Books, books, books.
Posted on 11/10/07 at 6.20pm
I seem to be developing somewhat of a book obsession recently.
The Principles of beautiful web design
It started with Sitepoint's excellent book The Principles of beautiful web design which was fantastic. The rather slim offering was at first a little worrying. Once you open the book however the entire thing is a very practical, useable guide that covers basic graphic design skills and more importantly shows you how to use them in a real word sense. Some details did seem a little light but i still consider it a very solid purchase.
Grid Systems in Graphic Design
After waiting for this over this for a couple of months (well worth it) My copy of Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann finally arrived! Its funny how something that was written almost 50 years ago is still so relevant in modern design.
Using his techniques that were designed for print its not difficult to adapt this to the web interface and various screen resolutions. Müller-Brockmann shows how he uses this strict, objective method of creation that brings order to design. I've read this thing 3 times already and am still picking up things out of it! This is one that i will keep with me for a very, very long time.
CSS Mastery
Honestly i thought i had a fairly thorough knowledge of CSS before i read this. Yet Andy Budd delivers a complete, modern manual on designing clean, accessible and standards-complaint web designs. Another title that will stay with me for a while.
The book is designed as a reference which makes it great for an every day resource. I really like how Andy has included two of his designs in the later chapters that combine a good combination of style,techique and accessibility to make a really solid web design.
Thats it for the moment, still waiting for my next adventure.