10 Great Books About Web Design That Are Worth Reading

Ever wish you knew more about certain aspects of web design? As professionals in an ever-changing industry, I believe it’s absolutely essential that to stay afloat of the evolving landscape in which we work. Fortunately for us, we don’t need to look far for excellent resources to keep us up to speed.

In an effort to help you weed through the plethora of information available, I’ve scoured libraries and bookshelves to come up with ten great books about web design. So sit back, grab a cup o` joe and get ready to learn. Don’t worry, there’s no homework involved!

This post has been sponsored by the awesome folks at Webydo.

Visual Design

To get us started on this journey of knowledge we present a book to ensure your foundation is solid. Inside is ninety-five nuggets of truth about visual design that you’ll likely draw on throughout your career. From tips on directing the eye of your audience to the nitty-gritty details of shape and symmetry, this book has it all.

HTML 5 For Web Designers

Let’s be honest. As web designers, our natural tendency is to focus on the creative aspects of web-based media. Often, the technological aspects are forgotten or left to others. In this book, these technological pieces are presented in a practical, easy-to-understand way, helping you get a better grasp on the newest web language and how your designs will benefit.

Designing For Emotion

Taking the next step after refreshing the basics, this book offers fantastic insights for creating engaging designs that elicit emotion. The basic premise that we’re designing for humans rather than stoic machines is explored in detail her with great advice on expressing the personality behind your designs.

Web Form Design

Often a trouble area for designers, this wonderful book can help guide you through the common pitfalls associated with web form design. What’s great about this book is that the author takes the time to clearly explain the issues we all face with making data gathering a visually appealing process and then presents practice examples to solve them. A must read!

The Shape of Design

While not specifically about web design, this book gets right at the heart of what we do. Within, you’ll explore some of the more abstract concepts pertaining to design and why somethings work and others just don’t. You owe it to yourself to pick this one up, if for nothing else, than to learn more about why you think the way you do about design.

Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited

UX design is a pretty big thing if you haven’t yet discovered. This book paves an easy to follow path to better usability in your web designs. If what you design for the web is ever used by humans, you should read this book. You’ll learn from an expert how to incorporate more intuitive design principles into all of your projects.

Design Is A Job

Thought the title of this book might seem rather obvious, its contents might just be what your freelance career is missing. The author –a design entrepreneur himself– guides you through a knowledge dump of what the business of design is all about. From navigating client interactions to the art of selling designs, this book is a wealth of valuable information.

Thinking With Type

Billed as the “definitive guide to using typography in visual communication, this marvelous book includes an abundance of style guidelines for this critical aspect of web design. In addition to tips on using all manner of typeface and lettering, this book equips you with the knowledge and confidence to express your creativity through type while avoiding common faux pas. If you’ve ever had a question about captions, lining numerals or mixing typefaces, this book is a sure bet.

Designing Brand Identity

As we all know, building brands that embody the unique identities of the clients we server is a difficult task. To help de-mystify the subject, this book takes a close look at dozens of real-world case studies including some of today’s biggest brands. In each study you’ll find immediately useful methods and processes for creating effective brands.

Web Design Confidential

Compiled from a set of over 5,400 web design veterans, this book sets out to tackle the intimate questions of the web design industry. Covering topics from standard hourly rates to modern web design practices, this one will help you better understand the profession you love. Though you might have to look under a few more rocks for this one –it’s since out of print– the extra effort is certainly worth it!

Finished!

That just about sums up our list of ten great books for web designers, but don’t stop there! The World Wide Web is chock full of useful and often free web deisgn books. So keep on learning and continue to build a better web!

The post 10 Great Books About Web Design That Are Worth Reading appeared first on Speckyboy Web Design Magazine.

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10 Great Books About Web Design That Are Worth Reading

50 Free Books for Web Designers & Developers

There are thousands of books available for web designers and developers online. There has been no language, no point of discussion, or no trend that has not, at one time or another, been extensively explored and analyzed, and eventually published into a book. The great news is quite a lot of these books are available for free! And I have collected my 50 favorites for you!

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50 Free Books for Web Designers & Developers

15 Fantastic Books on Hand Lettering

In the world of smartphones and digital texting, many believe that hand lettering has become a dying art. However, a stealthy resurgence is now occurring in the world of graphic design; beautiful, artistic lettering is making a comeback. This historic form of creative expression is now being embraced more and more by designers of logos, product packaging, book covers, and advertisements. Here are fifteen of the best books on hand lettering to help even a novice to learn this highly dramatic form of visual art.

1. The Art of Hand Lettering by Helm Wotzkow

Originally published in 1978, this wonderfully written guide discusses the history of calligraphy and hand lettering. From modern-styled letters to the more classical fonts used several centuries ago, Wotzkow offers detailed instructions for numerous types of script. There is even a rather detailed chapter on how the different types of inks, papers, and writing tools can affect the overall visual appeal of the letters.

