Copyright: 1994
Publisher: PeachPit Press
ISBN: 0961392142

In The Non-Designer's Design Book, Robin Williams presents a succinct primer on how to get started doing good design.  The thoughts laid out in the book are simple enough for someone with little formal training to compehend and yet sophisticated enough to launch a novice down the path of excellence. 

Principles and Ideas

Williams presents her ideas with lots of clear examples.  The book itself is a quick read and is a well-designed book for use as a quick reference or refresher down the road.  Here I am going to bullet-point some of the useful things I learned from this reading.

  • Proximity: group related items together for the purpose of organization.
    • Avoid too many elements
    • Avoid putting things in the middle or the corners
    • Avoid leaving equal space between all elements
    • Avoid confusion of what the different elements (headers, titles etc) are supposed to be
    • Avoid creating relationships in the design that don't exist in the information
  • Alignment: Find a strong line and use it
    • The eyes like straight edges and borders
  • Repetition: Consistency is reinforced through repetition
    • Avoid the overuse of repetition.  It can easily become annoying
  • Contrast: If you use it USE it
  • Typography
    • Concord: One face combined with similar variations (Good)
    • Conflict: 2 or more slightly different faces (Bad)
    • Contrast: 2 or more very different faces (Best)
Conclusion

I think the author was trying to be humorous in using phrases such as "don't attempt this without training" and "don't be a wimp!" but they come across at times as rather condescending.  As someone who doesn't wear his feelings on his sleeves these phrases still jumped out at me as out of place for a book whose audience by definition admits they are not strong on design.  The information in the book is quite useful, however I would caution that the author is interested in graphical design and layout issues... not information design.  She uses multiple examples of how to lay out a business card with good layout principles but she never once asks (much less answers) the question "What is this business card supposed to do?"  Without answering that question everything in the book becomes simply a tool in your tool box that should only be pulled out once you have defined the problem.  This is an excellent book for beginners (like me!) and a quick read. I plan on getting the updated version of the book and putting it in my library.