| a long long time ago, i wrote a post here on hn on how to get started on web design [0], but since you already have the technical bit, you can just skip ahead to the Design part. That said, I don't think that many "howto design" books are all that interesting (and the best design books are mystifying in a way which defies reason), but you will find books about the nuts and bolts of design which are very good even if you're totally green to the field. The other most important thing is that you keep making things. Even little things. Make them and show them to people and get feedback. Lather, rinse and repeat. Anyhow... You will want to specifically look for books on Typography, Color, Layout, Photography, Contrast/Scale, and Poster Design. Poster Design is actually sui generis despite appearing to be a subset of graphic design.[1] My belief is strongly on the side of typography being the most crucial skill a designer needs (since its use of space/contrast/layout) is basically design in a micro level, rather than on the macro (page) level. The skills you pick up in typography do translate over, but it takes lots of practice. Since illustrators are readily hopping into many design jobs, our best bet is to differentiate ourselves with our exhaustive knowledge of typography. A great book on "Book Typography" is Cyrus Highsmith's Inside Paragraphs. A good book on "Display Typography" is Wolfgang Weingart's My Way to Typography. Three good books on "Typographic Fundamentals" are: Ellen Lupton's Thinking With Type, John Kane's Type Primer and Erik Spiekermann's Stop Stealing Sheep (and find out how type works). One excellent "Typographic Reference" is Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style. One good book about "Design Process" is Nancy Skolos & Tom Wedell's Graphic Design Process. No design book suggestion will be complete without mentioning Emil Ruder's Typographie, Josef Muller-Brockman's Grid Systems and Armin Hofmann's Graphic Design Manual. That said, a good starter is layout/formmaking Christian Leborg's "Visual Grammar," part of Princeton Architectural Press' Design Briefs series[2] (all of which are good for skimming the next time you find yourself in a bookstore/amazon showroom). Finally, I never realized it until I made a joke about it, but you can summarize many of the principles of good UI Design in PEP 20, which is to say that if you care about API Design and Code Cleanliness and all that stuff, then you probably already have the right attitude towards graphic/visual design. Take those principles and apply them visually when you make anything or use them as a rough litmus test for your designs then break the rules as you see fit. Have fun! Relax. Don't Panic! [0]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1605228
[1]: While poster design employs many of the same structural techniques as Capital-D Design, it has its own rules which are useful to know, but above all it is free to play with scale in a way which is difficult in web and book design. Still, knowing about it will inform your own work and probably make it wayyyy more fun.
[2]: http://papress.com/html/book.list.page.tpl?action=seriessear... |