomis/ (these are free)
and this channel is absolutely amazing https://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV

When you start with basics, you will be just drawing spheres and cubes. Learning fundamentals is very different from actual illustrations - it's quite tedious and even boring, but it propels you forward fast. When it comes to drawing fun stuff tho - always question what, why, how it works and use references. Look at many other artists and question how and why they did the things they did. Once you get down to it - it becomes just pure science.

I'm not gonna go on anymore because it's quite a long post as it is, hope it helps in a way. I use photoshop, because I started with it and it's very powerful- tho it's very hard for a beginner to use, in you case I would probably start with ''paint tool sai''.

If you wanna follow me and learn more about me, you can follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/tmiracleart and the links in the stream description, as well as join my discord (link in the stream description).

>Obviously I know that I need a super polished site that I either built myself or on a platform like Wix or Squarespace, but that won’t be done for a few more months. Life has been a little rough on me lately.

As a stopgap, start posting stuff on free platforms like Behance, CargoCollective or dribbble.

Even if it's just a work dump, it's good protocol to have a portfolio online. If you haven't already, also make sure to keep your resume up online as well (you can host it publicly on Dropbox for free) and have your LinkedIn updated.

>Is this contract-level work, or should I not bother having him sign a contract?

EVERYTHING that involves pay should have a contract. Find a template online for freelance, and also in the future buy this book which'll help you get a better sense of things.

>How do I bill him, and through what methods should I have him pay me?

If you have an account, PayPal does a good job of doing invoicing and keeping track of things like hours and accountability for payment. But if you want to do it yourself, there's also some other digital options out there. But as I said before, it's important to have a paper trail, get everything in writing and have things to reference.

>Do I need to worry about taxes or anything like that?

Depends on how big the amount is, but if it's usually under ~$500 I wouldn't worry about this (though other users keep me honest on this)

>How many revisions are typical for a logo design, and do I factor color into my price?

This is on you and based on your client's budget. Obviously more revisions and feedback require additional work, which will cost them more money. Same with color: coming up with options and getting to a final decision requires both work on your end and a meeting to get feedback and work off of.

Hey there!
UX Designer/Researcher here. I came from a background in Psychology and Neuroscience research before UX Design. Personally I used the UCSD Extension for a certificate in UX Design. I really appreciated the course work and in conjunction with the Coursera Interaction Design felt like I was given plenty of exposure while also having flexibility to work.
From my experience in the industry, I would look into what area you are interested in. UX careers can involve programming and development, but I use absolutely no coding at my current position (at others I have though). The biggest selling point to an employer is showing an understanding of the process: wireframes, flow charts, user studies, iteration (agile/scrum/waterfall), and design understanding. I have worked on multiple billion dollar webpages and can say the process is nearly identical when scaled down.
If you are interested in some resources to start on your own I would recommend Simon Sinek's Start with Why for understanding how to look at design solutions.
Don Norman has many great books, including The Design of Everyday Things.
Some actual books to look at and learn on your own are A Project Guide to UX Design, Lean UX, and The UX Book. I highly recommend the last one I find it very thorough and digestible and for ~60 bucks is a reasonable textbook.
Lastly, once you have a grasp of UX as a concept I would get familiar with the Adobe Suite, Axure or InVision, and any others from career sites that you might not know about (I really like [Sketch]() as a cheap option ~$99).

Best of luck, feel free to ping me with questions

It's not the advice you are looking for, but I can't stress it enough: design is about problem solving, rather than pure aesthetics.

Sure, making things look pretty is important. However, making your design understandable and easy to use is even more important. It's probably what you should focus on.

You are designing something for real human beings. Your design should solve a real problem in the most elegant way. How? That's something I can't explain in a single comment.

This video series explains it really well. It's not about web applications, but that doesn't matter. The message is the same. You prefer reading? This and this book do an extremely good job of explaining how to design things.

Also, this article explains the point I'm trying to make far better than I ever could. Good luck!

Junior UX person here. Not much of a programmer myself, but it's sufficient for my needs, as I am only doing front-end design when I dabble with code. There is a multitude of ways to learn how to code, but generally speaking, I find that practicing in small repetition helps the best to retain and absorb information. When you are doing a small code example, try to rewrite differently and see how it works in each of those ways. I also recommend coming up with a small project that you can work on (design and putting a personal site live, for example), as opposed just doing the practices, that way you are presented with a real world environment that contains restrictions and possibilities.

Do you draw? It might help to learn how to draw well, which will help you illustrate designs and potentially become a fun hobby.

Some beginner level books I recommend:

• Designing Interactions http://amzn.com/0262134748
  
• Universal Principles of Design http://amzn.com/1592535879
  
• Don't Make Me Think http://amzn.com/0321965515
  
• Design of Everyday Things http://amzn.com/0465050654
  
  Also, you might want to sign up for this course track offered by Stanford.
  
  Lastly, learn how to meditate (or just ways to maintain inner peace in general). It will help once you enter the industry.

Paul Rand: A Designer's Art https://www.amazon.com/dp/1616894865/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_neLpybYFN2K0B

"If Paul Rand was the most influential American graphic designer of the twentieth century, then Paul Rand: A Designer's Art is the most important on his work. A comprehensive collection of his most important and best-known designs, A Designer's Art gives unique insight into Rand's design process and theory. This new edition of Rand's classic monograph, long unavailable, meticulously re-creates the graphic quality of the original. It includes more than two hundred illustrations and twenty-seven essays, and a new afterword by Steven Heller. This book is required reading for anybody interested in modern design..."

Design, Form, and Chaos https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300055536/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_2gLpybNH8PCSK

"In this book, Paul Rand m, said to be one of the world's leading graphic designers, speaks about the contemporary practice of graphic design, explaining the processes and passion that foster good design and indicting fadism and trendiness.

Illustrating his ideas with examples of his own graphic work as well as with the work of artists he admires, Rand discusses such topics as: the values on which aesthetic judgements are based; the part played by intuition in good design; the proper relationship between management and designers; the place of market research; how and when to use computers in the production of a design; choosing a typeface; principles of book design; and the thought processes that lead to a final design.

The centrepiece of the book consists of seven design portfolios - with working drawings and ultimate choices - that Rand used to present his logos to clients such as Next, The Limited and IBM."

Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design https://www.amazon.com/dp/1592535879/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XiLpybS3YS160

""Universal Methods of Design is an immensely useful survey of research and design methods used by today's top practitioners, and will serve as a crucial reference for any designer grappling with really big problems. This book has a place on every designer's bookshelf, including yours!" —David Sherwin, Principal Designer at frog and author of Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

"Universal Methods of Design is a landmark method book for the field of design. This tidy text compiles and summarizes 100 of the most widely applicable and effective methods of design—research, analysis, and ideation—the methods that every graduate of a design program should know, and every professional designer should employ.

Methods are concisely presented, accompanied by information about the origin of the technique, key research supporting the method, and visual examples. Want to know about Card Sorting, or the Elito Method? What about Think-Aloud Protocols? This book has them all and more in readily digestible form."

The only advice you need right now is to improve your draftsmanship. You need to understand anatomy to be able to draw people, no matter what level of detail/realism you wish to achieve. Animators and cartoonists who who draw all varieties of cartoon characters are always masters of drawing the human form. Even drawing characters like Fred Flinstone requires you to understand anatomy, such as the way joints bend, or hands and fingers function. Having a grasp on anatomy will help your story telling, no matter how you choose to exercise (or disregard) the knowledge. The best place to start learning is a very well known book authored by Andrew Loomis: Figure Drawing for What its Worth (this is one of the most well known peices of instructional drawing literature) Buy this book and study. You already have ideas that you want to draw, and thats great, and improving your draftsmanship will help you be able to get your ideas out. In addition to anatomy, You will also need to learn some basics of perspective, to be able to convincingly draw your stage for example, or how to set up characters around the stage and make them appear to all be on the same plane. Scott Robertson has a great book that teaches fundamentals of perspective, worth looking in to How to Draw Good Luck!

Design and style are highly subjective. There are elements and rules that make things "look good" (contrast, alignment, proximity, repetition, etc.), but people can come up with many different things that are all good.

Usability is the same way. There are elements and rules that make things "usable" (Flow, Fitts' Law, Kinesthesia, affordance, etc.), but people can create radically different interactions that allow for the same goals.

Our role, is to act as a mediator. As Bill Buxton said, "design is compromise." You take all these grey areas and moving parts, and create a solution that gives the end user the best experience. You'll know its the best, because you can observe and measure it through usability testing.

If you want to make things look prettier, start by reading The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams.

If you want to make things that work better, start by reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.

Edit: Grammar

I can definitely help you with this.


How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination

This is the best book on perspective you can buy. Perspective is the number one thing you need to have a grasp on if you want to draw, especially from imagination. Practice this until it clicks for you.

For setting up scenes I recommend Andrew Loomis books, Creative Illustration in particular. Loomis has several books out and they're all amazing. Many artists have learned to draw from Loomis.

Burne Hogarth is another master of the craft and you can learn a lot about musculature and anatomy from his books. These are generally a step up from Loomis so you could move on to these once you have a solid grasp of the fundamentals to take your work to the next level. Dynamic Anatomy, Dynamic Figure Drawing, Drawing the Human Head.

For people and anatomy, Proko (http://www.proko.com/library/) has good free youtube videos. He uses a lot of Loomis and Hogarth methods (which are pretty much the standard) and presents them in a way that is easy to digest. He's constantly updating his channel and adding new videos.

If you can only get a few books, I would get the How to Draw perspective book first, then go through the Proko material, then move onto the Loomis and Hogarth stuff. These learning materials will take you pretty much as far as you want to go.

Also I highly recommend sticking to traditional materials (pencil and paper) while you're learning. Once you have the fundamentals down then you can move on to digital. You're going to make things much easier on yourself if you stick with traditional while you nail these fundamentals down.

I think it's a bit difficult and unfair for me to comment based on one painting alone. Do you have any sketches (line drawing, preferably) of this painting, or anything that showcase what you can do so far? Almost everyone will suggest we start designing anything in line sketches, especially if learning, so I'm interested to see what you got :D

Edit: Since you're looking for advice on how to start, I'll just say a few things that might be able to help you start.

(1) Drawing, imo, is the very foundation of all art. I think before you start painting, you should start drawing first! Here are a few links that may help you start with drawing:

• Art Fundamentals (Free, and pretty good)
  
• Foundation Group (Paid, but pretty good)
  
• Ctrl+Paint (Free and Paid. Both are pretty good)
  
  (2) I suggest you follow an art school's course outline so you can progress pretty well. Feng Zhu Design School has an outline that they use for their students to learn how to do concept art in 1 year (16 hours per day). You can also download a detailed version of what they offer in their course, then you can have an idea on what each component means.
  
  
• FZD Course Outline
  
  (3) There are also a few books that would be really useful to you when learning how to draw and render. These are supposedly the best on the internet (I only have two, the first two books in the list) Here they are:
  
  
• How to Draw
  
• How to Render
  
• Figure Drawing
  
• Color and Light
  
• Imaginative Realism
  
  I think those are all I have for you now. I'm not in any way a professional artist (I'm currently studying Industrial Design), but I think the above things I've mentioned should prove useful to you. If you have any questions, you can send me a PM :D Work hard and practise every day!

This is an excellent response above, and I'd like to add to this. I'm a senior at Auburn University for ID and I second that you should become familiar with sketching and, if given the opportunity, CAD software.

I've read through Scott Robertsons How to Draw book and it's a good resource for learning how to sketch.

Autodesk will often have free downloads for AutoCAD, Fusion 360, and Inventor for students. I'd recommend getting AutoCAD of the three, but I feel like Fusion is a bit more beginner friendly.

Even if you choose to go into engineering for school, sketching and CAD will help out a lot when you start your classes.

Also, if your high school has any public speaking classes, it wouldn't hurt to look into taking one. At least in my program we have pretty regular presentations, and it really helps to be able to communicate your ideas fluently when presenting a final product/end of the semester project.

Feel free to DM me as well!

In addition, I highly recommend this book. Strictly speaking it's about type design, not lettering, but the fundamentals are the same. You can learn a lot about spacing/proportioning/weight shifts, etc from reading that book.

If you're interested in scripts, I also recommend this one. It's not really instructional at all, so don't expect that. What it is is a huge inspiration book of historical script lettering. If you take the time to examine things closely, you can learn a lot by looking at the examples provided in the book.

I'd also do your sketching on grid paper, or if you're fancy, get these notebooks which are great. Using grid paper will help you a lot when it comes to getting stroke weights to be consistent, and quickly setting your key metrics.

Beyond that, it's really a matter of doing it and doing it often. Draw letterforms as often as you can until things like proportioning, spacing, natural stroke weight variation, etc, become second nature for you.

Something else that helped me (especially in the beginning), is to start off by trying to design type instead of doing lettering. Lettering can often be quirky and have "intentional mistakes" that will work case-by-case, but at the beginning you should be focused entirely on learning how to properly draw letterforms. Once you get the hang of that, then you can start experimenting with them.

