(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best web design books

Sigh. What everyone here saying "just practice!" doesn't realize is that people like OP likely DON'T KNOW WHAT TO PRACTICE. As much as we try to copy other designs, we still totally miss the "behind-the-scenes" theory that holds it all together.

OP, that was my problem. I tried to copy other designs but still couldn't piece everything together without looking sloppy and amateurish.

Then I learned three simple things:

1 -- GRID-BASED DESIGN. If you weren't raised in an environment where good design was appreciated (like me), you likely don't have a pre-developed sense of how things should be spaced out in a design... i.e. how much margin, padding, line-spacing, etc there should be between elements. This is where adhering to a grid will change your life. Specifically, AN 8PT GRID. (When you see "pt" referenced in design materials rather than "px", just know that they both mean the same thing. Google started using "pt" in their Material Design guides to reduce confusion around devices like iPhones, which have 1334 x 750 screen resolutions... but which render content at 667 x 350 to make it retina. In that case, "8 pt" means "8 px" based on the 667 x 350 output.)

Essentially using a grid takes the guesswork out of how much spacing/padding to use. And using an "8 pt grid" specifically is the most universal, device-friendly grid to design to. If you want, you can play around with other grids in the future when you've developed a sense of design taste. But for now... stick with 8 pt grids. Trust me.

2 -- COLOR THEORY. Which colors go together? Color theory is the science behind that. Once you know color theory, you'll suddenly understand a lot more about the world than you did before. You'll see why some people's outfits are absolutely awesome. You'll see why some the insides of some people's houses look fantastic. And on, and on, and on.

In general, the rule here is 60/30/10: 60% of your design should be your primary color (in 90% of modern app design this is just white or slightly off-white), 30% should be your secondary color (in the CSS for this subreddit that is blue), and 10% should your accent color (in the CSS for this subreddit that is red).

3 -- TYPOGRAPHY. Honestly, I recommend just copying the font sizes used in google's Material Design. It will make everything in your design look proportional and pleasing to the eye. (Or, in other words, you & your users won't notice the fonts in any significant way.)

...

Links:

1. Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design: this book helped me understand grid-based design better.
   
   
2. Intro to 8pt grid article on Medium and then 8pt Material Design GUI Templates: these two will give you a solid introduction to 8pt grids. Trust me, just design everything to an 8pt grid until you become a more confident designer and know how to bend the rules. Sticking to an 8pt grid for everything will make your design work VERY easy.
   
   
3. How To Use Colors in UI Design: really good, straight-forward article on color use in web design... including the 60/30/10 rule.
   
   
4. Material Design Font Size Chart: in general I think the look of Material Design is hideous and makes any app look like a cheap Windows 95-era throwback, BUT... the beauty of Google's Material Design guidelines is that they're extremely prescriptive and contain little pieces of gold (like this font size chart). Like using 8pt grids, just rigidly stick to this font size chart until you've developed a better design sense and know how to break the rules. (You may find you don't want to break the rules, though, because this will do the trick for 99% of designs you do.) (*EDIT: when you see "sp" in the font size chart, just know that it again means "px" when it comes to your CSS. This is similar to how Google uses "pt" -- it's a way for them to create a universal terminology for "px" that accounts for retina displays.)
   
   Ok, with these three concepts out of the way, you should hopefully have an easier time deconstructing really good designs and reproducing them yourself. Hope this helps.

Hi Tavi!

1- Good job for launching your first website shop! It's a very nice step :) You should be proud of it.

2- You should consider to mask the link on the https://www.womensworldcompany.com/pages/giveaway-contest. It is not aesthetics.

3- Is this a template you bought, or a page you coded all by yourself? I feel like it could get a little bit of improve. Like a beautiful banner on the index page. Or button amelioration. Like the one on this page again: https://www.womensworldcompany.com/pages/giveaway-contest
The subscribe button. Seems to be a kind-of web 1.0 button if you know what I mean :)

4- For the same page, sorry it seems like I was stuck there haha, you should consider having a big title like: Subscribe to our newletter and get a chance to win one of these. I mean, I clicked on the link to get there. Show me quickly what I want to see - how do I get it. Or I'll leave the page.

