Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need


Sasha Costanza-Chock - 2020
    It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world.This book explores the theory and practice of design justice, demonstrates how universalist design principles and practices erase certain groups of people—specifically, those who are intersectionally disadvantaged or multiply burdened under the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, ableism, capitalism, and settler colonialism)—and invites readers to “build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.” Along the way, the book documents a multitude of real-world community-led design practices, each grounded in a particular social movement. Design Justice goes beyond recent calls for design for good, user-centered design, and employment diversity in the technology and design professions; it connects design to larger struggles for collective liberation and ecological survival.

The Language of Things: Understanding the World of Desirable Objects


Deyan Sudjic - 2008
    What is it that persuades us to camp outside Apple stores to be the first to buy an iPhone? Why is it that a generation ago a typewriter might have lasted someone a lifetime, but now we write on computers that we upgrade every couple of years to shinier, faster, sleeker models? Why do the clicks of some car doors sound “expensive”? Deyan Sudjic charts our relationship—both innocent and knowing—with all things designed. From the opulent excesses of the catwalk to the playfulness of an Alessi jam jar, he shows how we can be manipulated and seduced by our possessions. With scintillating wit he addresses these questions and more, exploring the reasons why every designer yearns to put a personal stamp on a chair or an adjustable lamp, and where design ends and art begins. 71 black-and-white and 5 color illustrations.

Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design


Robert Hoekman Jr. - 2002
    Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process—in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them.

The Advertising Concept Book


Pete Barry - 2008
    No amount of glossy presentation will make a successful ad if the idea behind it is unconvincing.Structured to provide both a complete course on advertising and a quick reference on particular topics, the book covers every aspect of the business, from how to write copy and choose a typeface to how agencies work, to the different strategies used for print, TV, film, and other types of media, including interactive. In a unique feature, Barry provides his own concept drawings of nearly 400 of the greatest ads of all time.Exercises throughout will help both students and professionals assess their own work and that of others. Having critiqued and directed over 45,000 student ads, Barry outlines simple rules about where to start and how to “push” an ad to turn it into something exceptional. He explains how to work in a team, or not; how to best present projects; and how to turn an idea into a campaign.

The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience


Rex Hartson - 2012
    Development activities are linked via handoffs between stages as practitioners move through the process. The lifecycle template concept introduced in this book can be tailored to any project environment, from large enterprise system development to commercial products. Whether a student or practitioner, you will come away with knowledge and understanding of how to create and refine interaction designs to ensure a quality user experience.

The User's Journey: Storymapping Products That People Love


Donna Lichaw - 2016
    The User’s Journey will show you how, when, and why to use narrative structure, technique, and principles to ideate, craft, and test a cohesive vision for an engaging outcome. See how a “story first” approach can transform your product, feature, landing page, flow, campaign, content, or product strategy.

To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design


Henry Petroski - 1985
    More than a series of fascinating case studies, To Engineer Is Human is a work that looks at our deepest notions of progress and perfection, tracing the fine connection between the quantifiable realm of science and the chaotic realities of everyday life."Alert, inquisitive, unspecialized, wholly human...refreshingly eclectic." --The Spectator"Henry Petroski is an ardent engineer, and if he writes more good books like this, he might find himself nominated to become the meistersinger of the guild. [This is] a refreshing plunge into the dynamics of the engineering ethos...as straightforward as an I-beam."--Science

Essay on Typography


Eric Gill - 1931
    In 1925, he had started drawing alphabets and printing books, and in 1931, this plainspoken little book was a fustian and forceful argument for common sense in design, composed for anyone remotely interested in the subtle and evolving challenge of the typographic arts. Set rag right, with tight word spacing, it is a model of composition. The text, like most of Gill's, is exasperating, exorbitant, and exciting. But Gill was, above all, a craftsman, whose work always reflected his philosophy and whose hand always followed his moral convictions.

The Web Designer's Idea Book Volume 2: More of the Best Themes, Trends and Styles in Website Design


Patrick McNeil - 2010
    Author Patrick McNeil, creator of the popular web design blog designmeltdown.com and author of the original bestselling Web Designer's Idea Book, has cataloged thousands of sites, and showcases the latest and best examples in this book. The web is the most rapidly changing design medium, and this book offers an organized overview of what's happening right now. Sites are categorized by type, design element, styles and themes, structural styles, and structural elements. This new volume also includes a helpful chapter explaining basic design principles and how they can be applied online. Whether you're brainstorming with a coworker or explaining your ideas to a client, this book provides a powerful communication tool you can use to jumpstart your next project.

Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value


Thomas Lockwood - 2009
    This anthology is organized into three sections that focus on the use of design for innovation and brand-building, the emerging role of service design, and the design of meaningful customer experiences. This book provides readers with the strategies necessary to encourage the creative thought process in their companies, which will ultimately help to cultivate innovation, and therefore boost business. Experienced design leaders share their personal stories and give specific examples of their companies’ forward-thinking creations. This unique approach helps the reader learn how to build a solid brand foundation, solve problems with simplified thinking, anticipate and capitalize on trends, figure out what consumers want before they do, and align mission, vision, and strategy with a corporate brand. A sense of the content within Design Thinking can be gained from the titles of some of the key essays: “Building Leadership Brands,” “The Designful Company,” “Brand Building by Service Design,” “Service Design Via the Global Web,” “Customer Loyalty,” and “Driving Brand Loyalty on the Web”.

Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop


Timothy Samara - 2003
    Effective layout is essential to communication and enables the end user not only to be drawn in with an innovative design but to digest information easily. Making and Breaking the Grid is a comprehensive layout design workshop that assumes that in order to effectively break the rules of grid-based design, one must first understand those rules and see them applied in real-world projects.Text reveals top designers' work in process and rationale. Projects with similar characteristics are linked through a simple notational system that encourages exploration and comparison of structure ideas. Also included are historical overviews that summarize the development of layout concepts, both grid-based and non-grid based, in modern design practice.

Designing for the Social Web


Joshua Porter - 2008
    With tons of examples from real-world interfaces and a touch of the underlying social psychology theory, Joshua Porter shows you how to design your next great social web application.

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things


William McDonough - 2002
    But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective.Waste equals food. Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new. They can be conceived as "biological nutrients" that will easily reenter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins. Or they can be "technical nutrients" that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles, rather than being "recycled" -- really, downcycled -- into low-grade materials and uses. Drawing on their experience in (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved with making anything can begin to do as well.

Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines


Graphic Artists Guild - 1984
    The twelfth edition of this classic reference has been revised and updated to provide all the information creative professionals need to keep up with current trends and compete in an ever-changing industry.

Killer Web Content: Make the Sale, Deliver the Service, Build the Brand


Gerry McGovern - 2006
    Written by an internationally-acclaimed specialist in this field, Killer Web Content gives you the strategies and practical techniques you need to get the very best out of your Web content. Accessible, concise and practical, it will make your website really work for you.This book helps readers to: - provide visitors to their website with the right content at just the right time - write compelling Web content that users really respond to and want more of - make sure their website has the best possible chance of getting into the first page of search results - understand the benefits of blogs, RSS, and e-mail newslettersWeb content is an increasingly important asset. It helps sellproducts and deliver services. From travel companies to softwarecompanies, from universities to governments, it's something that has tobe got right.