List Price: £23.99 Price: £23.99 You save: £0.00 (0%)
Media: Paperback Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Editorial Review:
Subtitled Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice, this book is for anyone who has to design a newsletter, job ad, flyer, business card, memo, report or whatever, but has no idea what separates good design from bad. Except, of course, that the first looks clear, professional, sophisticated and right, and the second is an ugly, unreadable mess.
Robin Williams has an easily readable style and manages to communicate sometimes complex and sophisticated concepts simply and directly. She rightly assumes that, though most people can recognise bad design when they see it, they don't know why it's bad and are therefore powerless to fix the same problems in their own work.
The bulk of the book is given over to explaining how, by sticking to four basic design principles--contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity--you can eliminate design gremlins from your work. In searching for a memorable and appropriate acronym for this principled approach, Williams admits she was only semi-successful.
The second half of the book deals with how to use type. Once again the approach is to explain simply, directly and with illustrated examples how the relationship between typefaces is defined.
As a college teacher, Williams can't resist the temptation to dot little quizzes, tests and mini-projects throughout the text. These are mostly good fun and reinforce what you've read, though even if you decide to ignore them they won't spoil your enjoyment of the book.
The Non-Designer's Design Book is the kind of book you could read in your lunch break. Its attitude is more "sketch in the margin with a pencil", than "complete the projects on the CD". It would be an ideal primer for anyone starting a design course, as well as those who want to improve the look of their memos. --Ken McMahon
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
Excellent - used everything here for my ppt presentations I bought this book based on the stellar "Presentation Zen" by Garr Reynolds. (A must-read if you do presentations of any type). What I was seeking to glean from this book was how to improve the look of my PowerPoint presentations. Though Robin doesn't cover this specifically, everything she writes about can be applied to the design of the slides. The book is aimed at 'non-professional' designers. By this I mean those of us who design things in our work, but aren't trained to do so, e.g. flyers,... more info
Not quite as awesome as you'd be led to believe. I like the concept of this book - a design book that's written for those who aren't essentially designers, but need to use design in everyday life. Based on the idea that you've never studied design before, Williams covers the essential topics and points out the biggest mistakes that beginners make with clear examples, and plenty of "before and after" shots so you not only see why something looks terrible, you also see how simply it can be fixed. It's a short book and it's not difficult to understand.... more info
The best... This is probably the best book in design and typographic principles for a novice that I have read. It has lots of examples and ideas how to use type and design, and not to forget it has a list of the fonts used in the examples which I think is very helpfull. If you have none or little experience in design or typography this is the book to get.
Prevent design crimes Coming from a fine art background rather than graphic design, and having done design work for many people over the years, I have always had nagging doubts that I might be committing design crimes without realising it. Was I choosing the right typefaces? Was I striking the right balance between design and readability?
The answer is, that what has taken me many years to learn by trial and error, the author has condensed into a clear, easily understood, step-by-step read. It has also taught me quite a... more info
