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This Week’s: Features 5 Quick Improvements to Any Web Site 10 Quick Upgrades That Say “Professional” Reviews Robin Williams Has a String of Hits! Homesite and BBEdit Are the HTML Editing Standards Techniques |
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TechniqueRobin Williams Has a String of Hits!Robin Williams, the graphics designer that is.
Recently I've added additional Williams titles to my ready-reference shelf.
Even if you know all of this information, it's great having it in one handy, entertaining, visual reference. This book doesn't try to be a comprehensive guide to web sites, but it does cover all of the functional day-to-day design information. Even if you don't always agree with their viewpoints, it helps you clarify your own goals. Because of it's size and the heavy use of color graphics, it costs a bit more (US$35/CAN$53), but still comes in much cheaper and more useful than the vast array of ubërgeek tomes. If you can only afford one web design text, choose this one.
Copyright ©1995-2001 Carolyn E. Cooper. All rights reserved. |
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For several years now I've recommended “The Non-Designer's Design Book” and it's just as relevant today. With the simple mnemonic of PARC -- Proximity, Alignment, Repetition and Contrast -- Williams teaches concisely, clearly and cleverly the basic rules of both page layout and the correct use of fonts. It's a slim little book (144 pages) with a clean, attractive design effectively using graphics to demonstrate her points. Anyone doing design, for print or the web, should have this book. I still take it out for review before each design project. The price of around US$15/CAN$20 makes it a bargain in design or computer titles!
In 1998, Williams teamed up with web designer John Tollett to produce “The Non-Designer's Web Book”. While the original book was nice, it was pretty basic and I bypassed it, however, the recently revised second edition -- primarily by Tollett -- is now ensconced on my bookshelf. “The Non-Designer's Web Book” has grown in size and scope (302 pages), but maintained the same useful, concise format of “The Non-Designer's Design Book”. It's broken into 5 parts. Parts 1 and 2 are very basic information about getting online and setting up a web site. Part 3 is the meaty bit for web design including basic design principles, basic interface and navigation principles and good vs. bad design. Part 4 is pretty much everything you wanted to know about color, graphics and type online but didn't know you needed to know. And Part 5 is what to do after you've built your web pages and the intricacies of promoting your site.
The latest offering in the Robin williams's Non-Designer's series, if her “The Non-Designer's Scan and Print Book”. I just got this recently and discovered not only all the stuff I've learned over the past 7 years of scanning and printing, but things I didn't know and wished I'd known! The target audience is primarily graphics designers and desktop publishers working the range form low-end to high-end printing, but there's plenty of information here even for those only scanning for the web. I'm planning an article for the Techniques section on low-resolution scanning, so if you aren't interested in more than the basics, this book might be overkill. But if you have to work with a printer on a regular basis, this book is worth the price — and much easier to work with than “Real World Scanning”.
Last, but hardly least for those intertested in typography, “The Non-Designer's Type Book”. If you just want to quickly pick some fonts that look good together, then get “The Non-Designer's Design Book” and read the section on fonts. If you're the kind of person who recognizes the difference between Futura and Universe, discusses x-height and extenders with confidence or loves smashing fonts together wildly -- or wants to be one of those people -- this is worth adding to your library. It contains some of the same themes as her out-of-print “Blip in the Continuum”, but with a solid dose of reality and pragmatism. It's obvious that type is Williams true avocation and the Type Book is a good reference for those needing more information on types, type formats and printing fonts.