The Non-Designer's Design Book http://www.amazon.com/The-Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typograp...

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/

Helped me a lot too.

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

Nice, I'm glad you found it useful.

I would actually recommend her previous edition of the book. In this new version she trys to update it using color and it goes all wrong.

She is stretching her ability past her strong points. She is EXTREMELY good at the basics, but ask her to design something in color and its just bad IMHO.

This is the edition I like : http://www.amazon.com/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Typographic-...