Design is as much about psychology as it is making pretty mockups or complex task flows. User-centered design is all about people; the better we understand how they think, read, and act, the better our work will be.

Unfortunately, learning cognitive psychology can seem out of reach for designers. It’s complex and time-consuming to learn. Often, it’s difficult to transform the academic research into applicable insights.

Fortunately, Susan Weinschenk (Ph.D. in Psychology) has made it easy. Each chapter in her book discusses a psychology insight directly applicable to design, supported by case studies and anecdotes. My favorites were on canonical perspective, how people learn information, and the goal-gradient effect. It’s an interesting book and a good “Psychology 101 for Designers.”

I’ve enjoyed reading Mark Boulton’s blog for several years, so of course I wanted to read his free ebook A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web. It’s a relatively short book that covers the workflow and tools of a web designer, design briefs, research, typography, color, and grid systems.

The book has great breadth (it’s a good overview) but because it has to cover so many topics, it lacks the depth that I generally prefer.

I really enjoyed the section on grids. Many other books only explain how to use grids in print, but Boulton takes a web-first approach. His “Five Simple Steps to Designing Grid Systems” blog posts are some of my favorite resources on grids, so this comes as no surprise. The book is available for free online, so there’s no reason not to check this one out!

This is a massive (text)book but well worth the investment if you’re interested in IxD. Section one introduces the Goal-Directed design methodology—a systematic design process for interactive products centered on understanding users’ goals, needs and motivations.

Key to this process is using personas to translate user research into design requirements. I’d used personas before but was unclear on how to create and use them well and was confused by various differing explanations. Alan Cooper authored the concept so it was helpful learn his intention for them.

Sections 2 and 3 introduce helpful concepts like product posture, perpetual intermediates, excise, idiomatic design, and WIMP that I was completely unfamiliar with or had never given any thought. I’ll definitely pull from this text the next time I teach UX/UI design.

If there was one book I’d recommend to those interested in web design, it’d be this one. This book provides a strong foundation for everything one needs to know to create beautiful and effective websites.

Many other books choose to focus on an aspect or two of the design process, but this book comprehensively covers it all (planning, designing, and analysis) in a way difficult to find elsewhere. It doesn’t assume previous knowledge and introduces industry jargon like information architecture, wireframe, baseline grid, analytics, and SEO.

Beyond being full of great usability and visual design principles, the book is also beautiful. I’ve found myself flipping through it on several occasions to refresh myself on certain topics or just get inspired by the example sites.

Burn Your Portfolio is what every book should strive to be—packed full of valuable content, coherently structured, easily readable (even humorous), and well-designed.

We designers like to talk design (fonts, colors, grids, software), not business (clients, project management, networking, and contracts). But to be a designer is to work for clients, so to be a great designer we have to work well with them. This book teaches you how to do that.

It’s broken into 111 “chapters”, often only 1–3 pages, and reads almost like a daily devotional. Janda allows unprecedented insight into client management, frequently citing specific dollar figures and providing his own agency’s email templates for the reader’s own use.

This book won’t be far from reach—I’ll be referencing it again and again.

Remember painting the color wheel in art class? There’s yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green, and all other the ones in-between. That’s all there is to color, right? Wrong.

Color is a deep topic—it’s a complicated amalgamation of physics, psychology, computer science, and art. I’ve read dozens of articles to understand it better and am still often confused. To add to the struggle, misinformation runs rampant.

Fortunately, the Color Design Workbook exists. It’s accurate in the details (which you think would be a given, but apparently it’s not) and comprehensively covers the topic without getting too far in the weeds. It’s well-designed & colorful (duh) and contains case studies, color harmonies, and color meanings. 2 negatives: It doesn’t cover color management & profiles and it’s not a workbook. Still, it’s a great book!

What’s better than reading a book written by the authority on the subject? That’s what Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson from Brain Traffic is. This is an essential handbook for wresting back control of your content to create some sense of order.

One of the best parts of this book is the “Content Strategy Quad” she developed that explains the discipline. The core is “Core Content Strategy,” which defines how an organization uses content to achieve its objectives and meet user needs. The left half of the quad describes the content components: “Substance” (Developing the content and messages) and “Structure” (IA & Taxonomy). The right half describes the people components: “Workflow” (Processes to create and maintain content) and “Governance” (Key decision makers and content owners).

This is essential reading IMO, and one you’ll want to hold on to.

This is the seminal book on contextual design (CD), a user-centered, team-driven innovative design process built on immersive field research.

Usability testing improves existing prototypes, but doesn’t reveal what will really enhance and transform people’s lives. CD and its research component, contextual inquiry, immerses the designer into the life of real users to help them understand real problems and drive ideation.