5- I like the shop menu :) Really cool and I like the dropdown!

6- The best point of all, buy this book: https://www.amazon.ca/Convert-Designing-Increase-Traffic-Conversion/dp/0470616334
It's a book I would have really liked to have read before today. It will helps you learning how to write your content, and how to drive sales. It's a must for everyone.

Good luck Tavi! Wish you the best :)

Quite frankly, what did you expect? Every one starts somewhere.

http://stackoverflow.com is your friend. It is a great resource and you will be able to find a lot of information there.

Now, in regards to the technologies you want to learn, you need to start with the basics. Javascript is arguably harder than the rest, so I think your focus should lie there. You should be asking questions like:

• What is the document object model? How does it get rendered?
  
• What is the concept of object oriented programming and how does it work?
  
• What makes Javascript such a powerful language?
  
• What is jQuery and how does it make traversing the document object model easier?
  
  After you've learned those basics, you then need to evaluate the trends and topics in your workplace.
  
  
• What are recurring topics?
  
• What are their goals?
  
• Where do you fit in with the team?
  
• What part of their code do they consider the weakest (poorly written/designed)?
  
  Then you can focus on certain things. For instance, if they feel that most of their goals are related to user interface design, you may want to consider learning about more HTML and CSS (arguably the easiest of the three).
  
  However, if they feel like they need to add more functionality to pages and build backend code, you will probably need to learn more Javascript and jQuery. Remember, jQuery is a Javascript library and learning both together is the best route you can take (in my opinion).
  
  Here are a few resources which I used to get a better grasp on certain topics (quite frankly, I never finish books because all of this information is online).
  
  http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-jQuery-The-Missing-Manual/dp/1449399029
  http://www.amazon.com/HTML5-Missing-Manual-Matthew-MacDonald/dp/1449363261
  http://www.amazon.com/CSS3-Missing-David-Sawyer-McFarland/dp/1449325947/
  
  All of the Missing Manual books are fairly well written and will give you a lot of insight on those languages.
  
  However, if you prefer to be taught rather than teaching yourself, some good resources like these may help you:
  
  https://www.codeschool.com/
  https://www.codecademy.com/
  
  Both of these websites are tailored to teaching you to code within your browser. I've found both of them to be excellent.
  
  Some resources which you will want to keep in handy:
  
  http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/the-30-css-selectors-you-must-memorize--net-16048 - Great tutorial on CSS selectors that may prove invaluable when working with CSS.
  
  http://diveintohtml5.info/ - A very well made web page regarding HTML5, its new features, and some other interesting topics.
  
  http://api.jquery.com/ - The documentation for jQuery. I know this can be found easily, but I can't stress enough how useful it will be to have this page open while you are reading through jQuery code.
  
  ...and much more. You will find more information online everywhere. If you feel like you need more information, feel free to PM me.
  
  Remember:
  
  "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Albert Einstein
  
  This is only the beginning of your long journey if you choose to stay in the development field. Good luck!
  
  Edit: Thank you so much for gold! If anyone else wants more information, feel free to PM me. I don't have anyone to talk to about web development XD

If you can afford a Macbook Pro and the Final Cut Pro Software this is a great book that'll get you through the basics easily. I switched from Avid to FCP using it and it was pretty painless. Stay away from FCP X though. It's gonna be a while before they get that one where it needs to be.

As far as the creative aspect of editing the only real way to learn any filmmaking craft is to do it. But there are some great books that did a better job than any of my professors did. This is the best book on editing I've come across. I just got it recently but it would have been really nice to have it back when I started. And this is my favorite directing book. It's written by a film professor but it does a beautiful job of breaking down the creative process. And The Film Director's Intuition is a great place to start with how to work with actors.