Try to letter something in a typeface that exists (something with good stroke weight variation, even if it's only a few letters) from memory as an exercise. Sure, you'll never get it perfect and in the beginning it will probably look just wrong, but you'll have something to compare your exercise to to see if you've done it right. It's a good way to get a grasp on proportioning, spacing, and stroke weight variations.

The resumé as everyone has pointed out already. TL/DR is what the employers are going to think as soon as they put it in their hands. Yes, you stuck to one page which is key, but it really is too much.

You have hyphens on things that really can just soft-return to the next line. Hyphens look bad.

The typeface that you chose. The 't' at the end of "current" keeps looking looking like an 'r' to me and I am wearing my glasses. Just not a very flattering face for my personal aesthetic. Also for important, must read body copy details (not headlines), you should try a serif face.

Organizations and Recognitions does seem reversed (already said).

Numbers that are under 100 should be spelled out. "Two time candidate for the “Best in Show,” a faculty judged competition." Change the 2.

Just to reiterate, I want to punch that typeface in the face.

Colors are fine, just used improperly. Seem sporadic and not thought out.

Under "Experience", you don't really need to put graphic designer or freelance. You put under your name that you are a graphic designer. Experience should be X Band :: Dates; Detail • detail • detail. The details should be single to a few words like "Branding", "Album Design and Layout", etc. Fellow designers know what that entails. You don't need to write it out.

Seriously I hate that typeface.

----

Portfolio:

--Pearls of Wisdom--

Correct term is Brand Identity Manual, not systems manual.

The app icon doesn't have good contrast. Rework the background color behind the logo.

-- Dogtown Pizza Re-Branding --

Not doing yourself any favors, imho. There wasn't really any re-branding. Logo just doesn't have a gradient or drop-shadows.
Could take or leave the rest of the marketing stuff. Generic but designed alright.

-- Prelude --

I think this is well put together. Website gradient in the header is hit or miss. Outside of that, pretty strong. The vector of the violin however has extra anchor points and should be reworked. The last photo with the light up piano isn't doing you any favors though. Looks too hacked together.

-- Ramsey --
Good all around from a quick glance.

-- Milton --
Good.

-- Whiskers --
W(h)iskers is misspelled. Not really my style but it's good.

-- Beer --
Generic. Passable but nothing special.

-- Book Cover --
Decent. Pretty original.

-- Pawned --
Okay. Quick glance.

-- Theater Poster --
Good. Centering at the bottom of the poster is a little amateur.

----

Pick up the book Creative Workshop: 80 Exercises ... long title: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Workshop-Challenges-Sharpen-Design/dp/1600617972/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372860486&sr=8-1&keywords=design+exercises to give you some more stuff to add to your portfolio.

Read Ellen Lupton's books on typography.

Edit(s): Spelling, grammar.

You won't necessarily draw the internal anatomy every time you draw a person, but you'll definitely have to learn it by drawing it a lot. Look at it like that: when you draw a figure, the only thing you can see is the skin (and later, the clothes). Well, it happens that said skin is wrapped around a complex structure of bones and muscles, and so are the clothes of a characters. Knowing how this structure is built will let you "drap" skin and clothes the proper way, and will give you all the indications you need when it comes to adding light and shadow. As a bonus, being able to "see" the internal structure of a body gives you the ability to manipulate it, exagerate poses, and even create new ones from imagination.

Now as for how to learn it? I see in one of your old comments that you seem to have the books everyone recommends already, but have you tried using them? Grab either Loomis's or Hampton's book, and read them cover to cover while reproducing the drawings, that should be a good start. Alternatively, check out Proko's channel on youtube, he's got some material on figure drawing, too.

As a side note and to answer an older question of yours regarding drawing cars, check out Scott Robertson's book on objects and environments in perspective, or his DVDs on Gnomon Workshop if you're like me and prefer this format (subscription does cost $50 a month though, but Gnomon also has some pretty good figure drawing / anatomy courses. Your call).

ahoy!

If you're finding it hard to make time for in person classes, there are tons of resources online that might suit you better for the time being. Youtube is an awesome resource, I really enjoy Aaron Blaise's channel but there are tons of other free lessons and tutorials available.

Tumblr is actually a really good place to find all kinds of art blogs/refs/tutorials. Even Reddit has some drawing sections where you can get critique from others!

Lynda.com you follow along with lessons and they provide working files you can can download.

FZD School of Design

Level Up!

Other than that just practice!
These books are a pretty good jumping off point if you want to just get a strong understanding of foundations.

Sorry for the long post, I likes me some drawing yar har :)

Awesome! I'm not sure what your budget is, but here are a few ideas for various price points.

1. Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription for 1 year, $240
   -Your brother will undoubtedly have to use the adobe creative cloud suite while he's in school. It'd be nice to pay for that expense for a year!
   
   
2. An external hard drive, $55
   -Graphic design content takes up a lot of room fast, so he will definitely need this. It's small enough for him to carry around, and Seagate is a great brand.
   
   
3. Pencil by Graphite, $30
   -If he has a tablet, this digital stylus could be great for sketching, rendering, or taking notes.
   
   
4. A classic sketch book, $15
   
   
5. This design book, $14
   -To give him some inspiration for design ideas and projects!
   
   

Ha, time to shine, Swiss guy over here. Try to think of grids merely as a help to keep your proportions in order – a good grid should provide a stable structure for your layout without constricting you too much (of course there's always a little constriction using a grid but thats part of the fun). I always use grids, mostly 9x9 or 12x12. You can easily set those up in Indesign under Layout > Create Guides > then just type in whatever proportions you desire. You can also add gutter if you want to but it's not always necessary. There's no right or wrong when it comes to grids – if you're a beginner though, you might consider classical grids like those Joseph Müller-Brockmann (here's a very good book) introduced before moving on to create your own ones. I really love grids, they can be a fantastic help – the whole layout just feels right because every element corresponds with the proportions of the page. I always like when you "feel" the grid but don't actually see it.

Uncategorized:

Thoughts On Design: Paul Rand


Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design

How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

Paul Rand

Paul Rand: Conversations with Students

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design

Bauhaus

The Vignelli Canon

Vignelli From A to Z

Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible

It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book

Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)

Josef Muller-Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design

Popular Lies About Graphic Design

100 Ideas that Changed Art

100 Diagrams That Changed the World

Basics Design 08: Design Thinking

Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965

Lella and Massimo Vignelli (Design is One)

The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice

History of the Poster

How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer

The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics

George Lois: On His Creation of the Big Idea

Milton Glaser: Graphic Design

Sagmeister: Made You Look

Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?

Things I have learned in my life so far

Covering the '60s: George Lois, the Esquire Era

Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

[Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration]
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812993012/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=VEJ64Y4T0U6J&coliid=I1WMMNNLTRBQ9G)

Graphic Design Thinking (Design Briefs)

I Used to Be a Design Student: 50 Graphic Designers Then and Now

The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design

Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference

Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Envisioning Information

The elements of dynamic symmetry

The elements of content strategy

Corporate Diversity: Swiss graphic design and advertising

Book Design: a comprehensive guide

Meggs' History of Graphic Design

This is very much from a graphic design background rather than as a developer but here are a few of the best resources I've used.

The Elements of Typographic Design by Robert Bringhurst

This is specifically for typography rather than design as a whole but its the best book I've ever read on the subject. Graphic designers (at least the ones I know) use it all of the time as a reference. PDF


Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockmann

Josef Muller Brockmann was a genius with grids and this is his book teaching other's his use of them. PDF


The Kerning Game

Super simple little game but it'll teach you the basics of kerning.


More so then these resources though I just advise you to look at history, look at famous designers (Paul Rand, Paula Scher, Mark Farrow, Wim Crouwel) and their work then try to think critically about what makes them successful, what are their short comings, why they chose those colours and then try to develop your own style using multiple designers that have come before you as a reference. If you have a graphic designer friend you can bounce ideas off of and get feedback from all the better.

I'm a computer science student too, it actually taught me how to learn difficult stuff which translated really well into my artistic endeavors.

As for the drawing you linked, it's all about 1) practice and 2) perspective drawing. It looks difficult but its not really, just takes a lot of time and patience to render it out. The artist most likely used a reference photo which used a fisheyes lens pic, and constructed his work out of that.

Scott Robertson's How To Draw is a really great book on perspective/3D drawing that would probably get you on the right course. It's more on the advanced side though so I'd probably start out with an easier book.

> My question now is.. where do I start to ever be able to create something like this? I know you've to start very small and I'm guessing I have to draw by hand as well (Which I'm okay with)


Lots and lots of practice really. I've been drawing and painting for like 9 years now and I still am not at the level of the art you linked (but getting there). You just have to realize that its not something you just learn on the fly and be done with. You really have to dedicate yourself to it to be that good.

I wouldn't necessarily call myself a designer and none of my sites have that Web 2.0 flair, but I don't think I'm terrible at design. Unfortunately, like most things, you'll just have to practice. One way I learned was just taking some sites that I like the looks of and re-implement them.

Of course it depends what you're going after. Like I said, my sites aren't very Web 2.0. One site that I personally think looks pretty nice (in a forum/blog kind of way) is pouet.net. A site that I worked on (but never actually finished) mimicked their style. I like how everything is compact. If/when I implement a forum/comment feature to my CMS, I'll probably use pouet as an example.

If you're going for something like this, either get ready for a lot of work or just hire a designer. Although gradients and some curves go a long way to making a web site "Web 2.0" compliant. :)

I was directed to this book: Non-Designer's Design Book. Although I haven't gotten it yet or read it so I can't say whether it's a good book or not.

Start by doing lots of sketches in black and white with a pencil or bic biro. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, overlap sketches, make notes and show your construction lines. Sketch in 2D and 3D, sketch details and forms.

Sketch faster. Sketching is exploration and your hand should be working fast to keep up with your brain! Here's a good example of black and white sketches with a little colour, note how they're not clean and perfect and you can see how they've been built

Only use colour where necessary - you're sketching not rendering. Use it to make the best ideas stand out, or to add detail such as material selection and exploration of colour choices.

Save up and get some decent marker pens. Magic markers or Letraset pro markers are good. 3 shades of neutral grey should do to start say N1, N3, N5. These are buildable and can be layered to create darker shades and the shades (C2, C4) in between. Use these to add simple shading and a group shadow, shading should be used to help communicate form. Sharpies are ok for outlining or adding a line of colour, not for colouring in areas.

Get an A3 marker or layout pad, the paper is semi transparent so you can trace over other sketches or use an underlay to speed up the sketching process. They also don't soak up the ink or bleed so your images will look crisper and marker pens will last longer. I say A3, because generally this is the paper size ID's use, so get used to filling that page! The brand doesn't matter but I usually use Goldline layout pads as the paper is whiter.

Practice, practice, practice. Copy other peoples sketches, a good book I always advocate when people are looking for sketching feedback is one called Sketching for Designers by Koos Eissen. If you can get a copy then try to recreate the sketches and emulate some of the techniques, your own style will come after. Otherwise look on Behance and try to recreate any ID sketches you like for practice.

Good luck :)

Source: I'm an ID. Edit: Spelling/grammar

Great suggestions below. And in terms of putting your design knowledge into practice, I strongly recommend 'Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills'. This will give you a wealth of projects to (1)solidify your knowledge from your readings and (2)brush up your skills with Adobe CS. However, I don't think the library will have this on hand.

Link to Purchase: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Workshop-Challenges-Sharpen-Design/dp/1600617972

If you're interested in a User Experience(UX) kind of book, I suggest the 'Design of Everyday Things'. A lot of tech corporations like Microsoft recommend their engineers to read this book. I wouldn't prioritize this book, but it's definitely worth a look later on.

Hope that helps. Good luck!

• Stephen, Student Advisor @ CodingDojo, a 12-week bootcamp for aspiring web developers in Seattle & SF (more info at http://codingdojo.com/l/info/r )
  

Bloody Handprint decal for $1.54 with free shipping

Syringe pens $3.50 with free shipping

Awesome "grown up" coloring book for $3.59 with free shipping If you enjoy coloring but don't want to color "kiddie" coloring books search for "Dover Design Coloring Books" They have tons of all different kinds of coloring books that are more for older people. Some stuff that are just cool designs, some stuff actually different subjects. I find coloring soothing, and theses books are really awesome to color in. Especially if you get some nice gel pens.

25 tiny monkeys for $4.10 and free shipping Because who doesn't like tiny monkeys? ;)

I have odd and varied stuff because I like a bit of everything.

It would be truly «Swiss Style» if you did the following things:

• Use a proper Grid system, align everything to it. Like /u/ponypebble said, this is a good starting point, for further info you could buy Grid Systems by the legendary Josef Muller-Brockmann.
  