The book discusses how to interview users, synthesize & interpret findings, create models & affinity diagrams, and share findings in team meetings.

Be warned: I hesitate to recommend this book because it’s long, wordy, and difficult to understand. Not easy reading, but it does have valuable content.

Shortly after accepting a job as marketing director for the student government at Cedarville University, my director passed out two books to read before starting; one of which was Creating Magic.

Frankly, I was skeptical about whether this book was worth my time—what was it going to say other than practice servant leadership, treat your people well, and make expectations clear. …well, it turns out a lot.

The best part are the stories. We relive the circumstances and events of Cockerell’s career and learn from how he handled them—good or bad. Key points from each are then summarized at the end of each chapter.

The world would be quite a bit better if we all practiced what’s in this book.

I suppose there’s no higher for a praise for a book than one that transforms your mindset towards a subject. Well, that’s what Design Systems accomplished for me.

If asked to build a design system, I’d jump to the tangible artifacts: an interface inventory and pattern library. These tools can provide a shared set of patterns, but, as Alla shows, a shared set of patterns is useless without a shared understanding of the patterns.

Two takeaways: Creating a design system is far more about orchestrating systems-thinking than creating specific tangible artifacts. Secondly, explain when and how to use a component. Don’t simply present your colors. Explain how to use each.

A well-written book backed by exhaustive research. I’ll be re-reading this on my next design systems project.

If there’s a big idea this book drives home, it’s this: A brand is a whole lot more than just a pretty logo. A brand is what an organization values and how it presents itself to others.

Designing Brand Identity focuses primarily on brand strategy. Big ideas, mission statements, and taglines. It discusses brand architecture, acquisitions, and how to maintain a consistent voice and CX. On visual identity, it discusses the pros and cons of different types of marks, color, typography, motion, brand standards manuals, and touchpoints like packaging, signage, vehicle graphics, and print collateral.

The book isn’t fun reading—it’s like a glossary filled with fluffy quotes and lots of case studies—but it does provide a great 1000-foot view of branding.

Sometimes it seems the UX industry becomes so focussed on usability that it fails to see the forest for the trees. In this book, Aarron Walter reminds us that good user experiences aren’t just usable, but delightful.

He writes, “We’re not just designing pages. We’re designing human experiences. Like the visionaries of the Arts and Crafts movement, we know that preserving the human touch and showing ourselves in our work isn’t optional: it’s essential.”

This short book explains the why and how of emotional design, supported by numerous examples. The book proposes a “User Hierarchy of Needs” based on Maslow’s Pyramid, as well as the concept of application personas. The book helps spark new ideas and is an enjoyable read; I’d recommend it.

Lighting design is as much technology as it is art. This text I used in my college lighting design class respects that and covers both very well. I was so impressed with its breadth and depth. As an industry-outsider and noob, this book was beyond helpful!

It begins with the controllable qualities of light used to evoke particular emotions or achieve particular goals, followed by later chapters on the design process and using a lighting key.

Then it explains the different types of lighting instruments, lenses, lamps, cables, dimmers, and consoles; covering both new and old methods (which is good since venues can be slow to upgrade.) There’s even a whole chapter on electrical theory! The last chapters focus on drafting light plots and other documentation to better communicate your designs to others. A+ book.

Steve Jobs once said that “design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” Don’t Make Me Think helps foster this mindset that is so critical for creating effective interactive experiences.

In the book, Steve Krug explains web usability in a way anyone can understand. Usability is about something being so simple that it just seems like common sense. The user shouldn’t have to think about what they’re doing, the interface should fade away and just work.

Krug presents 7 questions to measure usability: is it useful, is it learnable, is it memorable, is it effective, is it efficient, is it desirable, and is it delightful. This framework and other insightful notes, all presented in Krug’s accessible and casual style, makes this book an essential read.

Drawing ideas is an attractive book full of fascinating illustrations and ideas on how to create low-fidelity explanatory sketches. The book has a strong bent towards industrial (product) design and “sketchnoting.” The authors impress on the reader the need to keep sketches loose and fast.

This book won’t help you draw a realistic-looking person. But it will help you quickly draw something that communicates the idea of a person. You’ll see through example how to draw waypoints, flowcharts, and callout arrows to make your sketches easier to understand.

If you want to learn how to be a better illustrator or learn how to sketch interfaces, than this probably isn’t the one for you. But if you want to learn how to use sketching during brainstorming, then this is the book for you.

