There are a few resources that I’ve found useful to teach developers about design.
- Refactoring UI is a useful list of “Dos” and “Don’ts” that are a great starting point if you need tactical advice as a developer — I’d stop there if you don’t want to go any deeper because I know you’re busy <smile>.
- Ellen Lupton’s eminently accessible book Design Is Storytelling is inexpensive and delightful to read as a starting point to get a sense of what design encompasses today.
- If you want to go deeper on classical graphic design in particular, Ellen’s book on typography is fab. For learning pure page structures this one is great. If you want to show off and have a special design book on your desk this is the one to have.
- There’s an article on Medium that is a good apertif as you get further along in your journey towards design. It draws upon ideas developed at a popular Temple of Design: the Bauhaus.
- You may already know my work if you’ve landed here so this isn’t a surprise but I have two books on the subject of design: the Laws of Simplicity and a new book How To Speak Machine (this is less for developers and more for layfolks).
- Computational design is my favorite flavor of design, and I have two ooooooold books on this subject entitled Maeda@Media, Creative Code, and Design By Numbers.
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