Learning the Fundamentals of Design

March 25, 2008

One of my interests of late has been to learn the fundamentals of design. I was really challenged by this after doing an all day seminar with Luke W at UI12 in November. Here are some of the resources that have been helpful to me:

• Site Seeing – Luke W’s book that covers much of the content of the one day seminar I attended. One of the things I got out of it was thinking about hierarchy on a page. Thinking through the hierarchy of content and then coming up with a visual organization on the page to support that message. I also liked the idea of thinking of design in terms of visual organization and personality (often what we call look and feel). I have been challenged to consider visual organization first and then to come up with a personality for the site that enhances that organization and the message that site is trying to communicate.
• Principles of Design series on Design Meltdown – I liked the use of examples from other Web sites that supported the principles discussed in these articles.
• Exploring the Elements of Design – I saw this in a Border’s bookstore in Boston while attending UI12. I have enjoyed going through this book. It is filled with lots of examples mostly from the graphic design realm.
• Universal Principles of Design – This is a book that Andy Rutledge suggested to me. I am looking forward to reading it. It contains short chapters on different design such as 80/20 rule, Fitt’s Law and Gutenberg Diagram.
• Principles of Design (no longer available), Elements of Design(no longer available), Designing for the Web(no longer available), and The Principles and Elements of Design articles on Digital Web (no longer available) – good primer articles to get familiar with the principles and elements of design. This was the article that I first read and then wanted to go deeper.
• Contrast and Meaning – Article by Andy Rutledge