The Non-Designer's Design Book (3rd Edition) (Non Designer's Design Book) [Kindle Edition]

I'm not a designer. That much is obvious from looking at the websites I produce that haven't been designed by someone else. That doesn't mean I don't care though; which is why on Christmas day last year I ordered this book.

I've only just got round to reading the book, but I'm glad I did. As a learning book it's deliberately quite lightweight and easy to get through in a short time, in the same way that Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think" is designed to be absorbed in a couple of hours on a flight. All told, I spent about three hours with this book, on my tube journeys to and from work this week.

Robin starts her journey by briefly explaining the concepts of Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity (anyone spot an acronym there?), before moving on to explore each concept in greater detail. As Robin repeatedly tells us in her book, by being able to name the concepts you're able to identify them and use them deliberately rather than accidentally.

The second half of the book deals with type; the different styles of typefaces, how to combine them and horrible errors of judgement to avoid.

Spread throughout the book are a bunch of mini quizzes and exercises designed to get you thinking about what you've just read. The quizzes are a nice touch, and I'm sure I've retained more knowledge because of them than I would have done if I'd just read through from cover to cover.

The book covers design in general, rather than being focused on the web, print or presentations. Whilst Williams has written a book called "The Non-Designer's Web Book" I specifically chose to buy this one because both I wanted a general overview book and because the web book is from 2005 (a lifetime ago on the web) and has some mixed reviews. "The Non-Designer's Design Book" did not disappoint - it's given me that overview that I was looking for, and I now feel a bit more comfortable that my designs will actually work.

I am a software developer so I am naturally awful at creating things that look good ;)

I am very much aware of user experience though, and I hate the idea that I am potentially creating something useful that no one ever wants to pick up because of bad UI designer.

This author came highly recommended to be, and I can see why. Robin does an excellent job of breaking down the concepts of design and demonstrating them. This book has really opened my eyes to the basic principles of good design and made an excellent "foot in the door".

A must for those that are not naturally artistic-creatives :)

I bought this book based on the stellar "Presentation Zen" by Garr Reynolds. (A must-read if you do presentations of any type).

What I was seeking to glean from this book was how to improve the look of my PowerPoint presentations. Though Robin doesn't cover this specifically, everything she writes about can be applied to the design of the slides.

The book is aimed at 'non-professional' designers. By this I mean those of us who design things in our work, but aren't trained to do so, e.g. flyers, event alerts, newsletters, reports, business cards, studies, articles, etc.

I found it funny how often she tells us not to be "wimps" in our design choices. I mean she REALLY tells us a lot. But her point is we need to be bold, not "wimps", in our design choices ... but only once we know the basics.

All in all an excellent read. Good examples, good overview at the end of each section, and good pop quizzes to make sure we were paying attention :-)