“Must read” texts
Deep Sites: Intelligent Innovation in Contemporary Web Design by Max Bruinsma
Deep Sites is one of the better “showcase” books available. Max Bruinsma does a great job analysing over 100 websites in a cool and logical manner. The book includes sections on Interface, Typography, Animation, Community and Authoring, all illustrated in full colour. It is a great source of design inspiration and gives a great deal of insight into the development of many of the sites. The book is also careful to draw the distinction between functionality and entertainment, a pitfall that many other such titles have not managed to avoid.
Deep Sites is available from Amazon.co.uk at £13.26
Designing Web Graphics 4: How to Prepare Images & Media for the Web by Lynda Weinman
This book is described as “the most influential web design book ever written” by the publishers. While that may be overstating it a little, it is pretty good. In fact the title is a little misleading because although web graphics are discussed in detail (and are the obvious strength of this book), a great deal of other material is also covered from career guidance to web hosting and a great deal in between.
The book focuses on the “look-and-feel” of a website and describes the various techniques for achieving a particular effect such as image rollovers and image maps. However, site structure topics are also covered. Chapters on information architecture, navigation and accessibility issues give the book enough depth to make it an all round web design reference. As you would expect from such a book, the chapters on image file formats and colour issues are very good. An excellent book if you can afford it
Designing Web Graphics 4 is available from Amazon.co.uk at £30.09
Great Web Typography by Wendy Peck
Until quite recently, “web typography” would have been considered an oxymoron but the advent of cascading style sheets has changed all that. CSS now gives web designers control over just about every aspect of type and this book gives a through grounding in the use of CSS to control the appearance of type in the browser window. But it doesn't stop there. The book also has chapters on graphic type and the use of Flash type.
This book is both a technical reference and a design guide. It is illustrated throughout in full colour and is easily the best book available on this relatively new area of web design.
Great Web Typography is available from Amazon.co.uk at £18.16
www.colour: Effective Use of Colour for Web Page Design by Roger Pring
The use of colour on the web is an important and complicated area of study, which is often not well understood. However, Roger Pring starts with the basics (describing how the human brain sees colour) and gives an excellent explanation of colour theory and how it applies to the web and computer monitors.
The book is in two parts. The first part focuses on colour theory and practice with very good coverage of image manipulation. The second part is a “showcase”. Over 100 web sites are considered and in each case, there is a short critique of the colours used.
One of the best book on colour for the web and a great source of inspiration, www.colour is available from Amazon.co.uk at £9.09
The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett
This is a relatively slim volume (at just under 200 pages) that delivers a single message but that message is very important. This book is based upon the concept of “user centred design” and sets out to define a website as a “user experience”. It does a masterful job of collating and analysing all of the parameters that a web designers and others must consider when building a site and designing a user interface. The book expands upon Garrett's own theory model, which divides the user experience into five layers or “planes”, namely Surface, Skeleton, Structure, Scope and Strategy. Each plane is dealt with in detail and the book touches upon many areas such as page layout, information architecture and the use of contrast and uniformity to name but a few.
The Elements of User Experience propounds an excellent method for web design and is available from Amazon.co.uk at £11.75
Simple Websites: Organizing Content Rich Web Sites into Simple Structures by Stefan Mumaw
This is a gem of a book. Stefan Mumaw has taken 24 websites and in each case, describes how they were designed. The book is illustrated not only with images of the finished websites but also with the original designers sketches, describing how site structures and page layouts came to be.
The chosen websites all have something in common - they are simple; that is to say, they all look simple. Each one has a very clean and clear interface but in many cases, the content is rich and complex. Here is the crux of the book. How do good web designers turn complex content into simple, easy to use websites that look great? Read the book.
In addition to helping you get inside the head of the designer, this book is a great source for design inspiration. In most cases, the chosen example sites are beautifully laid out, make great use of colour, typography and image, and use intuitive navigation.
Simple Websites: Organizing Content Rich Web Sites into Simple Structures is available at Amazon.co.uk for £19.25
Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden and Jill Butler
Universal Principles of Design, subtitled “100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design” is essentially a directory of all those design terms and “buzz phrases” that you know you ought to know the meaning of. The authors have chosen 100 design ideas and concepts and devote a double-page spread to each. Concepts such as Ockham’s Razor, Fibonacci Sequence, Iteration and Legibility (the basics that all designers must understand) are beautifully described and illustrated with excellent examples to illustrate each point.
This is a general design reference although website examples are used where appropriate. All students of design should read this book and all designers should at least consider it a check list for their own knowledge and understanding.
Universal Principles of Design is available at Amazon.co.uk for £19.25