I used Graphic Design, Referenced as my primary textbook in my Graphic Design I course. It’s a helpful book for understanding the design industry as a whole. It’s primary strength is that it exposes you to small tastes of numerous subjects that can be the basis for extended study.

Of course it talks about the elements of design and basic print production terms, but this is actually quite limited. Most of the book is dedicated to the history of the industry and significant industry artifacts. There’s a timeline of significant works and movements; and spreads on significant magazines, books, websites, museums, schools, and organizations relating to design.

I’d consider this essential reading for any design student. Nothing else I’ve read in books or online will familiarize you with the industry as fast as this.

I really wanted to love this book. While leafing through it I saw these cool semi-transparent overlays marking up famous grid-based designs. There are tons of images of the same content laid out differently. This book seemed to have so much potential.

Unfortunately, I found it to be boring and not that helpful. There’s some useful information in here, but it’s almost not worth reading the entire book for it. The book doesn’t do that great of a job in explaining grid theory. And all those different layout images I saw—well that’s all there is to it. No explanation of why one might be better than another. The grid is flexible; I get it. I don’t need ~30 pages of gray boxes to prove that to me!

Some people like this book, but I’m still looking for something better.

I’ve been a big fan of Josef Müller-Brockmann’s Swiss Style posters for a while and couldn’t pass up his 1981 book, widely considered a classic by graphic designers.

The book explains his process of developing a grid. He shows dozens of examples of different ways you can subdivide the grid and arrange content within it. He even shows how to apply his method to three dimensions.

I didn’t find it as interesting as others suggested it to be. I don’t think it’s a great primer on grids and fear some may equate Josef’s didactic style with grids themselves. Also, it’s dated and the insights are difficult to apply to responsive web design. It is, however, an insightful look into a single designer’s philosophy & methodology.

HTML5 for Web Designers was the first book in the A Book Apart series that I ever got. It’s essentially a transition guide for developers used to writing XHTML to get up to speed on HTML5. The book could also be used as an introduction to HTML itself, but because it assumes some previous knowledge and is written to the industry professional I wouldn’t recommend it.

The content in this book is good and isn’t necessarily out-of-date, it’s just not needed any longer. For it’s time, the book must have been great and super helpful. All developers write in HTML5 now though, so a transition guide simply isn’t needed. A Book Apart did release a second edition in 2016 that may have made it more relevant. The first edition is available for free online at https://html5forwebdesigners.com

Some themes and tensions of design—such as craft versus mass-production or the value of ornamentation—have existed for centuries and continue in some form today.

Raziman’s History of Modern Design dives into how these themes played out over history and influenced architecture, industrial design, fashion, typography, and graphic design.

Unfortunately the book is long and at times stale. Little of the book is devoted specifically to graphic design. However, it succeeds in providing a context for design history as a whole and is a great supplement to Megg’s History of Graphic Design.

How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul shares what it means to be a designer and how to navigate your career as one—whether starting out or mid-career.

The book is equal parts design philosophy as it is practical, actionable tips. It reads like a seasoned design mentor advising you on the different pathways and the potential potholes of each.

The book kicks off by remarking on design as problem-solving versus creative expression. Shaughnessy defends the latter, but it’s clear that to “not lose your soul” you must have both. From there it discusses essential skills you need to be a designer, how to find a job, freelance vs studio, briefs, and the like. One of my favorites to date—highly recommended.

How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer is a misnomer. The book is really a compilation of interviews with noteworthy designers of the latter twentieth century: Michael Beirut, Paula Scher, Neville Brody, and Massimo Vignelli, among others.

The diversity of the personalities, processes, and thoughts among those interviewed struck me the most. It seemed as if the only thing uniting the group was their drive to create and willingness to put in the hours of work.

This interesting and quick read taught me to not worry too much about process. Everyone does it differently. The important thing is to create.

How to Win Friends and Influence People was published in 1936 and has sold over 30 million copies! Given this legacy—along with the fact that I’m a total introvert and am painfully awkward at maintaining conversations—I figured I’d see what this book had for me.

A maxim frequented in the book is that “a human’s deepest desire is to feel important.” Carnegie’s entire premise can be summarized as, “do that which bolsters other’s sense of importance and abstain from anything that’d tarnish it. For example, “give sincere appreciation” and “don’t criticize or complain.”

Honestly, the book wasn’t what I expected—it seemed to focus on business salesmanship, which is less relevant to me. It’s filled with stories, but in my opinion, has little “meat.” It’s disorganized and repetitive. Skip it, but ruminate on the principles. They’re solid and cover the book in fewer words.

