Books on Design

Students often ask for resources on Graphic Design. I’ll suggest two books that have been readings in class in the past (and might be this year if we do the Graphic Design module): “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” and “Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty.”

You will probably want to read something about graphic design. You could do a whole graduate degree (and more) on the subject, so no one book is going to do it justice. This is a topic you’ll probably want to read more of than we get to do in class.

In my class, I often do a “Design School in a Day”, where I try to give the students a crash course. we’ll use these books.

I recommend these books to my students.

• I really like Robin Williams’ “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” (Amazon) as a quick dose - an hour lesson that helped me a lot (and helps many people a lot). A single hour lesson isn’t going to make anyone a designer, but it’s more useful than you can possibly imagine such a small dose being.

• I haven’t finished reading “Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty” yet (Amazon), but in principle I like what it is trying to do (get the main points across to geeks like me). The book covers the right topics, but I haven’t decided if I like how it covers it yet. It is available online through the UW library, so you can look it over to see if you like it or not.