Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The Design of Everyday Things

by Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman

Donald Norman's best-selling plea for user-friendly design, with more than 175,000 copies sold to date, is now a Basic paperback. First, businesses discovered quality as a key competitive edge; next came service. Now, Donald A. Norman, former Director of the Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of California, reveals how smart design is the new competitive frontier. The Design of Everyday Things... (more)

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

by Edward R. Tufte

A modern classic. Tufte teaches the fundamentals of graphics, charts, maps and tables. "A visual Strunk and White" (The Boston Globe). Includes 250 delightfullly entertaining illustrations, all beautifully printed.

The Elements of Typographic Style

by Robert Bringhurst

Renowned typographer and poet Robert Bringhurst brings clarity to the art of typography with this masterful style guide. Combining the practical, theoretical, and historical, this edition is completely updated, with a thorough exploration of the newest innovations in intelligent font technology, and is a must-have for graphic artists, editors, or anyone working with the printed page using digital or traditional... (more)

Don't Make Me Think

A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

by Steve Krug

Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and... (more)

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

by Garr Reynolds

Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the net - presentationzen.com - shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the... (more)

Emotional Design

Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

by Donald A. Norman

Did you ever wonder why cheap wine tastes better in fancy glasses? Why sales of Macintosh computers soared when Apple introduced the colorful iMac? New research on emotion and cognition has shown that attractive things really do work better, as Donald Norman amply demonstrates in this fascinating book, which has garnered acclaim everywhere from Scientific American to The New Yorker . Emotional Design ... (more)

Envisioning Information

by Edward R. Tufte

A remarkable range of examples for the idea of visual thinking, with beautifully printed pages. A real treat for all who reason and learn by means of images. -- Rudolf Arnheim

The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)

The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)

by John Maeda

Received an Honorable Mention in the Communication and Cultural Studies category of the 2005 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc. Finally, we are learning that simplicity equals sanity. We're rebelling against technology that's too complicated, DVD players with too many menus, and software accompanied by 75-megabyte "read me"... (more)

Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students

Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students

by Ellen Lupton

The organization of letters on a blank sheet -- or screen -- is the most basic challenge facing anyone who practices design. What type of font to use? How big? How should those letters, words, and paragraphs be aligned, spaced, ordered, shaped, and otherwise manipulated? In this groundbreaking new primer, leading design educator and historian Ellen Lupton provides clear and concise guidance for anyone learning or... (more)

The Non-Designer's Design Book

by Robin Williams

So you have a great concept and all the fancy digital tools you could possibly require—what's stopping you from creating beautiful pages? Namely the training to pull all of these elements together into a cohesive design that effectively communicates your message. Not to worry: This book is the one place you can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help. In The Non-Designer's Design Book, 2nd... (more)

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

by William McDonough

A manifesto for a radically different philosophy and practice of manufacture and environmentalism "Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial... (more)

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (Center for Environmental Structure Series)

by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein

"Brilliant....Here's how to design or redesign any space you're living or working in--from metropolis to room. Consider what you want to happen in the space, and then page through this book. Its radically conservative observations will spark, enhance, organize your best ideas, and a wondrous home, workplace, town will result"--San Francisco Chronicle. A handbook designed for the layman which aims to present a... (more)

Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design

Universal Principles of Design: 100 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach Through Design

by Kritina Holden, William Lidwell, Jill Butler

Whether a marketing campaign or a museum exhibit, a video game or a complex control system, the design we see is the culmination of many concepts and practices brought together from a variety of disciplines. Because no one can be an expert on everything, designers have always had to scramble to find the information and know-how required to make a design work until now. Universal Principles of Design is the... (more)

The Art of Looking Sideways

by Alan Fletcher

The ultimate guide to visual awareness. Compiled over decades by one of today's most brilliant graphic designers, this is a panoply of curious facts, visual puns, anecdotes, serious science, insights, images, jokes, memories and reflections, with 700 illustrations and quotes from over 1000+ writers. The Art of Looking Sideways is a primer in visual intelligence, an exploration of the workings of the eye,... (more)

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

by Edward R. Tufte

Describes design strategies - the proper arrangement in space and time of images, words, and numbers - for presenting information about motion, process, mechanism, cause, and effect. Examines the logic of depicting quantitative evidence.

Beautiful Evidence

by Edward R. Tufte

"Science and art," according to Tufte, "have in common intense seeing, the wide-eyed observing that generates empirical information." This book is about how that seeing turns into showing. Tufte, professor emeritus at Yale University and author of three previous widely praised books on visual evidence, displays outstanding examples of the genre. One of the most arresting is Galileo's series of hand-drawn images of... (more)

Design Patterns

Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides

Four top-notch authors present the first book containing a catalog of object-oriented design patterns. Readers will learn how to use design patterns in the object-oriented development process, how to solve specific design problems using patterns, and gain a common vocabulary for object-oriented design.

Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop

Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop

by Timothy Samara

For designers working in every medium, layout is arguable the most basic and most important element. Effective layout is essential to communication and enables the end user to not only 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 to effectively break the rules of grid-based design one must first... (more)

Made to Stick

Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

by Chip Heath

Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public-health scares circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas–business people, teachers, politicians, journalists, and others–struggle to make their ideas “stick.” Why do some ideas thrive while others die?... (more)

Designing Interactions

by Bill Moggridge

Digital technology has changed the way we interact with everything from the games we play to the tools we use at work. Designers of digital technology products no longer regard their job as designing a physical object—beautiful or utilitarian—but as designing our interactions with it. In Designing Interactions , award-winning designer Bill Moggridge introduces us to forty influential designers who have shaped our... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Browse Subjects: design

Top Books

by Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman, Donald A. Norman

by Edward R. Tufte

by Robert Bringhurst

A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

by Steve Krug

by Garr Reynolds

Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

by Donald A. Norman

by Edward R. Tufte

by John Maeda

by Ellen Lupton

by Robin Williams

by William McDonough

by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, Murray Silverstein

by Kritina Holden, William Lidwell, Jill Butler

by Alan Fletcher

by Edward R. Tufte

by Edward R. Tufte

Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, John Vlissides

by Timothy Samara

Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

by Chip Heath

by Bill Moggridge