Design books I recommend

Here are the books I’d recommend to anyone who designs interfaces.

The Non-Designer’s Design Book, Robin Williams

If you’re familiar with visual design, you can skip this one. If you’re completely new, this book might be the fastest way to improve your visual design skills. The four principles in this book are easy to remember and will help you improve any visual design.

Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug

A short book that outlines everything you need to keep in mind to design better interfaces.

Just Enough Research, Erika Hall

There are many books about research methods. You only need to read this one. It covers, as the title suggests, just enough about research to make you effective.

Designing Visual Interfaces, Kevin Mullet and Darrel Sano

This is the best book written about the visual design of software interfaces. All of the examples in the book are decades old, but it doesn’t matter. No-one else has approached visual design like Mullet and Sano did.

On Web Typography, Jason Santa Maria

There are a few good typography books. I find they generally all teach you the same concepts. They generally teach them well. But few typography books are focused on digital typography. That’s why I recommend this book. There aren’t any pages dedicated to print typography, which most interface designers don’t care about.

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