2. Little Book of Lettering by Emily Gregory

This publication focuses primarily on the most recent advancements in calligraphy and hand lettering. The hardcover version is only 192-pages, but it is packed with loads of eye-popping examples by some of today’s more innovative visionaries. For those who have a strong desire to create their own unique fonts and scripts, this is one of the more imaginative books to review.

3. Hand Lettering Ledger by Mary Kate McDevitt

The official title of this book is Hand Lettering Ledger: A Practical Guide to Creating Serif, Script, Illustrated, Ornate, and Other Totally Original Hand-Drawn Styles.And that’s just one example of how detailed author Mary Kate McDevitt gets with her educational methods. McDevitt offers the reader an instructional workbook with step-by-step directions for a wide range of writing styles. She even includes 120 practice pages.

4. Drawing Type: An Introduction to Illustrating Letterforms by Alex Fowkes

Fowkes draws from real-life font designers, providing interviews about their individual creative processes. Final examples of each artist’s inspired scripts are provided along with some first-draft examples as viewed in their personal sketchbooks.

5.Hand to Type: Scripts, Hand-Lettering, and Calligraphy by Klanten, Middendorp, and Hellige

This is one of the rare books that discusses the process of turning handwritten letters into digital fonts. The editors also discuss many of the lesser known styles, like German Sütterlin and Arabic scripts.

6. Mastering Calligraphy by Gaye Godfrey-Nicholls

Perhaps one of the most comprehensive instructional guides on freestyle lettering, Nicholls’ book offers over 700 inspirational images along with highly detailed step-by-step directions for fonts old and new. She also includes a very expansive resource section, numerous profiles on leading graphic artists, and loads of historical information.

7.Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age by Louise Fili

This is one of those books for the true enthusiast of historical calligraphy and creative scripting. Author Fili draws upon the more sophisticated and stylish fonts used in the 1800’s and into the mid-twentieth century that many professional graphic artists might have long forgotten even existed.

8. Hand-Lettering for Everyone by Cristina Vanko

For those who want to use their stylish calligraphy for product packaging, this is the book to buy. From restaurant menus to T-shirts, Vanko discusses which scripts work well in each type of industry.

9. Creative Lettering and Beyond by Bagri Joy Kirkendall and Laura Lavender

Creative Lettering and Beyonddiscusses nearly every genre and use for beautifully scripted fonts. There are numerous practice pages and a huge assortment of different exercises, tips, and tricks. The authors even discuss such detailed concepts as chalk-writing.

10.Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller and Talarico Lita

Heller and Lita offer a look into the sketchbooks of some ninety leading graphic artists in the industry. For those who really want to establish a professional reputation in the world of graphic design and creative fonts, this is the book to read.

11.Creative Lettering: Techniques & Tips from Top Artists by Jenny Doh

While author Jenny Doh certainly offers the reader several of her own insights into the world of creative lettering, her publication primarily focuses on the personal perspectives of some sixteen very accomplished graphic artists, from card makers to collagists and world class painters.

12. Lettering and Alphabets by J. Albert Cavanagh

Of all the hundreds of books available on the topic of hand lettering, Cavanagh’s Lettering and Alphabetsis perhaps the most practical. For those who simply want the basic information presented in an easy to understand method, this book offers simple directions on how to create 85 of the more popular fonts.

13.Script Lettering for Artists (Lettering, Calligraphy, Typography) by Tommy Thompson

With a name like Tommy Thompson, this book is definitely worth at least a first glance. Tommy provides one of the most extensive courses in creative lettering without having to actually take a class. He even discusses techniques of some very famous engravers, too.

14. Hand Job: A Catalogue of Type by Michal Perry

Hand Job: A Catalogue of Typeis one of those books that really doesn’t take itself all that seriously. For those who want to create fonts that really do look as if they are drawn by hand or almost childish in nature, this is the book to buy.

15.The Botanical Hand Lettering Workbook by Bethany Robertson

According to author Bethany Robertson, handwriting is supposed to be a great deal of fun and maybe even a bit whimsical. One of her areas of specialty is in creating highly personalized, “flowery” fonts for more ornamental illustrations. Bethany allows for, and even recommends, a certain amount of imperfection in the final creation. After all, nobody is perfect.

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There are so many ways to use freestyle handwriting for marketing and advertising today, and many of these books discuss these numerous options in great detail. Some are geared towards novices while others are written for the more experienced professional. But all of these publications are exceptionally well-written and very easy to understand. One of the wonderful things about creative hand lettering is that it really doesn’t need to look perfect in order to inspire.

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15 Fantastic Books on Hand Lettering

Flip PDF Pro Redefines the Way you Build Flip Books

Ever had the ingenious idea of turning your PDF magazines, catalogs, brochures and photo albums into online flip books only to find that there wasn’t a super easy and affordable solution? I have been in that situation. Whilst there are services online to help with that, I didn’t find what I was looking for and gave up on it.

