September 10th, 2007
The Principles of Beautiful Web Design book review
Web involves code and sometimes the chemistry between graphic designers and coders can be tested with the graphic designers not knowing how to design for the web. This is a book that has been long overdue and now graphic designers and the coders can work together with the same knowledge on what works and what does not.
This book for a graphic designer
It uses five main areas of important web graphic areas that while is nothing new to graphic designers they are a little different from print to web. The five areas are:
- Layout and Composition
- Color
- Texture
- Typography
- Imagery
I also liked how the author uses a real life example and uses these areas to design a great looking website but also a website that a coder can code into a semantic and valid website.
This book for a coder designer
I am a coder by trade but this book The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is an important read incase I need to do the graphics for a website. While gone are the days when you are called to be a ‘jack of all trades’ designer, I still think it is important for a coder to be knowledgeable in the era of graphic web design.
My overall thoughts
While the graphic and code examples may appear simple it is this what makes this book so successful in the sense that it is reachable to everyone and not just selected talented graphic designers. Talent is important but even talent does not make a good website, it takes knowledge on what works and what does not and this book helps detail what does work.
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Another review from a different perspective:
http://blog.sessions.edu/book-reviews/the-principles-of-beautiful-web-design/
Comment by GermWorks — September 27th, 2007 @ 10:07 am