For lighting I'd recommend Matters of Light & Depth by Ross Lowell and Film Lighting by Kris Malkiewicz.

Also indispensable is The Pocket Lawyer For Filmmakers.

Those are all great books chock full of practical advice. And if you're interested in screenwriting Story by Robert McKee is pretty amazing. People shit all over that guy but nobody teaches story structure better than him.

I don't know if this will help, but this is the method I took (I have a background in graphic design, marketing, and advertising). I first went to some hacker friends who are very good at what they do and showed them all kinds of mockups, illustrations, and venn diagrams, everything about how everything would work. I even wrote out the logic for some of my algorithims in plain english.

Their response: they thought it was an interesting idea, but being the awesome programmers that they were, they had very high paying jobs, and their own side jobs, so they didn't have time to work on my project. They did however give me some great advice: (Note I already knew css and html) They said start with these 3 books:
Jquery Novice to Ninja which really helped me get started with basic animation techniques and understand a bit of Jquery. This really helped me lead into javascript programming with Dom Scripting. This book was great for really fleshing out what the jquery was doing, and helped me with a lot of other questions. I feel very comfortable working in jquery and javascript now. The last book they recommended for me was php solutions to teach me about teh back end of what I wanted to build.

Now learning on my own with just a couple books, stackoverflow, and a few questions sent to my friends/mentors was not easy by any means, but I don't regret it for a second.

Some might not like my choices of using jquery, javascript, or php, but one of the reasons my friends recommended me using those languages in particular was how much documentation is readily available, making them a little easier then some other launguages to learn on your own.

Good luck to you.

Start off learning html, css and javascript. You have a LOT to learn in order to build an app like you're describing. It could be a great motivator to help you learn though. I would recommend not starting to build your app right away though. Learn the basics first.

First question, do you need a native mobile app? What features do you want that iOS PWA doesn't offer?

NativeScript-Vue is pretty great and you can recycle most of your lifecycle hooks with very little, and sometimes no, refactoring but you will have to completely redo the UI. The templating is all different. One of its biggest benefits of NativeScript is you'll have an android and iOS app so you might as well release both.

Re learning, the Jon Duckett books are a great place to start with HTML, CSS and JS. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1119038634/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0

When you're ready for Vue I really enjoyed the tutorials from Laracasts https://laracasts.com/series/learn-vue-2-step-by-step

You can start to learn nativescript-vue in their playground: https://play.nativescript.org/?template=play-vue&tutorial=getting-started-vue and they also created a dedicated site to help learn https://nsvue-workshop.netlify.com/

And I have these in my list on amazon. Would love to get some opinions on them:

 

How to Win Friends and Influence People

by Dale Carnegie

 

Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More

by Robert Bly

 

Words that Sell

by Richard Bayan

 

Tested Advertising Methods

by Caples and Hahn

 

Writing That Works

by Kenneth Roman and Joel Raphaelson

 

Confessions of an Advertising Man

by David Ogilvy

 

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

by Al Ries and Jack Trout

 

The Robert Collier Letter Book

by Robert Collier

 

Nicely Said: Writing for the Web with Style and Purpose

by Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee

 

Letting Go of the Words

by Janice (Ginny) Redish

 

Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers

by Harold Evans

 

Can I Change Your Mind?: The Craft and Art of Persuasive Writing

by Lindsay Camp

 

Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

by Roy Peter Clark

 

Read Me: 10 Lessons for Writing Great Copy

by Roger Horberry and Gyles Lingwood

 

Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads

by Luke Sullivan

 

WRITE IN STEPS: The super simple book writing method

by Ian Stables

 

On Writing Well

by William Zinsser

 

The Wealthy Freelancer

by Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia

 

Write Everything Right!

by Denny Hatch

 

The Secret of Selling Anything

by Harry Browne

 

The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time

by Chris Murray

 

On Writing

by Stephen King

 

Writing for the Web

by Lynda Felder

 

Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content

by Ann Handley

 

This book will teach you how to write better

by Neville Medhora

The only kind of DSP I've ever looking into is the one linked below (Sharc DSP) which is from Analog Devices. I'm sure there's others but that seems to be the trend on which to use.