Inside Paragraphs is a cool book because it explains typography using a completely different approach from other books on the subject. As you can infer from the title, and certainly from the cover, this book focuses not on the anatomy of the glyphs themselves, but the space between the glyphs.

The book makes you think about typography differently. You learn to see the micro-whitespace between individual characters, words, and lines. All these pixel-sized spaces seem insignificant but Highsmith explains why treating these spaces with attentive care is essential for quality typography.

The 1950s, Saul Bass-esque illustrations and appropriately beautiful typography makes this book a joy to read. I wouldn’t recommend this as a primary text on typography, but it’s a great companion text!

You think color is just color… that is, until you get a hold of Josef Alber’s Interaction of Color.

This design classic results from Alber’s years of color theory research and lectures at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain, and Yale. He shows that color is as much perceptual as it is literal. Surrounding colors can deceive the eye into seeing colors not present through simultaneous contrast. Vibrating boundaries, after-images, and other optical phenomenon are discussed.

I wouldn’t recommend this book as an introduction to color. It doesn’t talk about additive/subtractive models, RGB/CMYK, color spaces, or color harmonies. But while it may lack application, it’s still very intriguing. I’d recommend it to anyone looking to level-up their color knowledge.

I enjoyed reading through this book even though it wasn’t what I expected. The book starts well by explaining grid elements and structures. It even begins to explain the process of developing a grid. Then things change.

The book is better titled: “100 Layout Ideas Using Grids.” Essentially, the author compiled a number of well-designed works that use a grid and wrote some banal “principle” from each (like “Pacing sets the tone.”) Some of the principles are only vaguely grid-related, at best! The example imagery and the “principles” are inspiring and helpful idea starters, I just wish I knew that’s what I was getting when I picked up the book.

Overall, it’s a good inspiration picture book of grids, but unfortunately the 100 principles won’t clearly teach you how to implement your own grids.

I got into web design because I like solving problems. I like beautifying the world and making things work better. Not because I like to write. But I soon found that doesn’t matter.

Whether I like to or not, I end up writing. A client wants a website, but there’s no content …or their content is better suited for a 7th grade English essay. If my websites are going to achieve the business results clients want, they need good copy. I had to up my writing.

Letting Go of the Words gave me more than I expected. It’s a guide for crafting clear websites. Of course it contains the traditional solid tips, but Redish’s book also reframed my approach to writing web content. I’m far from professional-writer-status, but I do think I’m a little less terrible now.

Logo Design Love pulls back the curtain behind the process of creating creative and impactful logos. With simple yet friendly prose, David explains how to acquire good clients, conduct brand research, develop concepts, render them, and present the work to clients.

Airey proposes that an iconic logo must be simple, relevant, distinct, memorable, and versatile. A good logo outlives design trends and above all has a concept that focuses on one thing. Case studies accompany each of these principles to take them from abstract to concrete.

This is a very practical book that goes beyond talking about creating logos to discuss the entire creative process, including tips to stay motivated and deal with tricky clients. Highly recommended regardless of specialization.

Whether we’re marketing a product, trying to sell a client on our concept, or create change in our organization, we all want our ideas to stick. Our ideas often seem to go in one ear and out the other—or worse: our audience connects with the idea, but it fails to create lasting impact and is forgotten.

The Heath brothers propose that the degree to which an idea “sticks” isn’t as random as it seems. They propose a framework for creating sticky ideas: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, and Emotional Stories.

The book itself follows the brothers’ advice, and is filled with rich, memorable stories that help bring the principles to life. Sure it’s entertaining, but the value come from practicing the principles they preach. I think anyone, regardless of their role, could make their ideas stickier.

Making and Breaking the Grid is one of the best books I’ve read on grids. I like that it teaches its concepts and historical usage (or lack thereof) without imposing moral judgements (unlike most Modernist literature).

Through writing and curation Samara fosters empathy for both rational and intuitive layout methods. Each project is unique and may lend itself to either method. Designers should feel free to use the appropriate tool.

I personally enjoyed the deconstruction section. I wasn’t familiar with the style and was skeptical of its merit, so I was glad to discover a newfound appreciation by the end of the book.

Note: It’s not a “Layout Workshop”. Not sure why that’s in the title.

There’s simply no better introduction to the past design ideologies and designers that shaped our industry.

Condensing this rich history without it becoming dry is difficult. Megg succeeds by creating an engaging narrative rather than simply listing dates and names. At 624 pages (prehistory–early-21st century) it’s by no means a short read, but the prose is easily digestible.

I especially enjoyed viewing the change of style over time through the many color photographs. I perceive frequently referring back to this book for inspiration, especially when becoming sick of current design trends.