• Don't use lines to divide the content, it should be clear what belongs together from the placement of the text blocks (you can keep the line of the Logo as it comes from that)
  
• Don't use as many font styles and font colors. Regular(or light) and Bold in white should suffice. Also keep the kerning consistent. Also you could change from a geometric to a more Grotesque Typeface (Like Akzidenz Grotesk, Neue Haas Unica, Helvetica, Univers, Akkurat usw)
  
• Remove the transparent type in the background
  
  
  Don't get me wrong it looks really good and I like it as it is right now, that would simply make it more «Swiss Style» as the old Swiss Masters around that time used more or less the following principles:
  
  
• Absolute Minimalism, only show whats necessary
  
• Strong use of Typography, often experimental Typography
  
• Strong, even rigid use of Grids, construction of complex Grid Systems. (For Example this Poster by Josef Muller-Brockmann)
  
• Use of mainly Grotesque fonts
  
  I also just love the old Swiss Masters and geeked out a little, sorry. :)
  
  

I'm a type designer, so feel to ask me questions.

To keep the look and feel consistent across the entire font largely depends on understanding the fundamentals of visual communication design, typography, and the relationship between characters.

The process starts with a design with specific parameters, a "skeleton" of a typeface. You need to decide if it's going to be a serif, sans serif, slab serif, display, etc., then move on to the qualities of the typeface. What characters would it have (cold, friendly, fat, loud, etc.)? What purpose would it serve?

Once the design is settled, the work in creating a typeface from scratch involves lots and lots of tweaking to maintain a relationship with each glyph. Drawing glyphs is a lot of work, and yes, a lot of the work is done by eye. Each character could be "generated" and be mathematically accurate as a foundation, but it will be largely optically incorrect and loses an important quality, a human touch.

Extrapolation with fonts can be done with Superpolator and interpolation with RoboFab, but it doesn't make the typeface design better if it is not drawn correctly in the first place.

The best fonts out there, upon close inspection of their glyphs, show that their forms are derived from the written hand. See Gerrit Noordzij's The Stroke for more.

Karen Cheng's Designing Type is another good read. Another book that's coming soon is Fred Smeijers' Counterpunch 2nd Ed..

As glasspenguin mentioned, Typophile.com is a great message forum on type design. You will find a lot of information there.

I don't like to give crits to fix what you have. It's a sketch, and you should think of sketches as disposable. Learn something here and move on. I would say my big crit is they're more organic looking than robotic.

That being said, I recommend you do some study before you try again. When learning to make robots there are two very essential things to learn; Human anatomy, and contemporary mechanical engineering.

Human anatomy: Really dive in to understand how joints actuate with muscles and ligaments. These will help you understand how your robots joints should work as well. It will also work to make your creations more believable.

Here some links:

- https://www.pinterest.com/achinzoo/anatomy/

- https://flabergastertron.tumblr.com/

- https://sketchfab.com/search?q=anatomy&sort_by=-pertinence&type=models

I also recommend this book on Analytical Anatomy: Figure Drawing: Design and Invention

​

Mechanical: don't just look at this stuff, you need to understand how things connect. Why did they engineer this or that a certain way. Is it supposed to move? How should it look. Is it supposed to be a conduit for wires? how does that look? Draw these things, build up the muscle memory. They will express themselves when your drawing creatively I promise, but you first have to do the studies.

Here's some links

- https://imgur.com/r/MachinePorn

- https://www.pbase.com/amoxtli/uss_midway

- https://sketchfab.com/search?q=robot&sort_by=-pertinence&type=models

​

And here's a fantastic book you should have: How to Draw: By Scott Robertson

I like where you're headed, but I think you can do better. Keep drawing and I hope that was helpful.

If you really want to draw, I'd suggest picking up How To Draw by Scott Robertson.

It leans more towards technical drawing, but one could apply the techniques learned to many types of creative drawing. There's an app you can download that scans certain pages that will link to video tutorials as well.

It's a hefty tome, but don't let that scare you off. A beginner with a willingness to practice will find their skills improve significantly, but you gotta put the time into practicing, no two ways about it.

Once you find you can handle the basics, I'd suggest taking a figure drawing class, or drawing from life in general. Community colleges are great for this sort of thing, since it would be very inexpensive compared to art school or private lessons. Anyway, good luck!

How to Draw

Hey man nice work. You obviously spent a lot of time on this so you definitely, definitely needed a contract and should've been paid regardless if they used it or backed out. I'm in the design field and this happens all the time. I'm not sayin I'm an expert or anything cause I don't freelance much but people have taken advantage of me too and you learn the hard way sometimes. I understand when you're not known or just starting out you have to take what you can get but you also cannot sell yourself short. I highly recommend this book, Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. This talk by Mike Monteiro called Fuck you, Pay me also has some great insight. Like you said, this is your lively hood and how you pay the bills and feed the family so don't take shit from flakey assholes no matter how amateur you are. Best of luck, keep grindin.

Designing Type by Karen Cheng is worth every penny. She goes into amazing detail, which you'll appreciate if you keep designing type. But, for starting out, you can at least get a good idea out of the gate for some of the details that go into type design.

Glyphs is a good, beginner friendly application. You can copy letters from Illustrator to it without much hassle (although I recommend drawing them IN Glyphs if you can). The Mini version is fine for getting up to speed. When you start digging into a larger character set, you can upgrade.

Outside of that, study type! A great first project is nothing more than recreating letters that you like the look of. Take a logo and build out the letters it doesn't use. Find an old wood or metal typeface and convert it. You can learn a lot from seeing how letters were created in the past and it can inform you on how to approach doing your own unique design.

Here's my list of the classics:

General Computing

• But How Do It Know? - The Basic Principles of Computers for Everyone
  
  
• The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles
  
  
• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
  
  
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
  
  Computer Science
  
  
• The New Turing Omnibus: Sixty-Six Excursions in Computer Science
  
  
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools, 2nd Edition (aka The Dragon Book)
  
  
• The Art of Computer Programming
  
  
• Algorithms, 4th Edition
  
  
• Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition (aka CLRS)
  
  
• Essential Algorithms: A Practical Approach to Computer Algorithms Using Python and C#, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Grokking Algorithms: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People
  
  
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, 2nd Edition (aka SICP, available for free on the MIT website)
  
  
• Discrete Mathematics with Applications, 4th Edition
  
  Software Development
  
  
• Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems by Martin Kleppmann
  
  
• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (aka The Gang of Four)
  
  
• Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving
  
  
• The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition
  
  
• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
  
  
• Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, 2nd Edition
  
  
• The Design of Everyday Things
  
  
• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
  
  
• Programming Pearls, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual
  
  
• Hello, Startup: A Programmer's Guide to Building Products, Technologies, and Teams
  
  
• Hacker's Delight, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 3rd Edition
  
  Case Studies
  
  
• The Soul of a New Machine
  
  
• Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
  
  
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
  
  
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
  
  
• Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer, 3rd Edition
  
  Employment
  
  
• Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions, 6th Edition
  
  
• The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide: How to Learn Programming Languages Quickly, Ace Your Programming Interview, and Land Your Software Developer Dream Job
  
  
• The Self-Taught Programmer: The Definitive Guide to Programming Professionally
  
  
• The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
  
  Language-Specific
  
  C
  
  
• The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition
  
  Python
  
  
• Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
  
  
• Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science, 3rd Edition
  
  
• Effective Python: 59 Specific Ways to Write Better Python
  
  C#
  
  
• The C# Player's Guide, 3rd Edition
  
  C++
  
  
• The C++ Programming Language, 4th Edition
  
  
• Starting Out with C++: from Control Structures to Objects, 9th Edition
  
  Java
  
  
• Introduction to Java Programming and Data Structures: Comprehensive Version, 11th Edition
  
  
• [Java: A Beginner's Guide](https://www.amazon.com/Java-Beginners-Seventh-Herbert-Schildt/dp/1259589315/, 7th Edition)
  
  
• Java: The Complete Reference, 11th Edition
  
  
• Core Java Volume I - Fundamentals, 11th Edition
  
  
• Starting Out with Java: From Control Structures through Objects, 6th Edition
  
  
• Effective Java, 3rd Edition
  
  Linux Shell Scripts
  
  
• The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Wicked Cool Shell Scripts: 101 Scripts for Linux, OS X, and UNIX Systems, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible
  
  
• Mastering Linux Shell Scripting
  
  Web Development
  
  
• Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics, 5th Edition
  
  
• Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming, 3rd Edition (also available for free on the author's website)
  
  
• JavaScript and JQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development
  
  
• HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites
  
  
• You Don't Know JS: Up & Going
  
  Ruby and Rails
  
  
• Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Web Development with Rails, 4th Edition (Note: this book is somewhat out of date compared to the live version on the author's website.)
  
  
• The Well Grounded Rubyist, 3rd Edition
  
  
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer
  
  
• Agile Web Development with Rails 5.1
  
  
• Programming Ruby 1.9 & 2.0: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, 4th Edition
  
  
• Eloquent Ruby
  
  Assembly
  
  
• Assembly Language for x86 Processors, 8th Edition

This book is great at developing your basic sketching skills. Mastering the basics is the secret to becoming a master designer. like /u/Methylene_Chloride said, some of you perspective is off, which throws some of the pictures.

There are plenty of books and resources out there to help! So sketch until your fingers bleed. Learn some drawing techniques like 3 point perspective drawing.

http://www.portfoliohandbook.com/

This website will help with structuring and presenting your work in a professional manner. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. You could be the greatest car designer ever, but if your portfolio is shit you wont get the job. Learn how to present your work, employers won't read any text you put with sketches or work, you need to present it in a logical order so it tells a story they can follow as they flick through your portfolio.

You could also take a year out, try and get an internship somewhere to see how the actual industry works. I wish i did this before i went to uni, as it would have given me more drive to succeed. If you do, do this you will definitely see a difference in how people work ina professional setting and at uni. Uni will be a lot more laid back than a job.

Good luck

There are a lot of people recommending certain books and videos, but personally those suggestions never worked out for me and arent the best start since they concentrate on being too flashy or don't teach the basics. The 2 books you want to buy are

Sketching: The Basics - Koos Eissen, Roselien Steur

Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers

Both are hard cover at a price of $29 and are by far the best sketching tutorial and reference books I ever purchased.

And as a starting point to sketching, buy a batch of fine point ball point pens (I recommend the Bic Ultra Round Stic Grip Black Ink Fine purchased at Staples), a ream of paper, and just start drawing straight lines across the pages.
Draw with the pen to build confidence, draw straight lines because it's the basis of product design sketching.

Then take those 2 books I recommend, and start copying page by page while practicing straight lines every day (2-3 pages a day)

I'm a big fan of peripheral accessories to hobbies - anyone who is seriously vested in a hobby will already know the best brands and products, and likely have opinions on them. It's dangerous territory to buy for the hobby if you aren't equally vested in it.

But what you can succeed at are items to make their life easier -- maybe an awesome carrying case for her art supplies or a set of frames to hang up her work or maybe a copy of The Graphic Artist Guild's Ethical Pricing Handbook for the aspiring freelance artist. (I own a copy of that book and it's really good, I recommend it to all creative freelancers.)

Design is really an emotional process. A lot of what makes good design good is because it feels right, without logic. Sometimes it's instant, sometimes it takes ages. I would recommend collaborating with a designer and work through design problems together. If you can't do that, then you gotta start with the basics.

Imitate what you like. Most things you interact with in the form of media, such as websites, books, films, all have a designed element to them. Someone, at some point, though of everything that you're seeing with such excruciating detail that most of the time (just like good special effects/compositing in film) it's invisible.

Some excellent books:
The Elements of Typographic Style by Bringhurst
Envisioning Information by Tufte
Made You Look by Sagmeister
Grid Systems by Josef Muller-Brockmann (might hard to find for cheap unless it's used)


From those, branch out and find sources that YOU like, and keep adding to your library. And copy it mercilessly until you hone your craft. Be inspired! Good luck.

That's a totally valid opinion to have, art is subjective.
But let me present you with an alternative mindset to examine.
Here is a random Josef Albers painting. Blocks of color. It's a good example of a type of art that people often don't like. Josef Albers spent his whole career doing art very similar to this (not always in squares). People would say that was a waste and not really art, but his absolute dedication to colors and how they play with each other led to the publication of Interaction of Color near the end of his life. This book had an immense impact on art education, to this day. It is a book that wouldn't have been possible without a lifetime of basic paintings of chunks of color.

A lot of "modern" art is random bullshittery (Albers himself said "Art is swindle"), but there are definitely jewels to be found.

At the end of the day, the best thing about art is that it is subjective. Art is whatever you want it to be, even if that means it's an examination of bullshit, or just an appreciation of a Bob Ross painting. As long as it brings you happiness it's a good thing.

Woah! That’s a terrible experience, you should definitely get a refund!

