Joe Ganley: Design

Lately I've been studying design. The word is a broad one with a lot of meanings, but I have a very specific one in mind. Building useful, elegant solutions is both an art and a science. The scientific part is engineering, and the artistic part is design. Here are a few of the books and magazines I've been reading on the subject that I highly recommend:

Norman's The Design of Everyday Things.
Williams's The Non-Designers Design Book.
Sterling's Shaping Things.
Smashing Magazine.

You can't learn to design from a book, any more than you can learn writing or music from a book. But in On Writing, Stephen King said that while no amount of teaching will turn a bad writer into a good one or a good writer into a great one, it can turn a good writer into a better one. I expect the same is true of design. I don't expect to ever be a great designer, but I think I'm a good one, and hopefully on my way to becoming a better one.

Labels: books, design

Joe Ganley	I make software and sometimes other things.

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Design
Lately I've been studying design. The word is a broad one with a lot of meanings, but I have a very specific one in mind. Building useful, elegant solutions is both an art and a science. The scientific part is engineering, and the artistic part is design. Here are a few of the books and magazines I've been reading on the subject that I highly recommend: Norman's The Design of Everyday Things. Williams's The Non-Designers Design Book. Sterling's Shaping Things. Smashing Magazine. You can't learn to design from a book, any more than you can learn writing or music from a book. But in On Writing, Stephen King said that while no amount of teaching will turn a bad writer into a good one or a good writer into a great one, it can turn a good writer into a better one. I expect the same is true of design. I don't expect to ever be a great designer, but I think I'm a good one, and hopefully on my way to becoming a better one. Labels: books, design 0 Comments: Post a Comment << Home