This is an excellent text on how to do typography well on the web. Dozens of good typography resources exist, but in my opinion, this one does a better job than most at explaining how to set type well.

The book includes theory, but it mainly focuses on application. You won’t find a long list of glyph anatomy (not that learning this isn’t valuable), but you will learn how to look at type. You’ll start to see the minute differences between Georgia and Chaparral, and know when to choose which and why.

The book’s coverage of the unique challenges of web typography (RWD, justification, font rendering, and font loading…) sets it apart from similar texts. This is an insightful book for all, especially new typesetters!

Ordering Disorder undertakes the tough task of exploring how to apply the typographic grid, an established tool from print design, to web design.

Khoi suggests that fundamentally design is creating order from chaos, and that the grid is our most fundamental tool to achieve such order. The book mostly focuses on application: the reader follows Khoi as he designs using a grid. I love that this format allows you to vicariously encounter the design challenges and learn the why of Khoi’s decisions.

Unfortunately I felt the book (© 2011) to be too out-of-date by the time I read it (2021) to be of much practical use. Written on the cusp of RWD, it assumes fixed pixel constraints we can no longer rely on and only briefly mentions mobile and fluid layouts. So much has changed in 10 years (Flexbox, CSS Grid) that I wish there was a 2nd edition: “Grid Principles for Fluid Web Design”!

A children’s picture book might seem out of place on this list. I certainly would have never come across it if it wasn’t for Karen Cheng’s blog post. But as far as “learning how to see” goes, this is a quality resource.

Molly Bang uses the story of The Little Red Riding Hood and simple, flat shapes to teach the principles of visual perception. You learn why different shapes and their combination evoke different feelings. You learn about gestalt, contrast, color, shape, and other elements and principles of design.

I love that this book doesn’t just tell you, but shows you. It encourages you to cut up your own construction paper and try the exercises yourself. In my experience, nothing is a better teacher than this.

I used this book in my Principles of Marketing class in university. The book is by Philip Kotler, who is considered the “father of modern marketing” by those in the marketing industry. The lengthy book discusses the entire marketing process—topics such as developing your product, business life-cycle stages, pricing strategies, supply chain logistics, and advertising.

The book is definitely written as your standard textbook. By that I mean much of the content is definitions and the tone of voice is distinctly academic. It’s not a book that you would necessarily enjoy reading, but it is full of informative content. Before reading this book I had no idea that so many disciplines fell under the umbrella of marketing. Marketing is a whole lot more than just company communications! Overall, this is a decent resource if you’re interested in learning about what marketers focus on.

Refactoring UI is superb book of practical UI design tips that’d be game-changing for anyone starting in user interface design.

When I first started designing websites I knew they fell far short of those I admired, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. It was the classic “gap problem” — I had high ambitions but what I was creating just wasn’t that good. So frustrating!

This book corrects many of the beginner mistakes I made and that I frequently see from my UX/UI students. It also discloses a number of “tricks of the trade” that are hard to notice on your own until you’ve done lots of work. Many of these I’ve already incorporated and do automatically, so I must be doing something right!

Quick read with zero fluff, lots of before & after shots, and screencasts too. Just wish it had more tips! If you can’t get the book, check out the tips available on Twitter.

Services are hard to sell: they’re intangible, largely invisible, and their quality and value are difficult to gauge. Suffice to say, they’re a big risk for consumers and thus difficult to sell.

A major theme is “marketing a bad service is the best way to kill a company.” Marketing isn’t just about promotion, it starts with re-evaluating the business strategy and creating value for your customers.

Other impactful ideas include “big mistakes are big opportunities,” “the more you say, the less people hear,” and “be good enough and eliminate risks.” The book teaches you how to create a positioning statement, price and name services, and build a brand. This is a book full of practical wisdom—there’s something in it for everyone.

I read Shape Up after my managers at Fontspring read it and began referring to its terminology in meetings. The free ebook describes the project management techniques Basecamp uses to build the most important work quickly while eliminating uncertainty.

The book’s main idea is to fit the work into six weeks. Rather than estimate how long a project might take, you “hammer” its scope so that something meaningful can be deployed after six weeks.

My team is small so it’s vital we work on the right things; yet too often side projects and scope creep distracted our focus causing delays. At the time of writing we’ve completed one cycle and it’s been helpful. The deadlines can be frustrating, but I find the clear goals and dates invaluable for staying focused.

One of the most well-respected publications for the web industry and one of my favorite blogs to read, Smashing Magazine, regularly publishes the “Smashing Book”. They commission and compile loads of quality content about contemporary web topics by respected professionals. I love their books because the content is always so practical!