Some online resources which may help you:
Coursera has a very good Introductory course on UI and UX design, with topics ranging from prototyping, wireframing & user studies. Attended the course a couple years ago, and it’s been incredibly useful!
https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction-design

Butterick’s practical typography website is a great resource for Typography studies
https://practicaltypography.com/

Nielsen Norman Group’s articles often have great insights on interface design:
https://www.nngroup.com/

If you’re designing for a specific platform, you could read their human interface guidelines, which provide a lot of practical help.
https://developer.apple.com/design/
(Make sure to watch their WWDC sessions, which often talk about basic principles in UI Designs)

If you haven’t already, check out the Design of everyday things by Don Norman. It’s definitely worth reading to get a hang of basic design principles.
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1540074486&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=design+of+everyday+things&dpPl=1&dpID=410RTQezHYL&ref=plSrch

Sure! Industrial Design is quite hard (imo) to learn from purely free resources online etc. I would suggest learning some form of CAD software through tutorials online. SolidWorks is a big one however if you'd like to learn the basics for free then Google SketchUp isn't too bad. As for the other aspects, learn about manufacturing processes (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Manufacturing-Processes-Design-Professionals-Thompson/dp/0500513759 is a great book), sketch sketch sketch and develop an understanding of the breakdown of products. Also check out websites like Core77.

I know I've waffled on and probably missed the point. But hopefully that helps! I'd certainly recommend doing some sort of course at a local college if possible!

Other posters have touched on the PSD file issue, so I'll address your other two questions.

I don't think it would be awkward to offer your services for branding, if you think you're up to the task of dealing with this client. You're definitely going to cost less than a branding agency (your client might be in for a rude awakening when she sees a price estimate), but when it comes to setting your own price, don't short change yourself. Consider how much time you've spent addressing questions and concerns about simple letterhead; for a logo that'll need to be multiplied by at least 10. Not even considering the actual work of designing a logo, you need to make sure you're compensated for the work it takes to educate your client and make sure she's happy. I regularly charge more to clients who I know will require a lot of communication and who need extra support through the design process.

For a good place to start, purchase a copy of the Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. It tells you the going rate for many different types of design projects (you'll likely be surprised to see how much a seasoned pro can charge), and features templates for all types of contracts. It's been an invaluable resource for me.

Ignore Carmack (on this one, very specific issue). His conceptual model of what a UI is, can be, and should be, are extremely one directional, vision-centric, and rooted in ancient PARC UIs made for a completely different medium under totally different constraints. VR is a spatial medium by nature, and it simulates the real physical world. In VR, the world IS the interface. You don't need to conceptualize the UI as a separate thing at all. There are only interaction mechanics. You are designing for a mind, not for a rectangle.

To really hammer this home, I recommend studying the following titles:

• Job Simulator
  
  
• Rick and Morty VR
  
  
• Vacation Simulator
  
  And reading the following books:
  
  
• The design of everyday Things by Don Norman
  
  
• The body Has a Mind of its own
  
  
• 3D User Interfaces, Theory and Practice
  
  Be a bit critical of that last one - it's is all very old research. it's good for foundation but do not just copy what they've made, use it to synthesize new ideas.
  
  Leap Motion's blog is also an invaluable source of 3d human computer interaction design wisdom. They recently did a series of interaction design sprints that explore 3d physical interactions
  
  I've also gone through their blog and pulled out a bunch of articles that I found the most interesting and useful in my work:
  
  General design:
  http://blog.leapmotion.com/designing-intuitive-applications/
  
  Fictional UI:
  http://blog.leapmotion.com/fictional-uis-influence-todays-motion-controls/
  
  Vlog FUI pt 1:https://vimeo.com/103174872
  
  https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/03/sci-fi-interaction-designers-gestural-interfaces/
  
  3d OS:
  http://blog.leapmotion.com/truly-3d-operating-system-look-like/
  
  Sound in VR: http://blog.leapmotion.com/4-ways-unleash-power-sound-vr/
  
  http://blog.leapmotion.com/explorations-vr-design/
  
  If you get the chance you should play their Blocks demo to see the kind of UX that can teach a completely un-initiated VR user how to interact with a virtual world in an exceptional way. If you really care about HCI, you owe it to yourself to grab one of their devices and go all in on it. It really is an incredible new area to explore and will eventually reveal 2D-only interaction models to be the ancient dinosaurs they are.

Fair enough. You can improve your design sensibilities and make your outsourcing more effective, without doing any hands on design work, if your wrists can't take it. If you're interested in improving your design sense, getting copies of these books would be a good investment:

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward R. Tufte
  
• Envisioning Information - Edward R. Tufte
  
  Then just look at stuff - everything you see around you in the human built environment is an example of design - de-construct the designs you see in your head - is that good design? Why? Why not? Look at other people's websites - are they well designed? Why? Why not? Print, posters, ad's, flyers, books, signage, buildings, cars - everything. Learn to look at everything you see with a critical design eye. After a while, it will start to become natural and you'll just 'know' if something is a 'good design' - because this kind of mental practice will have turned it into a subconscious skill.

3rd year product design student here, so I'm offering what knowledge I have.

>What sketching exercises are helpful?

I'd say getting into the habit of drawing on a daily basis is probably the best. There is no way you won't get better. Watch some youtube videos or get a good textbook (I use this one)

>What things should I start noticing around me every day to build a designer's mentality?

Literally everything.

>What habits should I work on cementing into my daily routine?

1. Be open to criticism. Not everyone will like what you made, or agree with what you have to say.
   
   
2. Take pride in what you made, but don't become too attached to your prototypes. They will probably fail/break during testing, so take that as an opportunity to iterate and improve the design.
   
   
3. Don't be afraid to ask "why?" Ethnographic research is good design practice.
   
   
4. Document everything because you want to tell a story. See something cool? Snap a pic. Try playing around with different materials, methods, sequence of production. Organise everything into a binder so you can refer to it in the future, bring it to interviews, etc. The process is an important part of the portfolio

I recommend this book hands down. I've used it as a text book for introduction to design classes that I used to teach. Its not long, nor complex. It's not about web design, but it covers the basic design concepts that apply to everything. She has web design books to, but they assume you know the basic concepts.

GET THAT BOOK.

Tuts+ is great. I have a premium account there.
I keep an eye on smashingmagazine.com , noupe.com and speckyboy.com, as well as deriving a lot of inspiration from creattica.com, csselite.com, and cssdrive.com.

There's all my secrets! Learn to break down what you're looking at. The book will aide in that. When you know what you are looking at, and how different people can manipulate similar elements, you can then build in your own unique approaches. Good luck.

Sorry this is really not going to be helpful but I'm going to say it anyways. It's mostly practice. The more you try it, the more easily your eye spots it out. And by practice, I don't just mean look at stuff and try to find the shapes in it. Draw it out, build stuff out of geometric shapes or go over your drawings and fill it in with geometric shapes. If you search up analytical figure drawing, it basically takes this concept and applies it to the human figure. If you really want to go in depth, a book that really helped me with the technical aspect of art was the book, How to Draw. I'll link it at the bottom.
I think a lot of technical drawing is mostly retraining the things your eyes notice as well as muscle memory. If you practice enough, you'll get there. Some people like to say drawing is a talent, but the real talent is work ethic. If you want to get better, and you work at it, you will.

Link to analytical figure drawing example:
http://theartreferences.tumblr.com/post/33190998640/analytical-figure-drawing-week-6-shoulder
Link to the book:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1422224291&sr=8-2&keywords=how+to+draw

Hello,

It's good to hear that you're interested in understanding disciplines that you may engage with; it helps us all make a better product.

This book will give you a fundamental understanding of design, without respect to medium:

http://www.amazon.com/Design-Basics-David-A-Lauer/dp/0155083775

• it is a VERY basic intro, but gives you the building blocks.
  
  The following book will help you understand how type isn't just pretty, it's a functional system. Typography is the probverbial 'canary in a coal mine' ... it's how one designer recognizes if another designer 'has got it' or not:
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Typography-Workbook-Real-World-Graphic-Design/dp/1592533019/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348235424&sr=1-1&keywords=typography+workbook
  
  This book is my favorite coffee table book on design. It's tangentally related, but not directly practical. Still, I love it:
  
  http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-Revised-Updated/dp/1592535879/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348235494&sr=1-1&keywords=universal+principles+of+design
  
  Those are what I'd call appetizers. I hope some other designers chime in for ya.
  
  In the future, you should consider reading up in the 3rd point on the triangle. Web and mobile sites/apps are a synthesis of form, function and behavior. You could say that form = design, function = dev, and behavior = UX

Further reading/research: (Not all of which I've gotten to read yet. Some of which may be quite tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand along with the books and sites I mentioned above. Consider this more a list of books pertaining to the history of technology, machining, metrology, some general science and good engineering texts.)

Dan Gelbart's Youtube Channel

Engineerguy's Youtube Channel

Nick Mueller's Youtube Channel

mrpete222/tubalcain's youtube channel

Tom Lipton (oxtools) Youtube Channel

Suburban Tool's Youtube Channel

NYCNC's Youtube Channel

Computer History Museum's Youtube Channel

History of Machine Tools, 1700-1910 by Steeds

Studies in the History of Machine Tools by Woodbury

A History of Machine Tools by Bradley

Tools for the Job: A History of Machine Tools to 1950 by The Science Museum

A History of Engineering Metrology by Hume

Tools and Machines by Barnard

The Testing of Machine Tools by Burley

Modern machine shop tools, their construction, operation and manipulation, including both hand and machine tools: a book of practical instruction by Humphrey & Dervoort

Machine-Shop Tools and Methods by Leonard

A Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement by Whitelaw

Handbook of Optical Metrology: Principles and Applications by Yoshizawa

Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Gray

Machine Shop Training Course Vol 1 & 2 by Jones

A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882-1982

Numerical Control: Making a New Technology by Reintjes

History of Strength of Materials by Timoshenko

Rust: The Longest War by Waldman

The Companion Reference Book on Dial and Test Indicators: Based on our popular website www.longislandindicator.com by Meyer

Optical Shop Testing by Malacara

Lost Moon: The Preilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell and Kruger

Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Johnson & Smith

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Rich & Janos

Unwritten Laws of Engineering by King

Advanced Machine Work by Smith

Accurate Tool Work by Goodrich

Optical Tooling, for Precise Manufacture and Alignment by Kissam

The Martian: A Novel by Weir

Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain by Young Budynas & Sadegh

Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby

Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer by Shute

Cosmos by Sagan

Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook by Smith Carol Smith wrote a number of other great books such as Engineer to Win.

Tool & Cutter Sharpening by Hall

Handbook of Machine Tool Analysis by Marinescu, Ispas & Boboc

The Intel Trinity by Malone

Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Thompson

A Handbook on Tool Room Grinding

Tolerance Design: A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications by Creveling

Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy

Precision Engineering by Evans

Procedures in Experimental Physics by Strong

Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870's by Dick

Flextures: Elements of Elastic Mechanisms by Smith

Precision Engineering by Venkatesh & Izman

Metal Cutting Theory and Practice by Stephenson & Agapiou

American Lathe Builders, 1810-1910 by Cope As mentioned in the above post, Kennth Cope did a series of books on early machine tool builders. This is one of them.

Shop Theory by Henry Ford Trade Shop

Learning the lost Art of Hand Scraping: From Eight Classic Machine Shop Textbooks A small collection of articles combined in one small book. Lindsay Publications was a smallish company that would collect, reprint or combine public domain source material related to machining and sell them at reasonable prices. They retired a few years ago and sold what rights and materials they had to another company.

How Round Is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by Bryant & Sangwin

Machining & CNC Technology by Fitzpatrick

CNC Programming Handbook by Smid

Machine Shop Practice Vol 1 & 2 by Moltrecht

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles A fantastic book with tons of free online material, labs, and courses built around it. This book could take a 6th grader interested in learning, and teach them the fundamentals from scratch to design a basic computer processor and programming a simple OS etc.

Bosch Automotive Handbook by Bosch

Trajectory Planning for Automatic Machines and Robots by Biagiotti & Melchiorri

The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals by Zhu, Zienkiewicz and Taylor

Practical Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines by Brown & Sharpe

Grinding Technology by Krar & Oswold

Principles of Precision Engineering by Nakazawa & Takeguchi

Foundations of Ultra-Precision Mechanism Design by Smith

I.C.S. Reference Library, Volume 50: Working Chilled Iron, Planer Work, Shaper and Slotter Work, Drilling and Boring, Milling-Machine Work, Gear Calculations, Gear Cutting

I. C. S. Reference Library, Volume 51: Grinding, Bench, Vise, and Floor Work, Erecting, Shop Hints, Toolmaking, Gauges and Gauge Making, Dies and Die Making, Jigs and Jig Making
and many more ICS books on various engineering, technical and non-technical topics.

American Machinists' Handbook and Dictionary of Shop Terms: A Reference Book of Machine-Shop and Drawing-Room Data, Methods and Definitions, Seventh Edition by Colvin & Stanley

Modern Metal Cutting: A Practical Handbook by Sandvik

Mechanical Behavior of Materials by Dowling

Engineering Design by Dieter and Schmidt

[Creative Design of Products and Systems by Saeed]()

English and American Tool Builders by Roe

Machine Design by Norton

Control Systems by Nise

That doesn't include some random books I've found when traveling and visiting used book stores. :)

Welcome back! =)

These past few weeks I enjoyed my spring break, have been planning a bunch of stuff out to celebrate my graduation (oh jeez!), and have just been working on cleaning my room and doing my hw and whatnot. I have also contracted a STRONG case of senioritis. GUH I can't wait to just graduate, enjoy my summer, mayyyybe get an internship, and then start grad school! What have YOU been up to?? =)

Thanks so much for hosting this contest! Here's a link if you really want it, but feel free to surprise me!

thanks for posting. I think you have a great attitude, and honestly, attitude counts for more than you think.

