(Part 2) Best products from r/Design

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

Websites:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

http://psd.tutsplus.com/ There is one for vector illustrations also.

http://www.lynda.com/

Web design podcast

Books

Your new bible on type

Lee Varis "Skin". Awesome book on working with skintones

Photo-compositing

Web usability testing

Fun stuff:

Flash cards, the fun kind to get your brain going

color swatches by Pantone

Calibrate you monitor; you don't know what colors you can print without a baseline

Just realize what you print and what your screen show can be close, but it will never be 100 percent accurate. This also depend on the viewing conditions. Calibrate your monitor, get a backup system in place, read and make your own assignments, and good luck. If you want to buy a bunch of business cards cheaper than VistaPrint or elsewhere with a digital offset waterless system... try

CopyCraft.com

Unless you have money for letterpress cards, but i would only hand those to decisionmakers that sign checks :)

Also i almost forgot... magazines!!!

Many on this list

And i personally like this one

Also you need to make sure your drawing skills constantly improve. I use photoshop for photos exclusively and it speeds up my workflow and helps me with my understanding of light and creating shadows etc. I can't stress maybe a Figure Drawing class (if you have a bad position it is okay to move to a better "view") or something similar to help work through drawings faster and get a better basis of form. These little notebooks are so handy to keep for quick sketches and ideas, and random people that are potential clients.

A Wacom tablet (unless you can afford a Cliniq) is so awesome to have. I have the XL and it is too much... the Large is sufficient unless space. I hear that the smallest size is just too small for most people.

Here is a awesome glove to help with sweaty hands and to keep it smooth, i actually just got mine and it actually helps with my editing on my tablet.

edit: added moleskin/wacom/smudgeguard info

I've taken several typography classes and I have a core group of books that I constantly turn back to for information. I'm a total typo-file and I've read a lots on the topic, but these are my favorites:

Tips on working with type

A good book on just some basics and a little history of typefaces

If you're interested in learning a little history

More history

The first book I mentioned is a really good resource. Sometimes it's easy to make type look too fancy, but it's important to remember that it doesn't always have to do all the talking. Sometimes it's the main dish, sometimes it's a spice added to the whole.

As far as the color theory goes, I don't have much to contribute. Figured it'd be best to just share what I'm familiar with.

Happy designing!

Definitely! Good places to start are Buxton's Sketching User Experience and Norman's Design of Everyday Things


Also, the people over at Kicker Studio keep a list of the top 10 books of all time as well as a very good essential reading list.


Interaction design is a huge field, as deep as any other, so it's not just something you can pick up a book or two and become an expert in or know all the details that go into a good design, but it's definitely worth learning something about it.


One nice article that will start to change how you view interfaces is Raskin's Intuitive Equals Familiar.

Good luck!

The Non-Designers Design Book is pretty wonderful. It breaks down the basic rules and tenants of graphic design in a very easy-to-understand way, with lots of pictures and before/after.

I find that many designers become designers because they were artists when they were kids and wanted to continue making art for a living. This book is great for those people, too. It's sets some structure around making your design easy to look at and/or use. Without getting too complicated, it delves into the neuropsych-based rules that help us make clean and easy designs.

I've purchased that book as a gift more than any other, and make my company buy it for everyone who works in my department.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0133966151/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687622&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0321534042&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0ZA58Z7W2DV09C2C0C6Q

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.

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.

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
  

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.

Some of my favorites. Some are good to skim through for ideas, some of them are more "sit down and read" books. Definitely not a comprehensive list, but all books that I enjoyed reading.

Graphic Style by Seymour Chwast and Steven Heller

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton

100 ideas that Changed Graphic Design by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

A Short History of the Printed Word by Warren Chappell and Robert Bringhurst

The Posters: 1,000 Posters from Toulouse-Lautrec to Sagmeister

Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop by Jim Sherraden

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
  

I recently bought this book I haven't gotten a chance to use it yet, but the point of it is to wire your brain to kick into creative mode much more quickly and efficiently. I mean, for $15.35 at the very least, it'll give you some fun projects.


Practice. Every. Fuckin. Day.

Maybe you might want to pick up this little book. It will give you some hints and tips on type design for paper:

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-Principles/dp/1566091594

(not an affiliate link or anything; just a quick search to find it online somewhere)

As others have said, you have a lot more room for play when dealing with printed items. Brochures don't have web limitations, so feel free to try out different type faces. Also, keep in mind that printing so much black might lead to costs you don't see with web design, so choose a printer (either the machine, or a company) wisely. You don't want tacky inks making the brochures stick together.

Lastly, some acknowledgements. I like the spacing on the inside view of the brochure. There's enough room at the bottom to hold it, and not cover text (this is often an oversight). You use fore- and background color to break up the questions and notes, which is nice.

Overall, you can use more contrasts with typeface, size, and alignment than on the web, so please do! And, try out that book; if you need to do this again, you will definitely get some ideas there (I did).

You can make guides out of any outlined object in Illustrator with CMD+5 [Mac] and CTRL+5 [Win], otherwise accessible via View > Guides > Make Guides. These can be hidden, locked and manipulated just like the standard horizontal and vertical guides.