The content within this book covers the principles of graphic design, mobile app design, web typography, gamification in UX (I especially enjoyed this chapter), and psychology. I love the diversity of topics, but it does seem disjointed—almost like reading a bunch of different blog posts.

I read the book about 5 years after publication and parts of it were already out-of-date. I like their later editions better, but this was still a good read!

Smashing Book 5 is an interesting book. First off, it’s huge. Secondly, it’s beautiful—probably the best produced book I own. But most importantly, it has loads of practical chapters written by industry experts.

While each of the chapters cover very different topics ranging from the nuances of SVG and web fonts to structured content and the nightmare that is responsive HTML email—they are all united by a common theme: How do we design complex websites in the age of RWD?

The book may lose its significance as the patterns and practices in it become commonplace, but until then, this compendium will benefit any practitioner of the web. (Besides, it’s a great way to support SmashingMag!)

The Smashing series continues with New Frontiers in Web Design. Structured like others in the series: distinct chapters by distinct authors around a central theme. It feels like Smashing’s best articles handpicked and expanded. (Not a bad thing!)

Topics include advocating a design system, using CSS custom properties, loading assets quickly, and designing conversational UIs. At first it seemed too diverse, but these are the “new frontier” issues …even 2 years later when I read it. Naturally I was more interested in certain topics, but I liked that the diversity made me consider areas I was less inclined towards.

Disappointingly, the material didn’t seem actionable on my real-life projects. I’m not doing VR or chatbots—even the performance chapter, while interesting, didn’t feel actionable. I guess that’s the nature of “new frontiers”. The last chapter, however, is so applicable and inspiring! Also, the printed book is a beaut!

The title’s surprising. Steal?! I thought artists were to create visionary, original works—not imitate and rip-off others. Kleon compellingly argues that nothing is original, all creators steal from their influences. Good artists transform their thefts, bad artists imitate them.

Steal Like an Artist is just the first point of the book, however. With succinct copy that makes it seem as if the author is speaking directly to you, Kleon gives other tips on how to be creative:

Keep learning. Carry a notebook. Don’t wait til you know who you are, show up and create. Use your hands. Have side projects & hobbies. Surround yourself with things and people you love. Be nice. Keep a praise file. Be boring. Write. Do good work and share it. (among many others.)

You’ll come away feeling inspired—this is a steal!

I wish I read this book and learned it’s principles for writing clearly earlier. Perhaps if I had, I wouldn’t have conditioned myself to spend twenty words saying what could be said in ten. This habit of writing verbosely was handy for school papers, but the real-world likes concision. People are too busy for fluff. Whether I’m emailing clients or writing web copy, I need to communicate clearly and professionally.

Williams cares about good writing, not the “rules of grammar.” He tells you to write with subjects and actions, get to the main verb quickly, and place new info at the end of the sentences, among other principles.

Until I can instill these principles in to my stream-of-consciousness writing this book will be by my side. I highly recommend everyone get this book.

The Anatomy of Type is an essential read for learning typography. Unlike most other typography books, it doesn’t talk about typesetting (leading, tracking, correct punctuation…) and only briefly talks about type classification. Instead, this book scales up classic typefaces to the size of a spread and dissects the unique characteristics of each glyph.

You’ll get the most out of this book if you read it after learning about and developing an appreciation for excellent typography. Then, as you do go through this book, don’t rush. Spend time on each spread understanding how the characteristics at the macro-scale affect how the typeface looks at the micro scale (in body text).

If you like type, you’ll like this book. (Hand Letterers will especially benefit.)

We intuitively know when something’s poorly designed, but it can be hard to put into words why. Don Norman, the inventor of the term “user experience”, introduces affordances, signifiers, and conceptual models to help explain it.

Norman shows that design (good and bad) is everywhere: door handles, faucets, tea kettles… The book focuses on simple physical objects, but the principles are equally applicable to complex digital interfaces.

You’ll find this book on just about any UX recommended reading list, and for good reason. If you read this book with an open mind you’ll likely walk away with not just new knowledge, but a new perspective on the world.

Erin Kissane’s The Elements of Content Strategy is a good intro to content strategy (CS). Like all A Book Apart publications, the depth of content far exceeds the book’s slim profile. This book will get you up to speed with the tools to create and manage better content without wasting your time.

I don’t intend to become a CS specialist, but given that few projects have one, it’s worth having some background. I started the book with the notion that CS was copywriting, but was quickly corrected. In fact, “content strategy is to copywriting as information architecture is to design”!

