Book of the Month: June, 2005

[jbsegal]

Everyone who WAS a web-designer in the late-90's/early-'00's and most people who still ARE web designers should buy this book when it comes out.

While written for an audience of 9-year-olds, the promo pamphlet shows it to be absolutely required reading.

Original look no is 404 now. https://www.amazon.com/Book-About-Design-Complicated-Doesnt/dp/0805075755/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Comments

muahahahahahahahah!!!

[electriccat.livejournal.com]

you have no idea how much that makes me laugh.

Actually this isn't required reading for the old time web developers as it is for the newbies and the clients.

I actually turned down a $600 job because the client and the "designer" were completely batshit and could have used that book.

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

I saw the galley at ALA (did you hear about this from dancingdeer?). I actually had to ask the publisher rep whether the book was being marketed to the age level the illustrations spoke to (ages 5-10) or higher because the vocabulary was at least at an early middle-grade level. The rep said that it's being marketed across the boards, age-wise, and that it's only geared towards younger children working with an adult who can define the big words.

All that said, I'm planning on buying it for myself and, possibly, my adult/teen nonfiction collection when it comes out. It looked mighty spiff and fits in perfectly with some self-guided learning I'm doing this year.

[lifecollage.livejournal.com]

I meant "middle-school" not "middle-grade." 'Kay, time for coffee.

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i brought back the pamphlet about it, and he totally loved it. (so did I, which is why I got it, and so did H*, from a designer standpoint.) It's so cute! I somehow managed to miss the actual galley, though, darnit.

[foms.livejournal.com]

Did I miss something? It sounds as though it could be a good book/reference. What I don't understand is why the focus on the web.

I don't see much of a difference between design for presentation on the web and for presentation of similar information on paper. People act as though this were a new field. The only difference that come to mind are a lit background and blinky/movie things. Are they enough of a difference to warrant ignoring all prior art?

[ckd]

Web design, unless you go PDF/Flash, means you don't have the level of control that you would have with paper. Exact layout? Heck, even the aspect ratio is out of your hands unless you go insane with tables!

That doesn't mean that many of the concepts aren't the same, of course; whitespace still exists, and so on, but you do have to make adjustments.

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

Well, I personally am thinking about this as an overall design book, which is how it's intended.
One of the examples of color design in the book was for a teacher to have everyone show up wearing a solid-colored t-shirt, and then have the class divide by warms and cools, or various shades, etc. It gives clear examples and is just very cute. :)
The author said he'd seen plenty of books for kids on how to draw, but very few on design.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

That does look like a cute book. I'll have to get it. Maybe two, so I can give one to my niece and nephew.