Readings 13: Graphic Design

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While a little bit of reading is not going to make you a designer, it can begin the process of getting you to improve. And it will give you something to practice.

What I want you to read: (1) enough of “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” to get its main messages, and (2) something else that you find on the web about some aspect of graphic design that you find interesting.

Part 1: The Non-Designer’s Design Book

I really like these basic lessons of 4 basic principles from Robin Williams’ Non-Designer’s Design Book. It will be the basis of the lectures. 4 brief chapters (and a summary chapter) will give you the idea of the CARP principles (contrast, alignment, repetition, proximity). People who are good designers (and teach design) tell me this is a great place to start. I feel that learning this has helped me (and generations of students seem to agree). Yes, this is 5 chapters, but they are really short (a few pages each). They are all in The Design Readings Folder. (TheNonDesignersDesignBook1and6-Overview.pdf 0.9mb) (TheNonDesignersDesignBookChapter2.pdf 4.8mb) (TheNonDesignersDesignBookChapter3.pdf 4.3mb) (TheNonDesignersDesignBookChapter4.pdf 3.5mb) (TheNonDesignersDesignBookChapter5.pdf 4.3mb). There’s a PDF of the entire 2nd edition of the book in the Canvas folder - it’s of questionable origin.

Part 2: Find something else

It’s not hard to find things to read about design. You can look just about anywhere.

So… find something and read it. (note: I will ask you what you read in the assignment).

I’ll make some suggestions. But you might be better off doing a little searching to focus in on a specific topic you are interested in.

If you find a book, just read a relevant chapter or two.

Some suggestions:

  1. The book “Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty” seems to be exactly what would be appropriate for class: a book trying to teach design principles to computer scientists. I like the book (although I haven’t read the whole thing closely). And, it is available online through the UW library. I have put 2 relevant chapters into The Design Readings Folder.

  2. You could read more of The Non-Designer’s book (available above).

  3. Smashing Magazine (a website) has a ton of great stuff… this was a series that came out a ways back (around the time I gave the first version of this assignment)