Book picks similar to
Dear Data by Giorgia Lupi
non-fiction
design
nonfiction
art
Just My Type: A Book about Fonts
Simon Garfield - 2010
Whether you’re enraged by Ikea’s Verdanagate, want to know what the Beach Boys have in common with easy Jet or why it’s okay to like Comic Sans, Just My Type will have the answer. Learn why using upper case got a New Zealand health worker sacked. Refer to Prince in the Tafkap years as a Dingbat (that works on many levels). Spot where movies get their time periods wrong and don’t be duped by fake posters on eBay. Simon Garfield meets the people behind the typefaces and along the way learns why some fonts – like men – are from Mars and some are from Venus. From type on the high street and album covers, to the print in our homes and offices, Garfield is the font of all types of knowledge.
Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information
Manuel Lima - 2011
Finding patterns and making meaningful connections inside complex data networks has emerged as one of the biggest challenges of the twenty-first century. In recent years, designers, researchers, and scientists have begun employing an innovative mix of colors, symbols, graphics, algorithms, and interactivity to clarify, and often beautify, the clutter. From representing networks of friends on Facebook to depicting interactions among proteins in a human cell, Visual Complexity presents one hundred of the most interesting examples of information-visualization by the field's leading practitioners.
Data Science from Scratch: First Principles with Python
Joel Grus - 2015
In this book, you’ll learn how many of the most fundamental data science tools and algorithms work by implementing them from scratch.
If you have an aptitude for mathematics and some programming skills, author Joel Grus will help you get comfortable with the math and statistics at the core of data science, and with hacking skills you need to get started as a data scientist. Today’s messy glut of data holds answers to questions no one’s even thought to ask. This book provides you with the know-how to dig those answers out.
Get a crash course in Python
Learn the basics of linear algebra, statistics, and probability—and understand how and when they're used in data science
Collect, explore, clean, munge, and manipulate data
Dive into the fundamentals of machine learning
Implement models such as k-nearest Neighbors, Naive Bayes, linear and logistic regression, decision trees, neural networks, and clustering
Explore recommender systems, natural language processing, network analysis, MapReduce, and databases
I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59
Douglas Edwards - 2011
No academic analysis or bystander’s account can capture it. Now Doug Edwards, Employee Number 59, offers the first inside view of Google, giving readers a chance to fully experience the bizarre mix of camaraderie and competition at this phenomenal company. Edwards, Google’s first director of marketing and brand management, describes it as it happened. We see the first, pioneering steps of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company’s young, idiosyncratic partners; the evolution of the company’s famously nonhierarchical structure (where every employee finds a problem to tackle or a feature to create and works independently); the development of brand identity; the races to develop and implement each new feature; and the many ideas that never came to pass. Above all, Edwards—a former journalist who knows how to write—captures the “Google Experience,” the rollercoaster ride of being part of a company creating itself in a whole new universe. I’m Feeling Lucky captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, yet profoundly important culture of the world’s most transformative corporation.
Deep Learning
Ian Goodfellow - 2016
Because the computer gathers knowledge from experience, there is no need for a human computer operator to formally specify all the knowledge that the computer needs. The hierarchy of concepts allows the computer to learn complicated concepts by building them out of simpler ones; a graph of these hierarchies would be many layers deep. This book introduces a broad range of topics in deep learning.The text offers mathematical and conceptual background, covering relevant concepts in linear algebra, probability theory and information theory, numerical computation, and machine learning. It describes deep learning techniques used by practitioners in industry, including deep feedforward networks, regularization, optimization algorithms, convolutional networks, sequence modeling, and practical methodology; and it surveys such applications as natural language processing, speech recognition, computer vision, online recommendation systems, bioinformatics, and videogames. Finally, the book offers research perspectives, covering such theoretical topics as linear factor models, autoencoders, representation learning, structured probabilistic models, Monte Carlo methods, the partition function, approximate inference, and deep generative models.Deep Learning can be used by undergraduate or graduate students planning careers in either industry or research, and by software engineers who want to begin using deep learning in their products or platforms. A website offers supplementary material for both readers and instructors.
Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions
Bella Martin - 2012
Universal Methods of Design serves as an invaluable compendium of methods that can be easily referenced and used by cross-disciplinary teams in nearly any design project. Methods and techniques are organized alphabetically for ongoing, quick reference. Each method is presented in a two-page format. The left-hand page contains a concise description of the method, accompanied by references for further reading. On the right-hand page, images and cases studies for each method are presented visually. The relevant phases for design application are highlighted as numbered icons along the right side of the page, from phases 1 (planning) through 5 (launch and monitor).Build more meaningful products with these methods and more: A/B Testing, Affinity Diagramming, Behavioral Mapping, Bodystorming, Contextual Design, Critical Incident Technique, Directed Storytelling, Flexible Modeling, Image Boards, Graffiti Walls, Heuristic Evaluation, Parallel Prototyping, Simulation Exercises, Touchstone Tours, and Weighted Matrix. This essential guide:Dismantles the myth that user research methods are complicated, expensive, and time-consumingCreates a shared meaning for cross-disciplinary design teamsIllustrates methods with compelling visualizations and case studiesCharacterizes each method at a glanceIndicates when methods are best employed to help prioritize appropriate design research strategiesUniversal Methods of Design is an essential resource for designers of all levels and specializations.
The Sketchnote Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking
Mike Rohde - 2012
Author Mike Rohde shows you how to incorporate sketchnoting techniques into your note-taking process--regardless of your artistic abilities--to help you better process the information that you are hearing and seeing through drawing, and to actually have fun taking notes. The Sketchnote Handbook explains and illustrates practical sketchnote techniques for taking visual notes at your own pace as well as in real time during meetings and events. Rhode also addresses most people's fear of drawing by showing, step-by-step, how to quickly draw people, faces, type, and simple objects for effective and fast sketchnoting. The book looks like a peek into the author's private sketchnote journal, but it functions like a beginner's guide to sketchnoting with easy-to-follow instructions for drawing out your notes that will leave you itching to attend a meeting just so you can draw about it.
Design for Hackers
David Kadavy - 2011
The term 'hacker' has been redefined to consist of anyone who has an insatiable curiosity as to how things work--and how they can try to make them better. This book is aimed at hackers of all skill levels and explains the classical principles and techniques behind beautiful designs by deconstructing those designs in order to understand what makes them so remarkable. Author and designer David Kadavy provides you with the framework for understanding good design and places a special emphasis on interactive mediums. You'll explore color theory, the role of proportion and geometry in design, and the relationship between medium and form. Packed with unique reverse engineering design examples, this book inspires and encourages you to discover and create new beauty in a variety of formats. Breaks down and studies the classical principles and techniques behind the creation of beautiful design. Illustrates cultural and contextual considerations in communicating to a specific audience. Discusses why design is important, the purpose of design, the various constraints of design, and how today's fonts are designed with the screen in mind. Dissects the elements of color, size, scale, proportion, medium, and form. Features a unique range of examples, including the graffiti in the ancient city of Pompeii, the lack of the color black in Monet's art, the style and sleekness of the iPhone, and more.By the end of this book, you'll be able to apply the featured design principles to your own web designs, mobile apps, or other digital work.
Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence
Ajay Agrawal - 2018
But facing the sea change that AI will bring can be paralyzing. How should companies set strategies, governments design policies, and people plan their lives for a world so different from what we know? In the face of such uncertainty, many analysts either cower in fear or predict an impossibly sunny future.But in Prediction Machines, three eminent economists recast the rise of AI as a drop in the cost of prediction. With this single, masterful stroke, they lift the curtain on the AI-is-magic hype and show how basic tools from economics provide clarity about the AI revolution and a basis for action by CEOs, managers, policy makers, investors, and entrepreneurs.When AI is framed as cheap prediction, its extraordinary potential becomes clear:
Prediction is at the heart of making decisions under uncertainty. Our businesses and personal lives are riddled with such decisions.
Prediction tools increase productivity--operating machines, handling documents, communicating with customers.
Uncertainty constrains strategy. Better prediction creates opportunities for new business structures and strategies to compete.
