Product Description

So you have a great concept and all the fancy digital tools you could possibly require¿what¿s stopping you from creating beautiful pages? Namely the training to pull all of these elements together into a cohesive design that effectively communicates your message. Not to worry: This book is the one place you can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help.

In The Non-Designer¿s Design Book, 2nd Edition, best-selling author Robin Williams turns her attention to the basic principles of good design and typography. All you have to do is follow her clearly explained concepts, and you¿ll begin producing more sophisticated, professional, and interesting pages immediately. Humor-infused, jargon-free prose interspersed with design exercises, quizzes, illustrations, and dozens of examples make learning a snap¿which is just what audiences have come to expect from this best-selling author.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #165857 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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

From the Back Cover

So you have a great concept and all the fancy digital tools you could possibly require¿what¿s stopping you from creating beautiful pages? Namely the training to pull all of these elements together into a cohesive design that effectively communicates your message. Not to worry: This book is the one place you can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help.

In The Non-Designer¿s Design Book, 2nd Edition, best-selling author Robin Williams turns her attention to the basic principles of good design and typography. All you have to do is follow her clearly explained concepts, and you¿ll begin producing more sophisticated, professional, and interesting pages immediately. Humor-infused, jargon-free prose interspersed with design exercises, quizzes, illustrations, and dozens of examples make learning a snap¿which is just what audiences have come to expect from this best-selling author.

About the Author

Robin Williams is the author of more than 20 best-selling and award-winning books, including The Robin Williams Mac OS X Book, The Non-Designer's Design Book, The Non-Designer's Type Book, and Robin Williams Design Workshop, and Web Design Workshop. Through her writing, teaching, and seminars, Robin has influenced a generation of computer users in the areas of design, typography, desktop publishing, the Mac, and the World Wide Web.

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Customer Reviews

great book, easy to follow.
Make no mistake, this book is aimed at folk that may be interested in the general ideas behind the design process. It will be of little help to those that already have a knowledge of the fundamentals of design.

A simple to follow and intuiative layout makes for easy reading. The straight forward language and abundance of picture examples showing good and bad design means that the reader absorbs all the information readily and can pick up the design tips without taxing themselves too much. It covers a great deal of ground without making the reader break into a sweat. The pace of the book is lighthearted and friendly.

This is the type of book that you can read and absorb within an hour. It excites you to start designing you own newslatter, brochure, business card, letterhead, poster etc. as soon as you have put it down. Having learned about things like, layout, type styles, proximity, heirachy, contrast, alignment etc, you will be armed with enough basic knowledge to ensure that your efforts will certainly not look amateurish anymore.

This is the type of book that can be picked up and read by anyone aged from 13 to 130 yrs. you dont need to be technically minded or a whizz kid designer to benefit from this little gem.

there are a few quizes at the back of this book that help re-inforce the info in the readers mind.

All good stuff!!

The Secret to my Success! (Robin Slam-dunks with this Book!)
First and foremost, thanks to the author. I am a computer consultant and this book allowed me to complete several websites using the design principles within.

I also am preparing to purchase her new book "The Non-Designer's Web Book : An Easy Guide to Creating, Designing, and Posting Your Own Web Site" without hesistation.

The design of the book assists in illustrating the principles described within, the author presents the information in a logical well thought out fashion.

I would recommend (and have) this book to engineers and other technical individuals who are faced with the need to produce web sites and other design oriented projects.

I like many others have the technical expertise to produce HTML, cgi, perl and java - I just needed someone to help bring my site ideas and design principals into focus.

I guess it's like having a professional designer on call, except you can't beat her rates. If you are looking for a great book on typography along with some basic design information then this book is for you.

I've had more success with this book than with any of my other $50 - $70 manuals describing website design.

I could go on but I think you get the general idea. This is a good investment.

Feel free to email me if you find anything half as good! tcarter@sphericalthinking.net

make a lasting change to your budding design skills
Don't let the apparent simplicity of this book fool you. It's one of those little things that forever changes your worldview. Definitely aimed at people new to font, type and page layout (as I was) Robin knows how to communicate the essence of page design...in her own words, she's definitely teaching you how to handle the fishing rod! Even if you think you have a natural affinity for design, the teachings here really sharpens your eyes and offers a language to describe what you've always intuitively known. Her four basic principles (proximity, contrast, repetition, alignement) equip you to become a far better designer. Half way through the book I started to redesign even my resume...and improved it to no end! Thanks Robin.