I'll not critique the website, but, knowing you're new to the fundamentals, try to share some more general thoughts.

1. do more. I think you're starting this already with some of your sketches for mini cooper. but always, always, do more. 50 iterations, 100 iterations. Keep pushing beyond the obvious, and use sketching as the tool to do that. I read an old design book, from the 70s, that said "only one solution is the symptom of an inflexible and untrained mind." /r/52weeksofdesign
   
   
2. Time to get up on the basics. That means the basics of drawing (if you so please). It's not a requirement as a designer (I'm a piss poor artist), but it definitely helps sometimes. http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419898682&sr=8-1&keywords=right+hand+drawing
   
   What sketching is important for is flexing ideas and testing compositions before going to the computer.
   
   
3. Learn the basics of typography:
   http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Graphic-Design-Communication-Courses/dp/0321934288/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898490&sr=1-1&keywords=stop+stealing+sheep
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Version-Anniversary/dp/0881792128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898879&sr=1-1&keywords=robert+bringhurst
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898800&sr=1-2&keywords=typography
   
   
4. Grids
   http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898762&sr=1-1&keywords=kimberly+elan
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestaltung/dp/3721201450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419898837&sr=8-1&keywords=grid+systems
   
   
5. Photography (if you like)
   http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-Photography-Manual-Revised/dp/0316373052/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419898921&sr=8-2&keywords=black+and+white+photography
   
   and
   
   
6. remember that this is detail work. So things like spelling errors in this post, and on your website, should be resolved.
   
   Above and beyond the basics, I see your passion is impacting the world through design. So the question becomes HOW can graphic design impact the world, and does it at all? and what can you make or do directly? I think above all, a designer is an entrepreneur these days. Especially with that main driving passion.
   

I feel like there are too many different fonts at first glance. The site seems more cohesive as you scroll down.

Try to keep the font styles down to three.

Right now I see:

1. Your logo (Marketing Script w/ color 1)
   
2. The first 'Simple. Honest. Smart.' slogan (Josefin Slab, black)
   
3. Menu/Paragraph text (Open Sans, black)
   
4. Book Now (Open Sans, bold white on purple)
   
5. Satisfaction Guaranteed seal
   
6. 'Twice as Nice Guarantee' and other subheaders (Coustard, color 1)
   
7. Powered by STRIPE logo/button
   
   I like the Coustard + color, keep the open sans for content readability. Maybe experiment with bringing the buttons closer to your main design while still having them pop.
   
   Also the images.... what's the boat all about? Why are there abstract figures next to 'Easy'? You should be able to find stock photos of happy actual people, and beautiful clean rooms.
   
   The pyramid structure for news also applies to websites. I like that you introduce your three core features in the first paragraph, but then I would bring up the expansions you have buried at the bottom.
   
   Next I would do [booking is] Easy, then Safe, then Guaranteed.
   
   
   *disclaimer - I'm more of a programmer than a designer, but I have to do a lot of design. The Non-Designer's Design Book has helped me immensely.

Do you have an understanding of what Game Design actually is?

Edit: So, about the things in promissed in the responsed below.

Design
Design Thinking

Universal Principles of Design book

"Design" comprehend a set of methodologies and "ways of thinking" specifically designed (lol) to identify opportunities and approach the creation of solutions in an objective manner. Being objective means that the process of design, its tools and concepts, allow for the effectiveness of the design to be measured and iterated upon. Every design is created to be enjoyed by people in a functional manner in their lives. Meaning that people will interact with said design, instead of just appreciated from a distance.
Every discipline of design (graphic design, industrial design, software design, game design and so on…) will share the same fundamentals that will guide the mindset of designing. Then obviously every discipline will have it’s own specific characteristics and differences that have been discovered and studied over the years, but the fundamentals are the same.
Once you internalize these design process, making a game on your own or inside a big company becomes the same thing, because it will follow the same procedures. The "fun" will be on the process, and not on the result.

Practical Creativity by Ralph Koster it's an example of using this mindset to game design. His website has a good amount of essays on the subject. Jesper Juul is another great reference on the field.

I recently bought a book called Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines, 15th Edition and it has pretty good information about pricing and other stuff. So far it's pretty good but it may be a bit pricy(depends where you're from obviously), but if you're interested in starting out selling your art, I highly recommend it. It's a bit technical so it's no bed-side reading!


Kendyll Hillegas has also great information about selling your art and about some general stuff also, so check her out also!

Here's some links of books I put on my wish list. Its a lot of stuff about grids, which is something you should learn.

Grid Systems in Graphic Design

Universal Principles of Design

The Grid: A Modular System for the Design and Production of Newpapers, Magazines, and Books

The Elements of Typographic Style (A dry read, but very valuable knowledge)

Thinking with Type

I learned most of my composition skills from Drawing and Painting classes. I've heard photography is a great way to learn composition too.

Aside from that use Lynda.com and learn your color theory. You should also learn stuff like using CMYK vs RGB. Common sizes for print material in your country.

If you go Freelance, use this book: Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines

If you haven't discovered this site and you're feeling frustrated, just remember it could be worse: Clients From Hell

And just for fun: How a Web Design Goes Straight To Hell, Why You Don't Like Changes to Your Design

In no particular order but all of the following are great.

• Skunk Works by Ben Rich - I reviewed it here
  
• Ignition! - It's an informal history of liquid rocket propellant and I did a more in depth review of it here
  
• The Design of Everyday Things - A book about how objects are designed. It changed how I look at the world and approach design. It took me few tries to get into it the first time.
  
• Introduction to Astrodynamics by Battin - A great textbook on the basics of astrodynamics that is both easy enough for undergrads to start, and rigorous enough to keep you interested as your math skills improve in grad school and later.

Sweeeeeet, thanks! It's a moderately famous (for a teapot, I suppose) example of self-defeating design. It's featured on the cover of The Design of Everyday Things and is a prized part of the author's personal teapot collection. I have a friend who really wants one. If you can CAD it, I can get it 3D printed in ceramic, fired and glazed. If I can do all that before some undetermined time in September, I'll have a lovely gift for when said friend (hopefully) passes an important milestone.

Again, thank you so much for even attempting this. PLEASE let me do something nice for you in return!

Do you have access to this book (Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook: Pricing and Ethical Guidelines)? If not, I highly recommend getting a copy. It sets the industry standard as far as pricing for illustration work and is how I begin pricing for all of my projects. It'll give ranges as well, but I find it to be greatly useful.

Tips beyond using this book - take into account the amount of time the project will take you, the size of the illustrations (half page, full spread?), whether you want to include an advance against royalties (this is usually done for children's books) and what rights you are granting them.

Also, since it is a fairly large project, I would recommend laying out a partial payment schedule in your contract - something like 50% after sketches, 50% within 30 days of delivery of final art.

Hope this helps!

Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.

The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898

Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788

Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4

Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213

To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905

Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745

Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

There are three things I would recommend to you. :)

• This GIGANTIC page of info on color and light
  
• Scott Robertson's How to Render
  
• James Gurney's Color and Light
  
  You'll find that a lot of information on color out there is almost strictly theory oriented (not a big surprise considering it's called color theory), and there isn't much practical help on how to apply that information. Each of the things I just suggested are all very practical sources of information for learning how to work with color.
  
  Some things you should note, though...the Scott Robertson book is designed to build on top of his book How to Draw. That book teaches you perspective and how to create proper 3d forms in 2d space. How to Render builds on that by teaching you how light will interact realistically with those forms you now know how to create. If you don't want to work through How to Draw, that's fine (though I highly suggest that book as well)...but you'll probably be losing out on a fuller understanding of the concepts.
  
  Make sure that before you move too much into painting and color working that you can make well constructed drawings and can handle value properly. Those two are the most important. Why? Because if you don't have a proper looking drawing then no matter how well you can render and lay color over it...that won't save it...it will still look wrong. And if you can draw well constructed things but you're weak in values, then you're really in trouble. If, when you lay down color, the values of those colors are wrong, then your well constructed forms that you drew will no longer read as the forms that they're supposed to because the "light" that's interacting with the form isn't interacting like it would in real life so your eye reads it as a different form than you intended.
  
  I understand that they style you're going after isn't at all realistic. On some of them the color that's there isn't even being used to render...it's simply there as a graphic element. Which is fine! Really awesome style. But you will be well served if you put in the time to learn the technical application of light and color. That way, since you know the "rules", you'll have control over the color...when to use it realistically and how and when to use it graphically...rather than the color having control over you. :)
  
  Hope this helps! :)

lets see...

• Bill Byrson's The Mother Tongue
  
• Korea, old and new: A history
  
• Sandman Slim
  
• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
  
• How to Win Friends & Influence People
  
• The Design of Everyday Things
  
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces
  
  I've been interested in the development of the english language, and I like Bryson's writing style. I met someone from Korea, and as per my usual habit, when I meet someone out of country I try to learn some of their native history, thus the history book. I like urban fantasy, so Sandman slim looked interesting. I'm a CompE major, so code and The design of everyday things is relevant to me. The others are just things that have been recommended to me.
  
  I think I might get get through half of them at most, especially since I also have a Steam library calling me like the whore it is. This is the first year I have access to a large university library during break, so I'm going to take advantage of it.l

You need to draw through. That means drawing every side of the cube, even if you don't see that corner.

None of your lines are straight. Practice one movement of your arm that results in a perfectly straight line. it's hard to make yourself learn this but practice is important. once you have that one perfectly straight stroke just rotate your paper around and do the same motion every time.

You also need to work on your perspective.

these are some great books to start with: 1-2-3.

Depends on what you want to do — UX is a pretty broad field. I'm a user interface designer with a UX background, which means I've designed sites, web apps and mobile apps, but there's plenty of UX positions that don't require any sort of visual design or front-end development experience.

For example, there are labs that conduct user research and interviews, run focus groups, or do user testing. Hell, you could even apply to be a user tester at a site like usertesting.com. Not sure how much money you can make from that, but it's something.

Also, there are UX positions that go from beginning research and discovery for projects up through the wireframing, which doesn't require any visual design experience. You'll usually hand off your UX work to a designer or a developer to implement.

Some good books to read about UX are:

• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  
• Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug
  
• About Face 3 by a couple people
  
• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
  
• The Inmates Are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper
  
• The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett
  
  There's also plenty of online resources about UX. Smashing Magazine has a ton of articles on it.
  
  If you are good at puzzles, love solving complex problems, and contain any shred of empathy, user experience could be a good field for you.

That sounds like a huge project, which hopefully they're aware of. That said, it sounds like it could be quite lucrative, given the amount of work there is to do. My best suggestion would be to invest in the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines; it'll give you the best idea as to what to charge, more so than anyone else on this subreddit will be able to.

If you've got the time and resources to spare, try making maquettes. You can get modeling clay fairly cheap, and it can be incredibly helpful to throw together a quick maquette, chuck it under a lamp, and see what happens with the light.

If you want a great pair of books on light and form by a master painter, check out James Gurney's Color and Light and Imaginative Realism. His blog is worth a read as well, it's always informative and interesting.

If you want a more technical approach to lighting, How to Render is a fantastic technical examination of how light behaves on various surfaces. The associated How to Draw is an excellent technical book on perspective. Both are a bit dry and clinical, but quite excellent.

Anything by Andrew Loomis is also well worth picking up.

I'm telling you... you do not have to wait to become a web designer especially if you have any CS chops. It sounds like you need some kind of validation lol? In design you have to be an entrepreneur, design your own experience, find out some people who are doing design x software email them... surprise them, designers love surprises and something different... make your own luck.

As far as Amazon good books, you really want to aim for a whole view of design at this point. Think of it like you wouldn't learn run before you can walk, there is A LOT out there.

• https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466034268&sr=8-1&keywords=thinking+in+systems
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1466034307&sr=8-3&keywords=alan+cooper
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Media-Extensions-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/0262631598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466034386&sr=8-1&keywords=marshall+mcluhan+understanding+media
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466034432&sr=8-1&keywords=don+norman

I enjoyed The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman which everyone seems to recommend for designers of all types from UI to ID.

I haven't looked at any of the others suggested for materials but I was very surprised at how good Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals was when I was looking through it last week, it's full of images and diagrams and does a great job of going over things. Much more interesting than this book which I used in Man. Tech.

If you want to get into design, make design. Your 5D illustrations are just illustrations. Ask yourself: In what contexts could one use them? What kind of client might be looking for something like that?

I personally find your "RE-DESIGN: A Portfolio of Quondam Flack" stuff much more expressive and more interesting than all your drawings. With one exception: I think this one is well drawn. A nice illustration with a solid composition. I wished there was more of that in your portfolio.

When I read your "about", I can't help but think: She's juggling too many balls at once. You've got many ideas which is great. But I think you should learn more about typography and composition if you want to make graphic design.