Penetrating, fun, and always insightful and practical, Prediction Machines follows its inescapable logic to explain how to navigate the changes on the horizon. The impact of AI will be profound, but the economic framework for understanding it is surprisingly simple.
In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs
Grace Bonney - 2016
In the Company of Women profiles over 100 of these influential and creative women from all ages, races, backgrounds, and industries. Chock-full of practical, inspirational advice for those looking to forge their own paths, these interviews detail the keys to success (for example, going with your gut; maintaining meaningful and lasting relationships), highlight the importance of everyday rituals (meditating; creating a daily to-do list), and dispense advice for the next generation of women entrepreneurs and makers (stay true to what you believe in; have patience). The book is rounded out with hundreds of lush, original photographs of the women in their work spaces.
An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers
Danny Gregory - 2008
The margins sometimes spill over with hurriedly scrawled shopping lists and phone numbers. The cover may be travel-worn and the pages warped from watercolors. Open the book, and raw creativity seeps from each color and line. The intimacy and freedom on its pages are almost like being inside the artist's mind: You get a direct window into risks, lessons, mistakes, and dreams.The private worlds of these visual journals are exactly what you'll find inside An Illustrated Life. This book offers a sneak peak into the wildly creative imaginations of 50 top illustrators, designers and artists. Included are sketchbook pages from R. Crumb, Chris Ware, James Jean, James Kochalka, and many others. In addition, author Danny Gregory has interviewed each artist and shares their thoughts on living the artistic life through journaling.Watch artists—through words and images—record the world they see and craft the world as they want it to be. The pages of An Illustrated Life are sometimes startling, sometimes endearing, but always inspiring. Whether you're an illustrator, designer, or simply someone searching for inspiration, these pages will open a whole new world to you.
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
Cathy O'Neil - 2016
Increasingly, the decisions that affect our lives--where we go to school, whether we can get a job or a loan, how much we pay for health insurance--are being made not by humans, but by machines. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules.But as mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil reveals, the mathematical models being used today are unregulated and uncontestable, even when they're wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination--propping up the lucky, punishing the downtrodden, and undermining our democracy in the process.
Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Rules
Jeff Johnson - 2010
But as the field evolves, designers enter the field from many disciplines. Practitioners today have enough experience in UI design that they have been exposed to design rules, but it is essential that they understand the psychology behind the rules in order to effectively apply them. In "Designing with the Mind in Mind," Jeff Johnson, author of the best selling "GUI Bloopers," provides designers with just enough background in perceptual and cognitive psychology that UI design guidelines make intuitive sense rather than being just a list of rules to follow. * The first practical, all-in-one source for practitioners on user interface design rules and why, when and how to apply them.* Provides just enough background into the reasoning behind interface design rules that practitioners can make informed decisions in every project.* Gives practitioners the insight they need to make educated design decisions when confronted with tradeoffs, including competing design rules, time constrictions, or limited resources.
The Elements of Data Analytic Style
Jeffrey Leek - 2015
This book is focused on the details of data analysis that sometimes fall through the cracks in traditional statistics classes and textbooks. It is based in part on the authors blog posts, lecture materials, and tutorials. The author is one of the co-developers of the Johns Hopkins Specialization in Data Science the largest data science program in the world that has enrolled more than 1.76 million people. The book is useful as a companion to introductory courses in data science or data analysis. It is also a useful reference tool for people tasked with reading and critiquing data analyses. It is based on the authors popular open-source guides available through his Github account (https://github.com/jtleek). The paper is also available through Leanpub (https://leanpub.com/datastyle), if the book is purchased on that platform you are entitled to lifetime free updates.
How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
George Pólya - 1944
Polya, How to Solve It will show anyone in any field how to think straight. In lucid and appealing prose, Polya reveals how the mathematical method of demonstrating a proof or finding an unknown can be of help in attacking any problem that can be reasoned out--from building a bridge to winning a game of anagrams. Generations of readers have relished Polya's deft--indeed, brilliant--instructions on stripping away irrelevancies and going straight to the heart of the problem.