The book "Non-design book about design"

The first edition of the Design Non-Design Book has earned itself the fame of the most accessible design book. Despite the fact that she became a rarity a couple of years ago, the positive reviews about her do not subside.
A couple of months ago, the Symbol Plus publishing house re-released a book entitled Design for Non-Designers. If you are not afraid to remain without your copy, then read our review of this book, otherwise you should stop reading our review and go to the bookstore.


Literally a few months ago, the book Design for Non-Designers was published by Symbol-Plus Publishing House, and a week ago it came into my hands. The publication is the reincarnation of the famous book by Non-designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams. Why the name is translated that way is not clear, but perhaps this is somehow related to the fact that the previous edition was released in Russian by a completely different publishing house.
The book is a 190-page paperback edition printed on good paper. It seems to me that the layout of the book corresponds to the English original, but in any case it is very pleasant. The cover of the book does not greatly hinder its search on the store shelf.

What is this book about?

The purpose of the book is to give the reader basic design skills. Without going into details, without resorting to the harsh theory. The author vividly and intelligibly with concrete examples shows how to make one or another printed material better. Perhaps someone will call this book a designer textbook, but it is not. The book does not roll up to embellishment, in it you will not find tips, such as "Let's add a drawing here to make it look more fun." On the contrary, raking a bunch of typical advertising, Robin Williams shows how to make it clearer and slimmer.
The book is divided into two large parts: "Design Rules" and "Font Design." The first one deals with the basic design principles of “Approximation” (Proximity), “Alignment”, “Repeat”, and “Contrast”. Each principle is devoted to an entire chapter. A separate chapter is devoted to the sharing of all principles at once. And the first part ends with tests for the assimilation of the material, examples and minor tricks. The second part of the book is devoted to the rules of coexistence of several fonts on a page. Briefly considered categories of fonts, ways of their interaction.
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The book was written a long time ago, and many of its examples seem caricature until you look at the local free newspaper ads or pay attention to leaflets pasted everywhere. The main advantage of the book is that you can easily not only understand the basic principles of design, but also immediately after reading can use them. In print or web design, it doesn't matter. (The point is of course that you will better combine the elements, and not that the book will teach you to create them.)

Who is this book for?

I would not recommend this book to anyone without a twinge of conscience. After reading it, you will not become a designer - do not even hope. But any piece of paper, report, or something else made by you will become more attractive, and therefore, your thought will be more effective (sold).
But as it seems to me, this book will be most in demand for web project managers and web developers. You will learn to understand designers! (That in the modern world of web development is quite an urgent task. If you’d like to find a book for designers so that they can understand programmers.) It will be easier for you to discuss design. We realize that something exists if we know what it is called. We will not pay attention to the contrast, closeness or alignment, if we do not know what it is and how it relates in principle to the design, for example, the site.

Verdict

Unconditional must have.
Other reviews of IT literature for web developers, on the website Nomagic.ru