Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#1

Post by discovr » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 4:12 AM UTC

Design Books Every Hacker Should Read
davidmckinney.com

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#2

Post by alexlande » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 4:39 AM UTC

This is a great list.

From a pure graphic design standpoint, I would recommend The Elements of Typography Style to any developer, as well as Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton. A solid understanding of typography is maybe the most important, and definitely the most immediately useful, facet of design.

Interesting point about Muller-Brockmann as well. It's essentially a collection of case studies about working within constraints.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#3

Post by xargs12 » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 4:54 AM UTC

More Edward Tufte.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#4

Post by larrydavid » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:04 AM UTC

It might be worth noting that there are many revisions of The Elements of Typography Style, the latest released only this month (version 4.0).

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#5

Post by smartial_arts » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:14 AM UTC

I keep returning to the moment when I set up an email forwarding in IFTTT for every mentioning of word 'book' on HN feed - boy does it deliver some good links.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#6

Post by brendoncrawford » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:25 AM UTC

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.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#7

Post by geoka9 » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:26 AM UTC

Another web design site, another page that's almost impossible to read due to washed out text.

Guys, do you test your sites on anything other than Macs with "retina" displays? For example, I maxed out the brightness setting on my Thinkpad x60 and the text is still barely legible. Granted, this TP has a very average display, but do you really want to limit your audience to Mac users?

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#8

Post by shmerl » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:29 AM UTC

geoka9 wrote: post #7

Another web design site, another page that's almost impossible to read due to washed out text. Guys, do you test your sites on anything other than Macs with "retina" displays? For example, I maxed out the brightness setting on my Thinkpad x60 and the text is still barely legible. Granted, this TP has a very average display, but do you really want to limit your audience to Mac users?

Yeah, gray font on the white background is not pleasant. For a page which talks about books like "The Design of Everyday Things" it's kind of a fail ;)

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#9

Post by shmerl » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:32 AM UTC

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.

They don't cover just visual design, but design in general. While visual interfaces are most commonly associated with design, design is actually related to many other areas as well.

Re: Design Books Every Hacker Should Read

#10

Post by zalew » Tue, Jan 15, 2013, 5:35 AM UTC

where is "don't make me think"?