At the moment, when I'm scrolling through your works, nothing seems to belong together. Make a PDF of your 5D illustrations and flip through them as if it was a magazin/artbook to see what I mean.

To offer a certain level of quality in your portfolio, sort out weaker works like this, this and perhaps also that.

I'm also not sure about this one. As a longtime digital artist, I often see this kind of colouring with a soft round brush in paintings done by beginners. If you want to show your drawings in your portfolio, I also recommend to learn about anatomy and proportions. This is not acceptable. (I wouldn't tell you this if your drawings were of the same quality as your photographs.)

If I were you, I'd keep drawing as a hobby (until I'm better at it) and I'd invest time in learning about typography and grid systems and try to extend this style. Imagine you are working for a client, a magazin, that wants you to make collages like these for a fixed topic. Make a sequence of illustrations/collages. Three to five is enough. Try to design some fake covers. I could also imagine a CD cover and booklet in your style. And so on ...

Try The Design of Everyday Things.

Every engineer should read this book.


FWIW, I discovered that good design always happens iteratively. The longer I spend in this career, the more convinced I am of this concept. The idea that an engineer sits down with a blank piece of paper (or screen) and creates an elegant, useful, efficient design is just a fantasy. As a consultant it is really hard to communicate this to clients. The cost of their one-off custom machine isn't going to be in the same ballpark as the standard model machine they bought a few years ago from a company that sales a few dozen of the exact same model every year. I say that to say, good designs don't come just from a good fundamental understanding of design principles, they come from actual experience in the relevant domain.

I can't believe no one's suggested the phenomenal and foundational Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. He essentially created the idea of user-centered design, and his book is still the best overall explanations of what makes good design good.

I'm one of the founders of /r/designforpeople where we cover material like this. We're focused on the intersection between people and design, with a focus on how good and bad design affects the people that have to use it every day. We've just started up but I think you and your interest would be a great addition to it. If that sounds interesting — come check us out!

OK I found what this website is probably referencing. It's on page 38 of this book.

I have copied and pasted the text from that page below. The design book cites this 2007 paper by Joan Meyers Levy and Rui Zhu, titled "The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing That People Use." The Journal of Consumer Research is peer-reviewed.

Anyway, I'm not sure if it's legit because as you say there's a dearth of sources. But the author of the linked page isn't really talking out of their ass, either.

>Cathedral Effect: A relationship between the perceived height of a ceiling and cognition. High ceilings promote abstract thinking and creativity. Low ceilings promote concrete and detail-oriented thinking.

>It is widely accepted that people prefer high ceilings to low ceilings. Lesser known, however, is that ceiling height can influence how people approach problem solving. Depending on the nature of the problem, ceiling height can either undermine or enhance problem-solving performance.

>Conspicuous ceiling height — that is, noticeably low or noticeably high ceilings — promotes different types of cognition, with high ceilings promoting abstract thinking and creativity and low ceilings promoting concrete and detail-oriented thinking. No effect is observed if the ceiling height goes unnoticed. In self-report measures, people predictably rated their general affect as “freer” in high-ceilinged rooms versus “confined” in low-ceilinged rooms. In word tasks, subjects were able to solve anagram problems more efficiently when the anagram aligned with ceiling height. For example, subjects in a high-ceilinged room could solve freedom-related anagrams (e.g., “liberation”) faster than those in a low-ceilinged room, but were slower to solve confinement-related anagrams (e.g., “restrained”) than those in the low-ceilinged room. A more practical example is an experiment in which two groups were asked to conduct product evaluations, one group in a high-ceilinged room and one in a low-ceilinged room. The group in the highceilinged room tended to focus on general product characteristics, whereas the group in the low-ceilinged room tended to focus on specific features. One hypothesis is that this effect is due to priming — the stimulation of certain concepts in memory to promote and enhance cognition regarding related concepts.

>With the cathedral effect, high ceilings prime “freedom” and related concepts and low ceilings prime “confinement” and related concepts. Consider the cathedral effect in the design of work and retail environments. For tasks that require creativity and out-of-the-box thinking (e.g., research and development) favor large rooms with high ceilings. For tasks that require detail-oriented work (e.g., surgical operating room) favor smaller rooms with lower ceilings. In retail environments, favor spaces with high ceilings when consumer choice requires imagination (e.g., home remodeling store) and spaces with lower ceilings for more task-oriented shopping (e.g., convenience store). Favor high ceilings to extend the time in which visitors remain on site (e.g., casino) and low ceilings to minimize loitering (e.g., fast food restaurant). See also Defensible Space, Exposure Effect, Priming, and Prospect-Refuge.

I've found all of these books to be helpful. I think you mainly would find the Grid Systems book useful.

Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam is a pretty good reference for using grids and better understanding composition. It has alot of examples of works that are accompanied by transparent pages that have grids to lay over them.

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton helped with just understanding typography better.

Designing Type by Karen Cheng is good for understanding the intricacies of type and the differences between different typefaces by using grids.

You don't have to copy or mimic. Learn basic graphic design structure taught in schools. The most basic system imho, is the Swiss Grid System.

https://nicolamurphy17.wordpress.com/visual-literacy-2/research/the-swiss-grid-system/

It is based on readability and graphic structure. It shares a lot of it's core to current CSS grid libraries today. Looking back at graphic design as a base is very valuable as it is visible and pretty explicit in it's representation.

I originally came from graphic design in 1989. I taught myself HTML and CSS in 1995 after doing manual layout, poster art, etc. That led to flash and actionscript (won awards, featured in taschen books, k10k, etc.) This then led to more multimedia and interactive work, Stewart Little screensaver in flash, Time Warner road runner broadband experiences for their "new high speed internet" launch using SMIL, actionscript, and some early J's work... Flash begins to die and JQuery starts up...and then the dot com crash.

I leave the web world to return to school for architecture. I end up with a master's degree from a top school doing theoretical architecture and using lots of computation, python, to analyze environments and the placement of large scale media and interactivity (a ton of work for large scale LED in Time Square, sports arenas, etc). At the same time I teach myself Django, sql alchemy, flask, and all of the other python dev tools. I use this for data aggregation and presentation. And now, I have tackled Dart, Vuejs, Angular Dart, Flutter, and finding new ways to use the as tools to keep pushing forward.

With all of that, my initial education in pre digital graphic design principles has been as important as anything else; to quickly visualize a design and it's technical structure is an incredibly valuable asset across creative fields. So...learn some basic graphic design layout principles and use that to attempt to understand design from a structural standpoint...how would you construct what you see. The Swiss Grid System is a nice basic foundation that almost all grid systems today are inspired from, if they know it or not.

A good book on the topic

There are some great concepts here!
I feel like the typography could use some more work. For example the H in "The flawed game" isn't centered in the box and some of the font choices could be improved upon.

It should also be noted that I haven't read any of the books!

that being said here are some feedback (personal opinion):
Do some more thurough font-searching or try to incorporate the current fonts more into the design – many of these feels like the text has been just smacked on.

In "A model of horror" you could try and decrease the line-height between "A model" and "Of horror"
I would probably go with another font-pairing on that one aswell.
Perhaps something like Macabre by Dave Coleman could fit here (https://www.futurefonts.xyz/dave-coleman/macabre)
It also feels like the balance is a bit off. It feels like you are trying to utilize whitespace and a minimalist approach, but it feels a bit crowded still. Try and reduce the size of the secondary text (and perhaps chose a more legible font for small type). Maybe even try and make the illustration only the hair?

Again with whitespace and balance, in the "Terms of contention" it feels like the illustration is a bit too large and the cut line is a bit too distracting.
Perhaps try and shrink the illustration and make the line a bit faded. I'd also try and remove the dash closest to the scissor, it feels a bit cramped now.

I would also recommend reading a bit about grids and how to utilize them in your designs. There is a great book called "Grid systems in graphic design: A visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers".

It has helped me probably more than any book I've read in making balanced and well thought out layouts, especially when it's typographic work.

Then again, this is nitpicking. Sounds like a fun project! Keep it up!

Disclaimer: I am a sucker for Swiss International style and my critique comes from a Swiss International mindset!



Edit: Corrected I'äve to I've

I wouldn't pay to get certified, at least not a first. There's plenty of high quality intro stuff available for free or cheap, and most places hiring designers only care about your portfolio, not whether you have a certification.

The steps I would take:

1. Learn design [1]
   
   
2. Build some prototype sites, put them online [2].
   
   
3. Get freelance design work, add to #2.
   
   
4. Get hired at a startup or some other company with a strong emphasis on design.
   
   
5. Once you get good enough, apply for an account at some of the selective online portfolio sites [3].
   
   
6. If after all that you still feel like you need a certificate, go for it.
   
   -------------------------------
   
   
7. http://www.reddit.com/r/design
   
   http://designforhackers.com/
   
   http://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html (summary)
   
   http://htmlandcssbook.com/
   
   http://www.shapeofdesignbook.com/
   
   http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Williams/dp/0321534042
   
   http://retinart.net/book-reviews/9-mini-reviews/
   
   http://www.abookapart.com/
   
   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1768358
   
   http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/parallax-website-design/
   
   http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/illustration-vector-landscapes/
   
   http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3559918
   
   http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/elements-clean-web-design/
   
   etc, that's a few of many good ones I've bookmarked.
   
   
8. http://duckduckgo.com/?q=online+portfolio (too many to list)
   
   
9. Dribbble; Forrst; More.

1. Done
   
   
2. Smile :) It's Contagious.
   
   
3. I like to bake something sweet. Or take a nice hot steamy shower.
   
   
4. My girls always make me smile.
   
   
5. I am the middle child, yet the only girl. It rocks.
   
   
6. nifty coloring book
   
   
7. "Ella is getting a big girl crib!" Yay for becoming a big girl! My 4month old hates her crib.
   
   ps: Thanks for the contest. Don't forget to buy a mattress protector, keep that crib mattress nice.

On typography:

• The Elements of Typographic Style, the Bible of Typography.
  
• Thinking with Type, a nice overview of how type works.
  
• Detail in Typography, on the finer points of type.
  
  On grids:
  
  
• Raster Systeme, by the eminent expert of the Swiss School.
  
• Making and Breaking the Grid, a modern update on the timeless grid.
  
  On colour:
  
  
• The Art of Color, a classic on color.
  
• Interaction of Color, another classic text on color (theory).
  
  On usability:
  
  
• Don't Make Me Think, a classic on web usability.
  
• The Design of Everyday Things, a general usability Urtext.
  
• Understanding Comics, a great primer from an unlikely field.
  
  On information design:
  
  
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, the master at work.
  
  On inspiration:
  
  
• How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer, inspiration from the field.
  
• How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul
  
  On theory:
  
  
• What is a designer, philosophical musings, existential questions.
  
• Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field, theoretical backgrounds on the craft.
  
  On history:
  
  
• Meggs' History of Graphic Design, a canonical classic.
  
• Graphic Design: A New History, an alternative narrative.
  
  Monographs:
  
  
• From Lascaux to Brooklyn, the inimitable Paul Rand.
  
• Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design, the art of Saul Bass.
  
• Tibor Kalman, Perverse Optimist, the exceptional work of Mr Kalman.

Experienced designer here. The best way to learn to sketch by yourself is to watch tutorials and to practice a lot. The Gnomon Workshiop is an amazing ressource for basic sketching in industrial design. I strongly suggest that you check out the "Basic Perspective Form Drawing" DVD. A lot of student try to make awesome photoshop rendering before they know the basics of perspective, dont fall in this trap.

There is also ID Sketching which is a cool website with tutorials

A good book on the subject
Drawing Techniques for Product Designers

As for design theory, one of the most common reads in university is the The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
The Design of Everyday Things

I remember a teacher saying that to be an expert at something you have to put 10 000 hours in it, so you better sharpen those pencils ! Tell me if you need more information.

Definitely, not sure what your budget is but there's a book I have called "How to Draw" https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1933492732/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491345682&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=how+to+draw+scott

It goes from A-Z learning to draw and think in 3D. It's an awesome book. I'm currently in art school and I had the pleasure of hearing one of the authors talk about it. After this book there's a second one called "How to Render" which goes through all the dynamics of light.

The thing I really like about these books is that it approaches drawing from an analytical point of view and really gets at the science behind it.

I'm still learning myself so some of these books I'm recommending depend on your skillset and interest I guess. For typedesign and understanding fundamentals: Designing type is a good read, same with Stroke. Free stuff like briem superhandy. As a primer I'd read this before I buy a type design book. For lettering I don't really have books of preference. I generally go googling for info on whatever I may have a doubt in or if I just need inspiration. Like if I were looking at script, I'd look at works by Tony di spigna, tommy thompson, david quay and the like. When I once had a doubt about negative space within letters, I googled and stumbled upon this which helped. so for lettering it's a bit all over the place where I mostly just got info from googling. However if you want a book in lettering for a beginner-intermediate then logo,font & lettering gets you upto speed on a lot of things though he can be a lil old in his methods. Also books by Mortimer Leach and Doyald Young. For calligraphy I think I mostly learnt it from speedball manuals and then just googled but more importantly I did a lot of writing which is why I picked up on it. I think to understand type properly you need to do some calligraphy, once you get a grasp on calligraphy, typedesign makes sense so you go buy type design books, eventually lettering becomes super easy.

