The Non-Designer's Design Book
by Robin Williams · first published 1994
90% recommend10% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short, easy-to-follow primer on core design principles (the CRAP acronym: contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity) plus typography, giving developers and other non-designers a vocabulary and practical fixes.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Robin Williams Wrote this one "for all the people who now need to design pages, but who have no background or formal training in design". Follow the basic principles clearly explained in this book and your work is guaranteed to look more professional, organized, unified, and interesting. You'll never again look at a page in the same way. Full of practical design exercises and quizzes. Runner-up for Best Introductory Systems How-to Book in the 10th Annual Computer Press Awards.
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…graphic design perspective. That said Ill share with you what I would consider the closest I have found. ---------------------------------------------------------- a. (Web site Graphic Design) * The non Designer's design book - http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Willia... * Visual Language for Designers - http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Language-Designers-Principles-U... * Tuft's Envisioning Information -…
on “Ask HN: Modern web design resources?” ↗Highly recommended: Non-Designer's Design Book - http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Robin-Willia...
on “Ask HN: improving your design skills?” ↗this book: the non-designer's design book by robin williams. this is on my list of best books about particular topics. this one is about design in general. i still remember the acronym the author came up with after all these years. parc for:…
on “Ask HN: Best self-starter resources to learn web design?” ↗"The Non-Designer's Design Book" by Robin Williams is the best introductory book I've read. As the title suggests, it covers the fundamentals - proximity, alignment, repetition and contrast - in a really approachable way. It probably…
on “Design Tips for Programmers” ↗The "Non Designer's Design Book" is pretty good. It was suggested to me on this forum some time ago, and I got a lot out of it, even though it's still a struggle to really internalize it https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321534042/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=de...;…
on “How to self-educate if you lack a formal design education” ↗…thought it would be a good introduction to the fundamentals of visual design I can relate, so a recommendation from me may be a case of the blind leading the blind, but the best such book I've seen is The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams (the writer, not the actor). (It's up to four editions now but get any one; mostly only the examples change.) The second half of the book is about type, and the first half is organized…
on “Building Your Color Palette” ↗You should learn basic design principles first. Start reading this book: Non-Designer's Design Book http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-3rd-Designer...
on “Ask HN: basic web design for small projects?” ↗I highly recommend The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams for all non-designers out there. It goes through basic stuff which is important to pay attention to when “presenting information” (designing) such as proportions, whitespace, alignment,…
on “Design 0.101 for Programmers” ↗These were some of the books which taught me a lot about Design were: Don't make me Think by Steve Krug http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/032134... Non-Designer's Design Book http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-... Universal Principles of Design http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-Revised-Up... Also make sure you go through design's…
on “Ask HN: How can I get better at design?” ↗…rid of clutter etc), so books like Joel Spolsky's user interface design for programmers, Steve Krug's Don't make me think, or Alan Cooper's About Face can help with design, too. - Robin Williams: The Non-designer's design book. Short, to the point, and teaches the basic principles. - Blogs: Smashing Magazine and Six Revisions.
on “Ask HN: Best resources to learn about design?” ↗…myself, so I always go with a simple rule of thumb - keep it simple and don't try to do things I'm not good at. You don't have to be a a capital-D designer to make good work. I'd recommend picking up "The Non-Designer's Design Book" by Robin Williams. Sometimes all you need to do is not make any glaring mistakes in order to create a design that works.
on “4-Hour Profitable Project: Viral Marketing Explained” ↗"The Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice" By Robin Williams (not that Robin Williams) Quick, easy read geared towards non-designers (it's in the title!) that explains the basics of C.R.A.P.…
on “Ask HN: Designers, what is the single book developers should read on design?” ↗Robin Williams' (not that one ;) The Non-Designer's Design Book is a great introduction to "design for the rest of us". You can preview it online: http://books.google.com/books?id=n1AuwXafMO8C
on “Formatting your web content to be a pleasure to read” ↗The Non-Designer's Design Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321534042/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=de...; Should give you some basic ideas. For the logo or other important stuff, maybe hire someone to do it. I think what's really difficult…
on “Ask HN: I'm not good at graphics, where should I search for some help?” ↗I learned this concept years ago in "The Non Designer's Design Book". It really gave a logical breakdown of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity along with a number of other useful/important design techniques. http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-...
on “A CRAP way to improve usability” ↗