I recently came across a new product called Flip PDF Pro by Flip Builder, it opened up so many new doors for how I was displaying PDF’s. Since the company inception in 2008 they have sold more than 200,000 licenses for the Windows and Mac versions of the program. It solves the common problems I once had with Flipbook creator builders of quality and delivery and just totally blows me away.

Firstly, it’s super affordable to get your hands on and pays for itself within the first day of using it. Simply because you would need to pay someone else quite a bit of money to get the same results you could muster up through this software.

For those that are unfamiliar with flip books, it’s an online book that acts as a real life book when paging. Making it more engaging to use and the options of how to put it together are endless. It’s the way to go with online publications, if it’s your style of choice of course.

I’m going to give you a quick walk through on the software below.

Technically Friendly Interface

The beauty with using Flip builder software is that they cater to both the beginner and expert. Making it possible for first time users to put together a beautiful flip book and for the expert to customize the heck out of it.

You are greeted by a welcome screen that enables you to just follow the prompts, upload your desired PDF and get a basic version your now flip book PDF at your disposal. You can then go ahead and choose from predefined templates to base your flip book on, making it less hassle free for you to get to the final version of your flip book.

Feature Rich for Full Control

Often times there are a few gaps in the software which don’t allow you to have control of all the aspects in your document, but with Flip PDF you do. They take the guess work out of making things beautiful. You can utilize the pages manager to rearrange your catalog of pages, or make adjustments on the go.

Just to mention a few more features:

• Interactive reading experience: Convert ordinary PDF documents into stunning interactive page flipping eBooks with extraordinary reading experience.


• Mobile friendly: HTML5 support, smooth reading experience on desktops, iPad, iPhone, tablets, Android & Windows phones.


• Abundant templates and themes: 100+ templates, 400+ themes, 200+ scenes and 700+ backgrounds for different users.


• Social integration: Share your publication to social platforms, reach your readers at Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Digg and more.


• No coding: Drag & drop interface, no program and design skill is needed, set up customized flipbook in only three steps.


• WordPress flipbook plugin: Publish page flip eBook as WordPress plugin or Drupal extention and embed it into WordPress or Drupal website directly.

Editing of Elements within the Builder

The Professional and Corporate editions of Flip PDF software include the advanced Page Editor, which is designed to add all types of multimedia content and interactive features to your existing and new documents. When you’re looking to get some images cropped, text updated or narrowed, you don’t have to export to another program and import your new version again, you can do it right within the software. It saves you a lot of time and usability as you can see exactly what it’s going to portray like in your new document.

Conclusion

If you’ve been struggling to put together a flip book by using other software, now is the time to make a change and get started with the best flip book building software available on the market. Be sure to checkout the Flip Builder website for more information on the products available.

Flip PDF Pro Redefines the Way you Build Flip Books

10 Must-Read UX Books

There are a lot of great books on UX and Usability these days. So many, in fact, that it’s hard to narrow it down to the very best ones! Here are 10 that every UX designer will be able to glean some useful information from.

1. Don’t Make Me Think

This book has a great way of approaching human-centered design thinking and Steve Krug is one of the foremost experts in the field.

2. Rocket Surgery Made Easy

Also by Steve Krug, this book is an essential one to read for designers doing usability testing. It is one of the best resources for learning how to plan and conduct user tests on your product.

3. Usable Usability: Simple Steps for Making Stuff Better

This is the perfect intro and in-depth examination of what usability is. It discusses why usability is important and provides an overview of different usability concepts. It’s an invaluable tool for anyone performing usability testing.

4. Smashing UX Design: Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences

This book is the UX Bible. It discusses the basics of user-centered design and the philosophies it is based upon, and it walks you through the how-tos of everything from user research to wireframing, providing case studies for each.

5. Quantifying the User Experience: Practical Statistics for User Research

This book is a great tool to aid in understanding the role of statistics in UX. It breaks the information down in an easy-to-understand manner and helps to elucidate the usefulness of statistics in UX.

6. Service Design: From Insight to Implementation

This presents a very hands on approach to UX. Designing services that work for people is exactly what UX aims to do and this book offers excellent case studies, insights, and methods to help do exactly that.

7. The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide

This book describes a number of unique approaches to UX that don’t take a lot of time and resources, yet still have a big impact. Readers can benefit from the tools and insights it offers.

8. Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience

This book discusses important UX principles and techniques, how to experiment with design ideas, and how to continually adjust your designs based on research and testing. It has received many awards and is a valuable resource for UX designers who want to keep getting leaner.

9. Mobile Usability

One of the few books devoted to mobile UX, this book discusses some of the difficulties involved in designing for mobile. It also offers a number of solutions for improving mobile design techniques.

10. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People

Designers might be great at designing beautiful work, but if they don’t understand people, their work won’t have the impact they want. This book helps users learn about consumer behavior and needs, and how to tap into those elements through design.

What Did We Miss?

Now that you’ve seen our top ten must-read UX books, leave a comment below and let us know your favorites. Have you read any of the books on our list? What would you add?

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10 Must-Read UX Books