Interaction Design

• About Face 3 by Alan Cooper
  
• Designing Interactions by Bill Moggridge
  
• Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell
  
• Designing for the Digital Age by Kim Goodwin
  
• Making Things Talk: (2011) (2007) by Tom Igoe
  
  Interior Design
  
  
• The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton and Ogden, Jr. Codman
  
• Domino: The Book of Decorating by Deborah Needleman
  
• Design*Sponge at Home: A Guide to Inspiring Homes by Grace Bonney
  
• The Vintage/Modern Home by Katherine Sorrell
  
• The Fundamentals of Interior Design by Simon Dodsworth
  
  Landscape Architecture
  
  
• Landscape Architectural Graphic Standards by Leonard J. Hopper
  
• Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers
  
• Landscape Graphics by Grant W. Reid
  
• Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• Design with Nature by Ian L. McHarg
  
  Lighting Design
  
  
• Stage Lighting Design by Richard Pilbrow
  
• The Architecture of Natural Light by Henry Plummer
  
• Painting With Light by John Alton
  
• Made of Light by Anthony Tischhauser
  
• Color, Environment and Human Response by Frank H. Mahnke & Rudolf H. Mahnke
  
  Product Design
  
  
• Sketching: Drawing Techniques from Product Designers by Koos Eissen
  
• Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek
  
• The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
  
• Mythologies by Roland Barthes
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
  Product Design
  
  
• In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World by John Thackara
  
• The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine II & James H. Gilmore
  
• Universal Methods of Design by Bruce Hanington & Bella Martin
  
• Cradle to Cradle. Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough & Michael Braungart
  
• Mental Models by Indi Young
  
  Sound Design
  
  
• Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema by David Sonnenschein
  
• Designing Sound by Andy Farnell
  
• Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen by Michel Chion
  
• The Sound Effects Bible by Ric Viers
  
• Sound Theory Sound Practice by Rick Altman
  
  Urban Design
  
  
• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
  * Cities for People by Jan Gehl
  
• A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
  
• The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler
  
• The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch
  
  Web Design
  
  
• Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  
• HTML & CSS: Design and Build Web Sites by Jon Duckett
  
• The Principles of Beautiful Web Design by Jason Beaird
  
• Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS by Ben Frain
  
• Hardboiled Web Design by Andy Clarke
  

In terms of hand sketching? If so, I've found this book to be super helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/Sketching-12th-printing-Techniques-Designers/dp/9063691718/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1498808723&sr=8-1&keywords=product+sketch+for+product+designers

Whenever I'm stuck on a sketch or idea, and either need inspiration or need help visualizing a form, I'll flip through the pages of a book like this and find one of the sketching styles or one of the many products listed in books like this to keep things moving.

The psychology of design is something that's always interested me. I studied it for about a year and it killed. The work was intense but I got a good understanding for the user/designer thought process. If you are in the mood for some light reading then I'd reccomend The Design Of Everyday things by Don Norman

I'd also recommend looking into The seven stages of action concerning user centred design

Good luck with the thesis and keep us updated :)

Well then it sounds like you're in a great place to do whatever the fuck you want! Congrats! My advice right off the bat, and apologies if you've heard this all before, would be to use the designs with color, 3,4, & 5 as a jumping off point and make maybe up to at least 50 more versions of each one. Play around a lot with the font size, letter spacing, and colors of the type. Test them out on some free mock ups of shirts, hoodies, etc, so you can get a general idea of how different design options will pair well with your clothes.

​

Also, after reading some of the comments above, just my two cents but don't worry about trying to be original. Doesn't matter as long as you put in the work to make your best work. Just keep knocking out ideas and you got this.

​

Some recommended reads:

​

typewolf blog by jermiah shoaf . All font stuff this guy really knows his shit.

Interaction of color by Joseph Albers. Color Color and more Color! Good for thinking about color pairings

​

Do you not agree that there are a whole load of really immature books about game design that are sold more on the fact that "its a book about games" than its inherent content ?

Even within the space of magazines I think it would be fair to call Nintendo power immature and something like EDGE , Games TM or Develop magazine Mature.

for someone starting from scratch you would get allot more by reading these books than by watching EC ( obviously can do both and EC is a nice starting pion for someone totally new to games)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465067107?ie=UTF8&tag=alwaysblack01-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0465067107

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0273693646?ie=UTF8&tag=alwaysblack01-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0273693646

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1932111972

allso over view books on Game theory , the history of the microchip and computing , evolution and basic biology can be incredibly good in helping think about games as an art and the limitations in the development of software.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fun-Games-Text-Game-Theory/dp/0669246034/ref=cm_lmf_tit_12

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321193679/zx81orguk00

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932633439/zx81orguk00

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-History-Information-Machine-Technology/dp/0465029906


I realise EC is just easily consumable general information and that's fine just wish they did it without the pretence , like I said in other comments I'm glad they make it even though it personally annoys the hell out of me its beneficial for games as a whole as there is a general lack of even moderately intelligent talk about games.

nice colored pencils, or really nice drawing pencils. I'm sure she'd also like cool books on graphic design to read herself and then share with her students, like this or this. Lastly- I'm going to go against the grain and advise you to not get her 'teacher-y' things like mugs, as a teacher, I can assure you we get plenty of those.

This is a great book on the topic for people interested.

Really popular in the startup scene, guess it's good to know what your up against. Or use it for good :)

Getting somebody a gift in this sort of area is VERY tricky. He probably already knows exactly what he wants or has it already or its out of price range. Trick is to get something, somewhat related but not in his direct field, so tripod is a no-no.

Maybe a camera slider, or cineskates type product? On cheaper end those run sub 100 bucks. I disagree with video editing book suggestions as he probably already has material he's reading related to video editing. If he doesn't have a graphics background maybe something like this? http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-3rd/dp/0321534042/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396895058&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Non-Designer%27s+Design+Book good book about general design rules/practices which assist when making titles and the like. Maybe just a nice coffee table book to gain inspiration from or something along those lines.

This is an improvement. I'll give you that. I appreciate the effort that went into it. It's very pretty in some ways, and the mouseover effect on the tiles is kind of cool I guess.

It's still an incredibly space inefficient way to distribute information. Look at this. I've got a 1920x1080 monitor with Firefox full screen, and I can't even see 9 of your links at once. I can't read the preview text of any of them without mousing over. Is there some reason you can't display this information in a manner where I can just, y'know, read it?

A good start to being able to display a lot of useable links to articles at once is within the article archives, which with a slight bump in title size would be an excellent front page set of article links, but even that is a pain to deal with because this is the first thing you see upon loading the archives. Full screen on a 1080p monitor and I can see the entire preview text of exactly one article without scrolling down.

This site was designed by someone who thinks a lot about how to make things attractive and is good with graphical design software, but has no concept of User Interface Design. Please buy everyone on your design staff a copy of The Design of Everyday Things and make it mandatory reading. It's very possible to design for both visual aesthetic as well as functionality, that just hasn't happened here.

Aside from that I'll echo the disappointment that you can't middle click on the giant boxes, only the "read more" link, no idea why that functionality doesn't work.

Let me reiterate that I believe this is an improvement and I appreciate that effort is being made to make a better experience, but there's still a long way to go, and a company the size of WotC shouldn't need me to tell it that.

First, I would study some basic design principles. Look at a few books on typography, grid, etc. Learn about some of the major design movements.

Check out these book:
http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-Revised-Updated/dp/1592535879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299115160&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299115186&sr=1-7-spell

What tends to happen is most people dive into these tutorials knowing how to use the programs, but not knowing anything about design in general. Knowing how to use Photoshop doesn't necessarily mean you are a designer, like knowing how to play a few chords on a guitar doesn't necessarily make you a musician.

Web design is big now, but if you want to hop on the next gravy train, I'd suggest getting into Mobile / Tablet visual design. The demand is hot and theres not enough people who know how to do proper visual design for touch screen devices.

Oh yeah, and Lynda.com and tutsplus is good too. Learn the programs, but don't expend too much energy learning fancy lighting tricks until you've learnt the basics of design. It'll help build a foundation on which you can go from there.

I have compiled a reading list to be read in order just for this question.

I strongly believe that these books will make you better than 90% of designers out there.

Level One

Start with Thinking with Type it is a really good introduction to all things graphic design. It focuses a lot on typography and it is really basic. I

Next is Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type This book takes what you learned in Thinking with Type and allows you to develope it further in a grid based system. Its good, basic, and has exercises for you to do to play with composition.

Third on the list is Graphic Design: The New Basics It will take what you learned in Thinking with Type and Grid Systems and open them up a little. You learn about design elements other than just type like scale, rhythm and contrast. It really good, and has some projects to do.

Level 2

Now You can get into more "advanced" stuff. There are a lot of books that can go here, but Ill recommend some of my favorites. Its not as important to do this section in order.

Grid Systems in Graphic Design is the bible when it comes to grids. Its german and dry as fuck, but it is basically awesome. Its expensive, but worth every single penny.

Elements of Typographic Style Not alot about grids in here, but it tells you every insane crazy thing that typographers do when they massage text.

You can look at other designers work too. Heres a list of designers I like a lot:

Stefan Sagmeister

Paul Rand

Massimo Vignelli

James Victore

Paul Sahre

Wolfgang Weinhart

Paula Scher

Tibor Kalman

Most of these designers also have books out about their life and work.

Get a sketchbook and play around in it. Draw, collage, glue bubblegum wrappers in there. Just make it a diary of your visual life.

You could also get into Visual Theory here:
Norman Bryson has a book on still lifes that awesome
JWT Mitchell's What do pictures want is great

After this, its just a matter of making a lot of really bad shit and eventually its just a little less worse and maybe one day it might be good.

Ive got more, but that should keep you busy for a year or two.

I am pretty sure there is no "perfect font." There are fonts that work well in many situations, like Helvetica, but would not work well in other situations. However, if you do a certain style of design, there may very well be a couple typefaces that works well for most of what you do.

There is a whole other issue of do you want to use fonts that you have to pay for or not.

I recommend "The Non-Designer's Design Book" by Robin Williams, which I recently read. This is a graphics design book, but it is not focused on web design. Still, she has some good design ideas. I would like to read a more up to date book on typography.

Focus on UI design.

A lot of people tend to think of programming as very math-heavy (it's not, unless the domain you're writing software for is weather simulations or something that itself requires math). So we end up thinking the technical side is important and the "soft skills" are unimportant (or at least, not worth including in our study time).

I'm old enough now where I still like programming, but I've realized I don't care about code; I care about making software that people actually use and find useful. Building a tesla coil in your garage is cool, but so what tons of geeks have done that. I want to make something useful, and it doesn't matter how elegant your algorithms are if your program is confusing, unusable, or solves the wrong problem.

I'd recommend these books, in roughly this order:

• Don't Make Me Think
  
  
• User Interface Design for Programmers
  
  
• The Design of Everyday Things
  
  But to answer your question: personally, I'd do math. I'm so busy that I don't have time to just sit and study math for fun very often, so it'd have been nice if I did that more when I was younger. (But maybe if I did, I'd be saying programming right now.)

I strongly recommend Scott Robertson's "How to Draw" book. It is almost entirely dedicated to perspective drawing. It teaches everything from the basics of two and three point perspectives all the way to more complex things such as mirroring curves and even correctly drawing things like staircases in perspective. It's also super cheap for what it offers:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=la_B0034O5O32_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417522342&sr=1-1

Grab that and work your way through every exercise one-by-one and you'll come out with a firm grasp on perspective drawing. He also has an accompanying website for the book that you can log into that goes through some of the lessons in video format. As he is a teacher (and so is the co-author), they both do a great job of explaining things in the videos.

Now, a cleverly designed card reader would have been built in such a way that the user can't make a mistake.

There are four ways of putting the card through the machine, but most people have figured out, by now, that the magnetic strip bit actually has to go down into the machine.

So, in the spirit of mr Norman, who apparently is a bit of an authority at these things, I ask of Reddit: How much would it cost to add a magnetic reader on both sides of the card reader?

That way:

• It wouldn't make a hoot of a difference which way you put your card through the reader.
  
• We'd save a ton of time at the cash registers
  
• There's some redundancy: If one of the reader snuffs it, you turn the card around and use it the other way
  
• Card readers would be just that little bit easier to use for everyone.
  
  See how easy that was?

It is listed in one of the posts already, but I have this book and can honestly say it IS the book you are looking for. Its design, but not limited to one field of study.


Universal Principles of Design


Stellar book. Breaks down tons of design principles, which could aid graphic designers, product designers, architects, computer programers, etc. I would definitely call this a Design Encyclopedia. Great book. Worth every penny.

Well, the principles of sound graphic design apply to any medium, so I reckon mate, the place to start isn't web design books, but straight up design references.

If you're interested in learning about the kinds of a grid systems evidenced in BBC's global visual language, I can recommend one book in particular as a starting point -

Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockmann. ( http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestaltung/dp/3721201450 )

It's an old book (1961), but a classic, and remains one of the best investments I ever made for my design education!