The really best starting point would be to read some shit about it before hand. I had a decent article with some sample code but I don't remember what I did with it.

http://www.amazon.com/DAFX-Digital-Udo-ouml-lzer/dp/0470665998/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1405345129&sr=8-1&keywords=DAFX

This book has sample matlab code, but I expect this to be a better reference book than a learning book. I wish I could find that article but I know that Analog Devices' website has some better information.

Good luck on it, the stuff is definitely complex to understand. Probably way easier to just get one and start coding than it is to constantly read up on it.

MSEE (wireless & communications) here. I perform studies and do various research on communications technologies and am involved in all 4 of the items you listed (though I am more of an antenna user than theorist).

I would start by trying to do some reading of introductory books on all of these subjects and at the same time trying to do something practical to reinforce these things. RF instrumentation is generally VERY expensive, but check out /r/RTLSDR. There is some pretty neat stuff that you can do yourself for a $20 investment.

As far as books, I just got a great new book that really provides a substantiative, modern overview of communication standards. Balanis is basically the gold standard for antenna reference books though most find this text pretty dry. I am not going to be very effective at providing you an overview of RF Engineering book or Networking book, I have many but none I would recommend as a good 'overview' since the subjects are so broad.

If you have any more specific questions I would be happy to help if I can. Just read, read, read and back that up with some practical knowledge. Being able to communicate some information about practical experiences during interviews etc... will go a long way.

Like /u/groved1 said, it really depends on the person.

If she's a print designer that finds coding intimidating however, I'd recommend the book CSS for Print Desginers as a good starting point.

For people like me, a print designer, coding is not only uninteresting, but frustrating. Despite being heavily logic driven, coding is something where it's only logical within it's own 'universe' or bubble. There is absolutely nothing logical about coding to someone outside that bubble. For example, why certain characters are used, spacing, etc. It all makes sense within that world, but is otherwise somewhat arbitrary.

Basically, it feels like learning a different language, if you're not naturally inclined towards it, or otherwise motivated by innate interest.

That book approaches it for people that have that roadblock, who are used to using programs like InDesign, and to help make comparables and explanations that make sense to someone coming from that perspective.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start.. No offense intended, but you are in the very beginning of digital design. This is not to say that you don't have the technical skills, but that you should study more visual design theory. Good design has rules, which are learnable. Below is a book list, which I think will be a great value to you:

http://www.amazon.com/Ordering-Disorder-Principles-Design-Voices/dp/0321703537/

http://www.amazon.com/About-Face-Essentials-Interaction-Design/dp/1118766571/

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Beautiful-Web-Design/dp/0992279445/

I don't want to discourage you, your page will look much better if you read only one of these.

If you're still just getting into php/dynamic web pages and are looking for help with wordpress as a backend CMS I've got a few suggestions:

1. Spend a bit of time looking at the default twenty-twelve theme that comes in the the wp-content/themes/twentytwelve folder when you download wordpress. From there you can learn a lot just by referencing the wordpress codex whenever you see a function used.
   
   
2. This book was huge for helping me understand how to use wordpress as a framework and backend CMS. He does a really good job of explaining how manipulating themes makes Wordpress extremely flexible once you get comfortable with it as a framework.
   
   If you need any help feel free to PM me.

Wordpress is one of the easiest CMS's to learn and if you are up to the challenge you can buy a book to learn wordpress's publishing features and teach that to your employees if you wanted to save your company $3000.

It's hard to say whether the price is worth it since it is subjective to the size and depth of the website. A complex website may have multiple page layouts, mySQL queries and custom code which may also factor into custom solutions where you would need to learn how to do specific functions. I would just ask for a written FAQ or guide from the developers, but i have a decent amount of experience in Wordpress so the very particular details would be easy to find out.

