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Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

davidmckinney.com

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Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#41

Post by csl »

I've long wanted a good book that covers design principles in a way similar to how one would introduce a student to calculus, but for graphical design, layout and their interplay with typography.

Most books I've found so far are merely coffee table books: Pages of very nice illustrations, but weak on explaining the theory and principles of applying it to, e.g., a book, poster or website.

Does anybody know of such books? What do serious students of graphic design read? Is the book "Universal principles of design" a good fit?

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#42

Post by ekianjo »

discovr wrote: post #29
ekianjo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the author of the post probably has a very narrow vision of what the term "hacker" means. And putting "every" and "should" in the same sentence makes it sound like it's some kind of universal advice worth gold or something. I know 2 of the books mentioned and they are great books, but the poster should mention that the Design of Everyday Things is starting to be seriously dated. At least for the examples expo…

hey ekianjo. you're absolutely right in that 'design of everyday things'is an old book. It also has some examples that will probably never age. Out of the 5 books in the list, it has been the most useful of any design book (to me). Changed how I think about design.

I consider the design of everyday things a good book but I am not sure I would consider it a "must-have". I bought it because someone mentioned it on HN before in the same way ("Must-read") and while I found it insightful, most of the principles were not new to me and I found it poorly written (it could have been MUCH shorter and concise). Some pages are really fillers. That's also why I question its "universal" status, as it is far from being perfect (especially in the later chapters).

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#43

Post by rplacd »

brendoncrawford wrote: post #6

Great books, but why is it necessary that every hacker should read them? How are these relevant to the hacker who writes his own Linux device drivers? Or the hacker building an open source voice recognition library? There are plenty of hackers who do amazing work that has nothing to do with visual design.

At the very least for the stimulation, I should suppose.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#44

Post by rplacd »

zalew wrote: post #32
msutherl wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While useful for the non-designer, Don't Make Me Think is a relatively shallow book compared with those recommended here.

I agree, but it's a good kickstarter. I don't know if the said 'every hacker' will understand the one about type (I haven't read it, but even as someone interested in design I find typography quite a difficult subject).

Don't worry about being intimidated - there's nothing inherently complex that'll stop you from intellectually appreciating the subject - there are quite a few abstractions and moving parts, but treat those like an API - "pages have margins and text blocks, and text blocks have leadings and..." The more important part is the intuition (or "taste in design") that lets you combine those parts together - and Bringhurst aims to give you his view on how things should work by specifically prescribing style. That gets you over the initial hurdle in figuring out what works for you.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#45

Post by zalew »

rplacd wrote: post #44
zalew wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but it's a good kickstarter. I don't know if the said 'every hacker' will understand the one about type (I haven't read it, but even as someone interested in design I find typography quite a difficult subject).

Don't worry about being intimidated - there's nothing inherently complex that'll stop you from intellectually appreciating the subject - there are quite a few abstractions and moving parts, but treat those like an API - "pages have margins and text blocks, and text blocks have leadings and..." The more important part is the intuition (or "taste in design") that lets you combine those parts together - and Bringhurst a…

I'm not intimidated, and the things you mentioned aren't that complicated. what I don't get is all those stuff about what makes a font good. I can spot out flaws in ux, recognize a good ui solution from a bad one, and I see when something falls off the grid, ohter than those technical sides I like photography, illustration and many other forms of visual art, etc., I enjoy looking at good type, but with all of that I have literally no idea why designers say arial sucks (I know comic sans suck though, fortunately). what I always do with fonts is basically a negative selection so the end result is legible and doesn't look awful for my taste, but I'd f.ex. find problems mixing serif with sans correctly (serif is in general a mystery to me, I use sans as a safer bet).

this presentation I watched some time ago is cool http://www.organizedwonder.com/videos/310 although as with arial, I couldn't tell you why helvetica is bad.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#47

Post by heiko23 »

maguay wrote: post #38

Another great one: Frank Chimero's "The Shape of Design". More about the design process than design itself, and that makes it all the more applicable to anyone who creates anything at all. http://www.shapeofdesignbook.com

I somehow can't buy the ebook, the store appears to be down. Am I doing anything wrong?

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#48

Post by riffraff »

franze wrote: post #46

the one book these lists always forget: "Understanding Comics" http://scottmccloud.com/2-print/1-uc/index.html in my opinion, it's at par with "don't make me think". i recommend reading them both at once.

can you expand on why you think it would be a good resource about design ?

I read "understanding comics" a couple of years ago and while I think it's an awesome book I am not sure of why you think it's a good resource for designing stuff that is not "sequential art".

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#49

Post by azharcs »

All these books are great but they are theoretical in their approach. It's good to be knowledgeable about Golden Ration or Fitts Law but it wouldn't be of immediate help on your next project. The books for Hackers should be pragmatic in their approach and not very theoretical.

The books I recommend are: Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams. It focuses on topics like Consistency, Alignment, Proximity, and Contrast. With these four rules, you can make 90% of your designs look good. It also explains briefly on what colors and typography to use. When you've firm grasp of the fundamentals, it would make sense to arm yourself with more theory.

Don't make me Think by Steve Krug. It teaches you to simplify and focus on the end-user.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#50

Post by tripzilch »

azharcs wrote: post #49

All these books are great but they are theoretical in their approach. It's good to be knowledgeable about Golden Ration or Fitts Law but it wouldn't be of immediate help on your next project. The books for Hackers should be pragmatic in their approach and not very theoretical. The books I recommend are: Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams. It focuses on topics like Consistency, Alignment, Proximity, and Contr…

Trick question: why is it good to know about the Golden Ratio?
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