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-...

Paying $10,000 for design work at early stage is lunacy. I solved the problem by:

1) Reading the first 100 pages of the Non-Designers Design Book (http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-...).

2) Using CSS grid systems (e.g. Blueprint) and CSS abstractions (such as Compass) to ease the design process and minimize cross browser tomfoolery.

3) Visiting http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ and browsing lists such as "best minimal designs" and then slicing and dicing parts from my favorite pages together.

End results: www.bolivianexpress.org, www.oxbridgenotes.co.uk

Your end result might not win any awards, but hey you'll have $10,000 more in the bank.

The Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-...

If you're interested in learning about some design concepts, I highly recommend reading The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams:

http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-...

It's a quick, easy read and the concepts can really apply to any kind of visual design. Any of her other titles are also excellent.

I was searching yesterday, the results only really offered good stuff for typography learning (which I'm working on now), but overall graphic / web design are left out a bit.

Here are the resources I drilled out of the threads I came across:

Type: http://www.amazon.com/Logo-Lettering-Bible-Leslie-Cabarga/dp... http://www.amazon.com/Graphic-Design-Manual-Principles-Pract... http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-Brin... http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-...

Usability: http://www.amazon.com/Think-Common-Sense-Approach-Usability/...

Design: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592532616?ie=UTF8&tag=... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592533485?ie=UTF8&tag=... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159253192X?ie=UTF8&tag=... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592532349?ie=UTF8&tag=...

Web Design: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0975841963?ie=UTF8&tag=... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/032145345X?ie=UTF8&tag=... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847192505?ie=UTF8&tag=... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735712069?ie=UTF8&tag=...

Sites: http://dribbble.com/ http://www.deviantart.com http://forrst.com/ http://lookslikegooddesign.com/ http://webtypography.net/toc/ http://ui-patterns.com/

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 everyday on Behance.net, they have some really amazing designers and design.

Helped me a lot too.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-...