Web companies often have a retainer from clients so they can help pay for any time used on developing and updating your site which is finished compared to the time and effort put into winning a new client orworking on a new clients project.

I would still say the $3000 is outrageous for training, but I hate how all certificate programs cost multiple arms and legs as well.

TL;DR Buy a Wordpress book off Amazon, teach your staff, save 3k

wordpress book

If you are good at reading and retaining, for the WP aspect of it, I recommend a book called Professional Wordpress If you find it elsewhere, make sure it is second edition. This book is really good on the ins and out of WP, from how it works behind the scenes to how to properly program for it.

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.

I don't really think saying "I'm damn certain I can do the work, that I can learn Nuke on my own..." is helping your cause. If you are so certain, make time and do it. Either join a VFX house as a runner or other entry level position and then use their kit (Flame) or build up a reel on your own. Here's a good book to start you off with Nuke, which is a beautiful program and also as many other people have pointed out, has a free PLE edition.

Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:

Amazon Smile Link: The MPEG Handbook


|Country|Link|Charity Links|
|:-----------|:------------|:------------|
|USA|smile.amazon.com|EFF|
|UK|www.amazon.co.uk|Macmillan|
|Spain|www.amazon.es||
|France|www.amazon.fr||
|Germany|www.amazon.de||
|Japan|www.amazon.co.jp||
|Canada|www.amazon.ca||
|Italy|www.amazon.it||
|India|www.amazon.in||
|China|www.amazon.cn||




To help add charity links, please have a look at this thread.

This bot is currently in testing so let me know what you think by voting (or commenting). The thread for feature requests can be found here.

but it's a fantastic base to start with. it's simple and object oriented and very powerful.

but if we're really talking a base, then to tinker around, you can't go wrong with "basic", however, it is much nicer to use a language you can actually apply to a potential job.

Back to PHP, I used a book called PHP5. It was a two to three page-per-lesson book with a wonderful lack of abstract horse shit (unlike many C++ books i've run across). However, it's later drawback was it's lack of abstract horse shit.

funny how that works...

either way, it's a great start, imo.

One web design book that I strongly recommend is Designing the Obvious, by Robert Hoekman. The book is a very easy read that covers the fundamentals of good web design. It was part of the curriculum in one of my IS courses in my Junior year. Fast-forward 3 years later, and I still refer back to it every once in a while to get a refresher.

Linky: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Obvious-Common-Approach-Application/dp/032145345X

A) hand coding is actually easier then cleaning up shitty code from some generator.

B) it sounds like you might be more suited for the development side of things (unless you have an undeclared background in art/design/media/etc).

C) I'd suggest you look into neuro-marketing/design. Here's a good primer on those topics which you should find helpful.

D) for a text-editor, I recommend aptana studio.

I have these books in my wishlist. She may like them:

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

Nicely Said: Writing for the Web with Style and Purpose

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

This book really helped me with creating the flow on my websites. I highly recommend Susan, she has some fabulous ideas.

1. Move your nav to the top, that's where we all expect it to see. :)
   
2. Consider introducing "wrap" <div> (with or without fixed size) to center your content. Right now on higher resolution it looks not symmetrical.
   
3. It's a personal preference, but try light background and dark text. Not that there are a lot of text on your site and this color scheme introduces trouble in reading, it just might make site fell "lighter".
   
4. If you are going to make this site as a portfolio, but still want to let people use code or images from site for their personal needs, you might want to license it under Attribution-NonCommercial terms and simply put image, that links to that terms.
   
   
   Bottom line is it's not ugly site, more over it's source looks very good as opposed to many other sites, but it's plain simple, with no theme in it. You might want to pick up some small web design related book to get you started. (I may recommend this one, but it's really up to you.)
   

Have you tried this book? It's pretty good as a starting ground. Professional WordPress by Brad Williams: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470560541?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links

If you want to learn Nuke sign up for Digitaltutors.com and also get a book called Nuke 101 http://www.amazon.com/Nuke-101-Professional-Compositing-Effects/dp/0321733479

I took a Nuke class at a community college for around $100 in LA and it was good. However, you can definitely teach yourself Nuke without any problems whatsoever.