Kissane describes good content and how to use tools like content templates & audits. Her section on the four influences (Editor, Marketer, Curator, and Info Scientist) was particularly helpful. A valuable read!

I’m a big fan of most books I read, but I truly can’t praise this one enough. In my opinion, this book is the best intro to UXD (for interaction designers).

The book centers around a “Five Planes of UX” diagram that I’ve found so helpful in thinking about the components of interactive design. Stacked on top of the base plane, Strategy, are Scope, Structure, Skeleton, and Surface. The diagram even accounts for the difference between “product as functionality” and “product as information.”

A great UX is built on top of all these planes—without a single one treated with care (especially lower-level ones) the whole UX falls apart. This book has helped me keep the entire UX in mind while working on projects.

For whatever reason, I’ve found it very difficult to find a book specifically on grids that I like: One that covers the subject in-depth, discusses the historical context and evolution of grids, contains lots of examples (with grid overlays), and most important of all, explains how to practically use the grid both in digital and print contexts. When I find that book, I’ll update this list to let you all know, but until I do, the best I can recommend are books like The Grid, by Allen Hurlburt.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad book, but it’s certainly not as helpful as you’d hope. It talks about the golden section, Le Corbusier’s Modulor, and other systems of proportion… but doesn’t adequately explain why they look nice or how to use them in practice. The book is also laughably outdated, so suffice to say, it’s not much help for grids in digital design.

I have a fondness for this book because it was my first graphic design book ever. It systematically walks through the Elements of Art (the letters and words) and Principles of Design (the grammar and syntax).

Each chapter defines an element or principle and its characteristics (line can organize or divide, can be actual or implied…).

I most enjoyed the inspiring examples. They showed how the same element could create vastly different images and moods, as well as exposed me to the most iconic works of design history for the first time.

The book seems so simple, and it is, but it’s also so valuable. I wish every new designer would read this one, they would benefit from its instruction.

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is a solid guide to the considerations made when designing a web page: layout, color, typography, and imagery. The content in this book frankly isn’t anything you can’t easily find in hundreds of blog posts, but it is convenient to have all the information compiled together in one handy package.

If you’re already a designer and familiar with the basic principles you won’t get tons out of this book. If you’re not a designer by trade (perhaps you’re a web developer who just can’t seem to make your web pages look good) or just starting out, then this may be a helpful resource for you.

The example images are dated, but that was actually my favorite part. It’s fun to look back and “steal” designs styles that have since fallen out favor.

I got this book for my Graphic Design II course in college. When I began it, I was focused on UI/UX and uninterested in print design. By the end, I was so excited by the possibilities of print design that I wanted to do more of it!

The first two chapters are skippable; there are better resources to learn typography and image manipulation. The following four chapters are more interesting. You’ll learn about color reproduction, dpi/ppi/spi, overprinting, trapping, proofs, halftones, paper, foils, die cutting, varnishes, folding, binding, and a whole lot more!

If you’re already familiar with print production you likely won’t learn anything new, but if you were a novice like I was, you’ll learn quite a bit.

I’ve enjoyed Frank Chimero’s writing for awhile (particularly his essay on The Web’s Grain), so of course I wanted to read, The Shape of Design. Rather than write about specific techniques of craft, Chimero tends to write about the overarching philosophical and abstract ideas that influence our discipline. The Shape of Design is precisely that.

Using the elevated vocabulary, cogent metaphors, and captivating stories characteristic of his style, Chimero writes about the creative process and the nature of design. He urges us to “step back from the easel” for a second to ask the “Why” questions of our work, instead of just the “How.” He writes about the role of improvisation in our work, the need to momentarily suspend critique of our work and and cultivate our delicate seeds of an idea.

This book is available to read for free online at shapeofdesignbook.com

My CEO recommended The Wizard of Ads to me after I recommended Selling the Invisible to him. There’s three sections each with about three dozen “chapters” (a page or two) consisting of an anecdote and an insight to glean.

The first section is on marketing your company and writing successful ad copy. It warns you of wasting time finding “the right people” and instead encourages you to spend that time saying “the right thing.”

Section two contains anecdotes about how to run a business and how not to. And section three is mainly life advice: do what you love; seize opportunity; celebrate the ordinary; set goals but don’t depend on them for happiness; marry your best friend. The book is inspiring, the stories compelling, and the principles exemplary—just don’t expect explicit practical tips here.

All real designers love typefaces, so naturally they’ll all enjoy the history of the beloved classics and the type samples found in Thinking with Type.

