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Ask HN: Independently learning design?

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31–40 of 43 posts

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#31

Go to art school, like I did. Hahahah. No, I'm kidding, don't. But do become educated about the past. Buy some books. I recommend starting with Paul Rand http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-Steven-Heller/dp/0714839949 I love that book. I'll never let go of my copy. The most important thing is not to focus too much on current trends. They're mostly bullshit that will be forgotten fast. The reason I say study the past is b…

Thanks for the advice. On Stack Overflow: I understand that design is a different ballgame than code. However, a Q&A site geared towards helping with the tools of the trade (photoshop, illustrator) might be useful, right?

It would be, in learning tools. As a designer, it took even me a while to see the design as a separate concept from the means to invoke it—it's a very easy mistake to make, and it renders you completely blind to the slant of the particular proverbial hammer you're using. One way to get over this is to use many tools, the other, experience in many mediums; but neither can be gained without time spent. The only way to get better at design is to design, preferably in many projects, in many disciplines.

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#32
It's all about metacognition. You need to look at the designed things in your life and understand WHY you like or dislike them. Look at the spacing of text, the font choices, the color choices, the contrast between fonts/colors/etc, the shape of things. Design is also how things work, not just how they look.

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#33
Having self-taught myself a lot about design, let me give you a few pointers.

The number one rule is that you have to start paying attention to the design of everything. Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" is a good start on developing this, and you really shouldn't miss it. But this applies to everything: when something's nice, figure out why. Notice typefaces, and form a mental library so you can identify them.

It's a bit of an odd path, but I'll also suggest, since you're interested in interactive systems, reading several great Human Interface Guidelines. Apple's OS X ones are my favorite (You might even want to get an older version, because they're a bit more general), but the Nokia Meego ones are worth a look too. Most others are too mediocre to teach you anything though.

Some other books I have to suggest: Bringhurtst's "The Elements of Typographic Style." Definately read some kind of lighter treatment of type first, so you know humanists from geometrics, serifs from sans, high and low contrast, and so forth, but if you want to really get it, this is the book. If you go in knowing that some of what he's saying is opinion, this is the book you need to read.

The Universal Principles of Design: It's really not the best book, and there's some things, like the readability research, that's actually just complete crap, but it's an alright, quick overview of a few dozen concepts. If you understand the concepts in it, skip it, but as a first intro, you could do worse.

The Humane Interface: Other than Raskin's whining about the Canon Cat not being a hit for slightly too long, it's got some interesting concepts that all designers should understand.

Thoughtful Interaction Design: This one's very theoretical, and very heavy reading; it's really about a way to view the design process, and how it proceeds, more than it is about how to design. Don't read it until you've done a few projects.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information: This is a great book on presenting information. Just ignore the ridiculous stuff about minimizing ink, and think of it as minimizing the cognitive load.

For a quick overview of a couple interesting concepts, you might try method.ac, reading the wikipedia pages on Fitt's Law and http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk and trolling through http://informationarchitects.net/blog/.

Stay away from ux.stackexchange.com, news.layervault.com, PSDtuts, et. c. It's almost all crap, about tools rather than actual designing. In general (very much in general), if a blog post on design is short, it's crap, 95% of the time.

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#34

step 1: Go through lot of tutorials in Photoshop, replicate different type of effects, patterns, actions. step 2a: move on to Illustrator, once you start needed quality images. or/and step 2b: start using your html/css knowledge with your new found design skills, to start making websites after that you are pretty much done.

I mean no offense here, but this isn't design. This is parroting visual effects.

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#35
post #29

Go to art school, like I did. Hahahah. No, I'm kidding, don't. But do become educated about the past. Buy some books. I recommend starting with Paul Rand http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-Steven-Heller/dp/0714839949 I love that book. I'll never let go of my copy. The most important thing is not to focus too much on current trends. They're mostly bullshit that will be forgotten fast. The reason I say study the past is b…

> There's no Stack Overflow for design. There are actually two stack exchange sites for design: - http://ux.stackexchange.com/ - http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com I've used both and found them very useful. > It doesn't work the same way as programming. You're not going to become a good designer by visiting websites. No one becomes a solid programmer by visiting websites either. It's about practice with a focused…

I'm aware of those, I've been to both. I agree that ux.stackexchange has something to offer. graphicdesign.stackexchange is basically an Adobe support site.

Programming problems are much easier to solve with a Google search. In programming, the state of the art is the most important state. Nobody really reads or studies historical code from obsolete technology. Sure, there are things you won't learn without a good mentor or teacher.

My intention wasn't to claim you can become a good programmer by visiting websites, I was just trying to express that learning design is a much more offline experience, and OP was asking for websites he should visit.

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the advice. On Stack Overflow: I understand that design is a different ballgame than code. However, a Q&A site geared towards helping with the tools of the trade (photoshop, illustrator) might be useful, right?

It would be, in learning tools. As a designer, it took even me a while to see the design as a separate concept from the means to invoke it—it's a very easy mistake to make, and it renders you completely blind to the slant of the particular proverbial hammer you're using. One way to get over this is to use many tools, the other, experience in many mediums; but neither can be gained without time spent. The only way to…

Exactly. OP, by all means learn the tools available today; you'll never be commissioned to paint a website in gouache. Just beware: it's easy to get locked in to using Illustrator and only ever coming up with things you can make in Illustrator, for example. That makes for a shitty designer.

Nothing wrong with gouache though, in fact you can learn a lot about color just messing around with some paint for a while. A lot more than you'll learn from pixels.

My advice in a nutshell: play with a lot of different mediums and look at a lot of different work if you really care about being a designer.

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#38

I'm in the same boat. I'm not very good but I'm starting to get better at design. Here are some tips, which might be useful. None of these are affiliate links and I'm not associated with any of them, if that matters. - It's cliche, but read "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman [1]. It gives you a good sense of design's place in the greater world. The best design principles are as at home in a product deve…

Great list of resources! My blog post today was actually addressing how my design skills are lacking so this couldn't be more relevant to me, thanks for the share!

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you very much! :)

That post was amazing. Even the related ones he wrote on Backbone.js and Node.js are worth going through.

Exactly my thoughts! Very well written guides (tutorials?). Thanks a lot again for the link.

Re: Ask HN: Independently learning design?

#40

I'm in the same boat. I'm not very good but I'm starting to get better at design. Here are some tips, which might be useful. None of these are affiliate links and I'm not associated with any of them, if that matters. - It's cliche, but read "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman [1]. It gives you a good sense of design's place in the greater world. The best design principles are as at home in a product deve…

I'm Jarrod, the guy behind Bootstrapping Design. Sorry I'm late to this thread, and thank you for sharing the book!

There are a couple of other design ebooks worth a look:

Sacha Greif's Step By Step UI Design: http://sachagreif.com/ebook/

Nathan Barry's ebooks: http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-handbook/ http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/

If I can answer any questions, leave a comment here or send me an email: hello bootstrappingdesign {dot} /com/

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