I found The Web Designers Idea Book by Patrick McNeil to be a pretty good resource for design ideas.

Link below:

As a semi-new web designer myself, I can say I prefer and recommend Sitepoint for their web design books. But, beware, their books can be extremely marked up at some bookstores. Other good books I love to death are Head First Web Design and Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML.. even though the latter is a bit outdated.

I do not know where you live, but I went to the local library (which is pretty big in my city) Then i loaned the newest Wordpress books about theme and plugin development. I got way more out of those books than from 20 "guides" and tutorials on the internet. You can also just buy the books online if you want of course.

This book is one of them i loaned from the library.

Has anyone read this book? Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog (March 3, 2014) by Thord Daniel Hedengren

This looks pretty close to what I'm looking for....a how to for the advanced developer.

Well, you can start at microwave engineering and work your way back to DC: Pozar

edit:

Antenna engineering is fun and mathy:

Balanis

Stutzmann and Thiele

There's a book called CSS for Print Designers. I think this might be your best bet.

I bought these, i havent gotten to the javascript portion yet, but this book is really really good.. I recommend it. You can get them separate.

30 days is plenty of time to become proficient with Final Cut. As others have said, the versions can be very different, so you would really need to train for the specific version you will be using.

Either way, I would recommend going through the official training book for the version you will be learning - most likely FCP7 or the more recent FCPX

The book for FCPX was printed before a number of big updates, so the info may be a little bit outdated. Also, the basic book doesn't go into multicam editing, or green screen, or any advanced technique; you would need to go through the advanced book to learn those aspects.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Web-Designers-Idea-Book-Inspiration/dp/1440333157/ref=la_B001JOYMF0_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1497363493&sr=1-1

I think this might be helpful for you, if you're willing to shell out the money.

Generally they ask questions on reddit.

Anyway, I'd recommend The MPEG Handbook for an overview (and in-depth info) on how codecs (specifically MPEG codecs) work.

I have this book... and I hated it. Then again, this was about 5~ years ago, back when I was a real newb. That being said - I have the 2nd edition, and again I was a real newb back then.

I really liked the PHP book by Visual by Whitehead (ahem) and Desamero. I found it much easier to understand as a beginner. This book seems to be the equivalent.

To further elaborate, you're describing an antenna and any antenna book will discuss various versions of the problem at length. Balanis is good : http://www.amazon.com/Antenna-Theory-Analysis-Design-Edition/dp/047166782X

> Balanis

Is this what you're talking about: Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, 3rd Edition?

It already is! In the form of textbooks!

Read this:

• http://www.textbooks.com/BooksDescription.php?BKN=910505&SBC=DDF&kpid=9780135072936N&kenshu=cdea7d76-57dd-484e-872e-ff3c16bd5b17&mcid=XKS-7564-41-1932-GoogleShopping-PRIDREPLACE-291&gclid=CIv5iaKTn9MCFQGraQodVlsC2Q
  
  
• https://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-6-002-electromagnetic-field-theory-a-problem-solving-approach-spring-2008/textbook-contents/
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Antenna-Theory-Analysis-Design-3rd/dp/047166782X
  
  If you don't have a strong multivariable calculus and differential equations background:
  
  
• https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-02sc-multivariable-calculus-fall-2010/
  
  
• Diff eq text: http://www.textbooks.com/BooksDescription.php?BKN=1745216&SBC=MBD&kpid=9781939512048U&kenshu=cdea7d76-57dd-484e-872e-ff3c16bd5b17&mcid=XKS-7564-41-341-GoogleShopping-PRIDREPLACE-291&gclid=CKC65f-Tn9MCFQiHaQodh_wE_w
  
  Read and understand these. Than go and answer your own questions.

Seductive Interaction Design, Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design