If you’re just starting to learn typography, you’ll get a lot out of this book. It’ll introduce you to most of the key concepts you need to know. If you’re familiar with the subject, you won’t find much new material here, but I think you’ll still enjoy it. This was the case when I read it. Even though most of the content was repeat information, I still enjoyed reading it.

The “Type Crime” notes are especially helpful. They’re simple tips that will quickly and substantially improve your typography. The book also has a great section on grids. If you want to be a designer you need to learn typography. You certainly can’t go wrong with this manual.

As a non-service design professional reading the book to complement my UX focus, I found the book to be a bit overly detailed, but 2 ideas from it will inform my future design process:

1. The design process is a cycle of divergence and convergence—creating and reducing options. User research (diverge), analysis & visualization (converge) → idea generation (diverge), idea selection (converge) → explorative prototyping (diverge), evaluative prototyping (converge)… Knowing which stage I’m at is key to a smooth design process.

2. Avoid decision paralysis by prototyping. Do, don’t talk. Ideas work in our heads—less so in practice. Prototype multiple ideas simultaneously to reduce risk. Be specific about the purpose of the prototype: is it to explore, evaluate, or communicate? What questions will it answer: value, look and feel, feasibility, how it will integrate with other components? Don’t waste time on early first drafts!

Twenty Bits is a delightful little book by the delightful Dan Cederholm who is well-known within the design community for, among other things, co-founding Dribbble.com.

After being a bit burnt-out from reading other long technical books, I was hoping for a quick and easy read, and that’s exactly what this is. Seriously, I read from cover to cover in a single sitting one evening. But despite the thin profile, it contains great bits of wisdom from Dan’s experiences as a designer, entrepreneur, and all-around creative individual.

Some bits of advice that especially connected with me were, “Persistent iteration over flashy launches” and, “Not knowing what you’re doing Is okay.” Both I frankly know intellectually, but are hard to internalize. Hearing and being reminded of these truths from other’s perspectives is so valuable to me.

Of course, the book has fun accompanying illustrations and the physical production quality is excellent. I’d expect nothing less from Dan. Highly recommend!

Universal Methods of Design is a collection of user research techniques and strategies for synthesizing and presenting findings. If you’re stuck repeating the same methods over and over (like contextual inquiry or usability testing) and want to try something different, this book is for you.

User research is at its best when multiple techniques triangulate the truth. Even better is when both quantitative and qualitative techniques are used to discover both behavioral and attitudinal findings.

Within this framework, the book introduces techniques, both familiar to me (card sorting, design ethnography…) and unfamiliar (touchstone tours, business origami, the KJ technique…) Not an exciting book, but it did successfully expand my UX vocabulary and arsenal of research methods.

The class I took on Illustrator in college used a textbook that explained how to use the program through follow-along lessons. In theory this sounds great, but in practice it was anything but.

Problem was, the book covered how to use the tools but never how to use them to create compelling vector graphics. Frankly, if I’d submitted the end result from their tutorials in my graphic design class I’d have received an F! Clearly there was a big gap between knowing the tools and actually being able to use them well.

In all the ways that book failed, vector basic training succeeds. It teaches how to use the core vector building tools and more importantly, a repeatable methodology for building beautiful and clean professional designs. Von even includes accompanying screencasts and build files from client-projects! This is such a helpful book—totally recommend reading it.

Design patterns (generic UI idioms like an accordion) and components (styled and coded instances of patterns) are familiar tools for rapidly building interfaces. Web Anatomy details a third tool, interaction design frameworks.

Frameworks are essentially macro design patterns: they describe collections of patterns typically focused on goal achievement (e.g. buying a book), as opposed to task completion (e.g. pagination controls to see more results). Most are generic enough to apply to many kinds of sites (e.g. the “catalog” framework found on ecommerce and library sites; “sign-up” found on social media and banking sites.) These patterns are used across sites, but typically not multiple times on a single site (you only need one sign-in!).

I recognize that the terminology around design systems and patterns is a bit loose, but the distinction made between patterns and frameworks felt forced. Overall, this book was OK, but I didn’t find it particularly eye-opening.

This book really is fun like the title says! The book is written for absolute beginners—adults who haven’t drawn since middle school and “aren’t talented.” Kistler makes things so simple that anyone can follow along. This isn’t one of those “draw a rectangle, draw a circle, [missing steps 3-100], and now you have a realistic-looking tiger.”

I’ve never been a fine artist, so I’m glad that realistic drawing isn’t a key skill for designers. That said, it is helpful if a designer can at least sketch out their ideas. Even rough sketches can really help while working in software.

This is my favorite resource to learn how to draw. Take each chapter one day at a time, be inspired, explore your own ideas, and just enjoy the process!