For a closer look at type design in general (a HUGE topic), most will point to Designing Type as a good starting point. Taking a peek at typophile and perusing the Critique forum would also be extremely helpful from a conceptual (less technical) point of view.

Edit: Taking another peek at the letters and your question, if I were to approach a similar typeface, I'd definitely start off by selecting and removing specific nodes from a circle object and extending lines from them.

I had an older edition of this book I got in college. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to get into graphic design:
https://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-4th/dp/0133966151

It does a really good job of taking a lot of topics, summing them up nicely and providing examples. It'll help with spacing, colors, alignment, etc.

One of my favorites is Designing Interfaces. It focuses on user patterns, not all are necessarily for the web, but it provides a good basis of user interaction theory/reasoning. It's also great when you're stuck for ideas on how to approach an interaction problem. This is super-useful for designing web apps, but is still useful for straight-up web stuff.

(I also noticed that there's a Designing Web Interfaces book, which I haven't read, but could be interesting.)

http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Artists-Handbook-Pricing-Guidelines/dp/0932102158/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c

Their guidelines are usually above normal but I think that is their plan. If they say something "should" be 50% higher than it is, and you end up charging 25% more then they succeed in increasing the dollar value throughout the industry.

Peter Morville's polar bear book is considered the original IA bible by many in the field and possibly how Information Architecture got it's name. I'd recommend having a commanding knowledge of the fundamentals in this book before doing much else.

Don't make me think is also widely refereed to in web design that focuses on IA and web usability. We commonly photocopy pages from this book and give them to clients who don't have a clue about the field.

Lastly, if at all possible, try going to next year's IA Summit. The people you will meet there and the ideas you will learn will be very valuable.

This is the first book I ever owned on typography: Designing with Type, http://www.designingwithtype.com/ --- Another great book with more in-depth knowledge and student examples: Typographic Design, http://www.amazon.com/Typographic-Design-Communication-Rob-Carter/dp/0471783900 --- A good website: http://ilovetypography.com/

A great book about some simple basics that help give even the most plain design some polish: http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-Principles/dp/1566091594

Theres a book called Non-Designers Design Book which simplifies a lot of the basic rules of design and even gets pretty deep into typography. I used my first year of college and I enjoyed how the information is presented.

no prob

it's very common to work at something for a long time and become blind to certain stuff

what works for me is to flip the art horizontally and/or vertically while in progress and you should notice right away the flaws then keep working then flip again. it keep your perspective fresh

also I strongly recommend for you to read understanding comics
despite the comic focus, it teach the whole visual language approach thing and it will blow your mind

I'd recommend you read The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.

If everything is a wall of text, it's not quickly scanned. There are visual cues that aid scanning. Organization and hierarchy helps. Typographic choices in legibility and readability are also important.

I'm pretty sure you know I know what you mean, and that you know I know you know what I mean. I'm assuming everyone here read POET at some point.

If you are curious about how to charge clients, you should definitely invest in The Graphic Artist Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethnical Guidlines. it has tons of information on how to price your work accordingly.

The principles described in the book "Non-designer's Design Book" are surprisingly simple and robust. Although intended for non-designers, as the title suggests, I think it's a solid introduction for anyone to learn design.

The author talks about only four principles:

• Contrast - Elements that aren't the same should be very different so they stand out. Making them slightly different confuses the user into seeing a relation that doesn't exist.
  
• Repetition - Repeat styles for a cohesive feel. If you style related elements the same way in one area, continue that trend for other areas for consistency.
  
• Alignment - Everything needs to be visually connected to something else. Nothing should be out of place or distinct from all other design elements.
  
• Proximity - Proximity creates related meaning. Elements that are related should be grouped together, whereas separate design elements should have enough space in between to communicate they are different.
  
  Also makes for an easy-to-remember acronym.

The Non-Designers Design Book

Short, precise, easy read. Highly recommended.

This is a good book, Design of Everyday Things
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0385267746

Actually I think it's visual innuendo. The comic begins by implying that he's looking at porn, so things are starting to get blue, a bit naughty. The silhouettes reveal less, you can't see clothes (maybe they aren't wearing any), and leave more to the imagination—get you thinking 'what's he looking at there?'.

There's a lot more to comics than 'artistic effects' and the dialogue. If you're interested further, check out this book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Comics-The-Invisible-Art/dp/006097625X/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=15NXBCDIMJODD&coliid=I3HBL84XK10YEE

This book might be of help.

I like The Design of Everyday Things

https://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

The way I learned UI design quickly was to put together some designs and ask for critiques from designers. There used to be a website where you could get critiques for your designs (in exchange for giving critiques yourself).

Do you want to start web design? Then learn to code. If you can spare some cash, get HTML and CSS by Jon Duckett.

If not, just go to w3schools.com or similar sites and try it out online.

Most of the code I know I learnt in only a few months.

"Don't make me think" by Steve Krug and the Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper.

Read it, learn it, do it, read it again: http://www.amazon.com/The-Visual-Display-Quantitative-Information/dp/0961392142

Bill Buxton's Sketching user experiences:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sketching-User-Experiences-Interactive-Technologies/dp/0123740371/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1279318234&sr=1-1

Don't Make Me Think

The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman

Here's really how, rather than reading an incomplete paraphrasing of it:

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Required reading at the Institute of Design, in 1994. (The Bauhaus).