Since making this post I've discovered many great books. If you want to learn how to make icons/pictograms properly, search for a translation of this book, if you want an intro to designing typefaces, this is an up-to-date book definitely worth the money - and if you want to create an actual serious font, designing type is the sickest book I came across so far. It's helped me so much and I only borrowed it for a week. If you want to work with editorial design, Book Typography offers a surgigcally raw info on right and wrong. Anyway, have fun exploring the books, I wish I had started earlier :)

• A posh old Englishman
  
  
  
• Most "oh god, I would never be seen with this in public" (this one was hard as I'm pretty ok with being seen with anything from my lists)
  
  
  
• Most phallic
  
  
• Geekiest
  
  
  
• Would most help me achieve a goal
  
  
  
• Best to bring to a deserted island (in Kitchen & Food list)
  
  Thanks for the fun contest!

I'm currently in second year Graphic Design, and I still can't actually draw well - and I haven't really needed to. I spent my first year focusing on sketching everything, just really rough quality stuff.

I've definitely improved, but I still don't find its all that essential. I usually use flat art illustrations or other similar styles (like shag, brosmind. etc).

The only required drawing component is sketching thumbnails and roughs.etc. Not too hard to improve at if you practice.

Edit: The Non-Designer's Design Book (3rd Edition) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0321534042/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_O4ZtybHNF50G4

This book kind of pushed me towards graphic design in high school. Its pretty basic stuff but will give you an edge when you're just starting out .

Hope this helps!!

A couple of lighter reads I was glad to come across:

DMMT
https://www.amazon.com/Think-Common-Sense-Approach-Usability/dp/0789723107

The Design of Everyday Things
https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654

Read these when you're feeling burned out. They are nice, real easy, feel good reads.

Regarding testing. Every function gets at least one test. Happy path always. The most common expected failures. Edge case testing when you find out you need it.

When you're really good at it, you'll be able to feed arrays of representative dummy data while your directories are being watched for changes. But first, a happy path test for every function. Start there.

Unit testing of the code.

Selenium webdriver is what I've used client side to simulate repeatable use & abuse of the final product.

Integration test are just unit tests passing when you jam everything together. A much bigger issue when you are doing a lot of Dependency Injection-- you need to check that the "handler" you are putting in actually works.

• Unit tests
  
• Client side testing
  
• Continuous integration(CI)
  
  Continuous integration is helpful that your "builds" have all the unit tests and a ping to the selenium tests to run as part of the flow of a release. Just a tool to listen for you to make changes. Learn the three things separately, I've not found a good resource that chains them all together.

An artist. :P

No but seriously, here are some things I'd love to be gifted as an indie game dev (if I didn't have them already):

• Rules of Play. It's maybe getting a little harder to find at a reasonable price, but is a wonderful resource. Some people pan it as a beginner textbook, but as a 10-year game dev veteran I still go back to it occasionally and it reminds me about fundamentals I've let slip over the years. Worth every penny.
  
• Envisioning Information. Not directly game dev related, but it's a definitive resource for the kinds of visual design problems we have to solve every day (and that so, so many game devs simply don't know anything about, sadly).
  
• The Design of Everyday Things. You can probably get this in paperback for super cheap. It's old, and it's about industrial design, but more importantly it's usability. The core principles in this book should be the backbone of any game designer's education.
  
• Got an excellent card/board game shop in the area? Gift certificate the fuck out of the bitch. (Video game devs loooove tabletop games. Yes, we're even bigger nerds than you thought.)

Here’s a fun exercise: find a simple game you like, but don’t go farther than the SNES/Genesis generation of gaming. Play the game and study it. What makes that game special? Focus on its mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics. Write it all down too. Then take a mechanic and completely change it while also adding a brand new mechanic to the mix as well. Add your own art style and just have fun with it.

Don’t worry about it sucking, this is an exercise for your design skills. If you understand modeling and you understand coding, it seems you are just missing design. Read books on design, I can’t recommend “The Design of Everyday Things” enough. This book covers design as a whole and gets you to think about why we build things the way we do.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0465050654/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526568855&sr=8-1-spons&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+design+of+everyday+things&psc=1

Here's a little list of best-sellers on Amazon and a few from this thread:

• Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals
  
• Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
  
• The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition
  
• How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination
  
• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
  
• The Non-Designer's Design Book (3rd Edition)
  
• Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design
  
• Envisioning Information
  
• Interaction of Color: 50th Anniversary Edition
  
• Art Fundamentals: Theory and Practice
  
• Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills
  
• Design Basics (with CourseMate Printed Access Card)
  
• Graphic Design: The New Basics
  
• Style & Simplicity: An A to Z Guide to Living a More Beautiful Life
  
• The Color Scheme Bible: Inspirational Palettes for Designing Home Interiors
  
• The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
  
• Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming
  
• The Art of Looking Sideways
  

The characters still need a lot of work. Overall, you're relying too much on perfect semicircles and monoweight strokes. It's a good starting point for a geometric sans, but now you need to go back and do a ton of optical tweaking to make things look right. I recommend picking up Karen Cheng's Book. I would also compare your characters to the ones in other geometric sans like Futura and Avenir. Take note of details like the way the shoulder of the 'n' and 'h' is handled and the thinning of strokes at joints.

Anyways, it's a cool start. Keep at it

Sorry I should have been more specific. I am looking more for inspiration in form of beautiful designs and pictures.

Something like this for example:
Draplin Design Co.: Pretty Much Everything
https://www.amazon.com/Draplin-Design-Co-Pretty-Everything/dp/1419720171/


But your book looks interesting nonetheless!

There's no such thing as the "best coffee table", or any other piece of furniture. There are a huge variety of designs in furniture, and all have different preferred or required joinery, tools, hardware, storage, wood species, etc, and that's not even mentioning aesthetics.

If you want to know how furniture is designed, there are many resources available. I don't have a lot of books on design, but one I have that I enjoy is Illustrated Cabinetmaking. It provides 'typical' tables/chests/desks/etc designs, as opposed to specific designs. It explains how to size different parts of certain pieces - how tall a writing desk should be, how wide a dining table should be, etc.

Furniture design isn't copyrighted - you can copy a Maloof chair or a Krenov cabinet as closely to the original as you like, and most of the time the techniques and tools required aren't that difficult to figure out on your own, or from other resources.

I'm not familiar with anything current but I'm sure it exists. When I was doing the bulk of my learning we were still carving holes in strips of cardboard to produce code. Someone younger would probably give better, more current advice.

In general, refining your problem solving skills involves a great deal of introspection. Everything you complete you should go back and analyze the stumbles you had along the way. What caused delays, what produced bugs, what just didn't work very well. Look at these things and try to determine what you could have done differently. No better teacher than failure.

Two very old books that got me started: Aha: Gotcha and Aha:Insight. They are amazing puzzle books written by the master of puzzles, Martin Gardner. They have a bit of a math slant, but not too much. Read the reviews to see if it floats your boat.

Math, imo, is the basis of solid problem solving. It's the reason we learn math from pre-K all through university. You're not doing it so you can do calculus at the grocery store, and I've never used a lick of it in my career, but it does teach you how to think in a logical manner, breaking big problems down into little ones.

Another book that had some impact on my career was Design of Everyday Things. Good read for usability.

Most of this convo is TL;DR but form skimming, I think I get the idea.

Two ideas:

1. More customizations don't necessarily make software better. They make make it more aesthetic to you but most of the big companies are focused on making a product that works well for everyone and probably don't give much thought to individual users but instead the overall experience. They are solving a greater problem. I would actually counter your argument to say that if Windows Media Player had all the options of VLC that there would be someone else who would come along and say 'Options?! Screw options! We just make a player that plays stuff.' See book: The Design of Everyday Things and other design books. Simplicity is often overlooked.
   
   
2. Freeware has more customizations because there are less users. Open source lends itself to someone who wants the feature to add it. Essentially, for a large company, the ROI is not worth it and the complexity could jeopardize their hold on consumers who are not as tech savvy. Customizations and freeflow can greatly increase the codebase and the complexity of the software scales with the square of the codebase (ie. more options make the software less maintainable. More tests. More bugs).

That's great to hear -- I'm really glad it's helping out.

I also find his "How to Draw" and "How to Render" books hugely valuable, as well.

I'm in a similar position. I'm working on a PhD in Electrical Engineering, so that boat has pretty much sailed for me. I LOVE manufacturing processes and design. I hear these two books are good:
Making It: Manufacturing Techniques for Product Design

and
Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals

I might want to do a post of my own to see if I can get some advice for myself. Does anyone have ideas of how I can get into product design? I'm interested in things such as those that are posted on Yanko Design.

Buy the Graphic artist's guild to pricing and ethical guidelines
http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Artists-Handbook-Pricing-Guidelines/dp/0932102166

• I communicate via all of the above. If you are able to meet in person, do it. It will eat up your time, but you will make that up in terms of future work. Second, phone conversation. Third, use email for updates, simple questions and the like. Email is shit for real communication.
  
  
• Initial concepts presented in person, or via pdf followed by immediate phone call. Revisions are always sent through PDFs via email unless too big for email.
  
  Unlike the other poster, there is no project too small for a contract. If a client doesn't want to sign one, they are shady and simply end all contact. Normal people, with normal budgets, with intent to be reasonable will never, ever have a problem with a contract.
  
  Please please spend a few weeks sorting out what you need to run a proper, professional business. Do it NOW when you have more time. Don't minimize this step in running a design business. Being a professional is way more than designing pretty stuff.
  
  EDIT: Also remember that just because you have a contract, it doesn't mean you'll get paid. Or not get sued. Or not have a client disappear. It happens. All a contract does is try to help you out in case of a lawsuit. Sometimes, if the job is very small and the client doesn't pay, it is financially beneficial to just let it go than pursue in court. That's why you get some portion of the money up front.

I have Scott Robertson's How To Render, but I haven't started working with it yet, as I'm still focusing on some other fundamentals. It's a very exhaustive book that's very information dense. Not for the faint of heart. It's essentially the follow-up to How To Draw, which is one of the most recommended art books on the internet. This one builds on that.

Framed Perspective Vol. 2 by Marcus Mateu-Mestre is similar, but is more basic (and also a bit more accessible) and focuses more on how to shade characters. There's a section in chapter 3 that's devoted to the major plane changes of the human body and how that affects shading.

Both books assume you know the basic principles of linear perspective, which they teach in their respective predecessors.

Someone more knowledgeable about teaching art as a subject may have recommendations that are more appropriate. I'm still a learner myself, but the teacher in my weekly art classes often pulls exercises from these books (usually in a more simplified format for us novices :P).

Being an art director is not "making the ads look pretty." That's being a graphic designer. "Type, sizing logos, fonts, etc" are all designer's skills. For learning design in the shortest amount of time, get these two books: The Mac Is Not a Typewriter and The Non-Designer's Design Book. The Typewriter book in particular is, page-for-page, the most efficient primer on typography I've ever read.

If you're going to work in advertising, it's important you that know what your art director partner actually does. Yes, an AD has to know all the designer stuff as well, but an AD's job goes far beyond fonts and layouts.

On a conceptual level, an art director is the same as a copywriter, the difference is that he tends to communicate ideas without words.

On an executional level, an art director has a solid grasp of what it means to visually be "on brand," which is analogous to a copywriter writing with a brand "voice."

An art director also doubles as a film director. He has to know how to tell a story. Is there a 30-second spot with no copy? Guess who writes that part of the script. That's right, the AD.

The visual storytelling skill carries over into photography. A good shot isn't simply a posed composition. A good shot tells an entire story — a story that propels the conceptual idea. This goes beyond good lighting and knowing how cameras work, this is why the AD works with a photographer to get a shot, as the photographer is executional, akin to a graphic designer.

You can definitely make good looking apps on your own! Keep in mind, though, that interfaces are about aesthetics AND usability. You don't need any artistic gifts or graphic design skills to create an efficient and usable interface.

I know you're looking for something Android-specific, but I'd recommend starting with The Design of Everyday Things to get a high-level idea of how you should approach design. You might also want to consider watching Sketching and Experience Design, which is a 2007 talk given by Bill Buxton that covers the process of design. He also has an excellent book on sketching UI.

I can't recommend anything offhand, but I'm there's bound to be books aimed at someone in your position: coders who have to produce decent web/web application interfaces.

Robin Williams' (no, not the actor) books like her Non-Designer's Design Book are good introductions to basic principles of layout.

Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability and Krug's Don't Make Me Think cover principles of good interface design. This looks promising too: Designing The Obvious.

You have a lot going on with your typography and alignment overall. I'd highly recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Non-Designers-Design-Book-Edition/dp/0321534042

It covers a lot of basic design principles that are easy to follow and it's really good reference material. It covers everything from typography to alignment to colors and more. Really useful and could explain a lot better than I could.

I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that lets me color while 'customers' are bitching (phones) and I love these coloring books. I think /u/Claralou might enjoy it too, she guessed my fav 311 songs :)

Life is about using the whole box of crayons.