Book Covers that will make you think

Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel

Last Last Chance by Fiona Maazel

Fiona Mazeel’s cover was designed by Henry Yee, using the Baskerville typeface. The cover seems to be split into two, cut across 45 degrees. It looks like the whole book was split in two, a prism of some sort, with a ‘broken’ rainbow. Looking at the cover, one cannot help admire the pretty picture but feel a bit depressed; rainbows, after all, are a symbol of hope. By the cover alone, you can tell that Fiona Mazeel’s novel would be a heartbreaking piece.

The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz

The cover is designed by High Design NYC, featuring countless displays in a supermarket with a nutritional panel in the center, but instead of bearing nutritional information, it displays the book’s title, subtitle, author and review in Helvetica typeface.

I like this book cover because it’s colorful and witty. The title itself is a great one, ‘Paradox of Choice’, and then the artist juxtaposed it with a photo of  a supermarket display. It is true that nowadays, we are given the freedom of choice brought by democracy and consumerism, but with the influx of brands and products promoted to us, it can get confusing and almost suffocating. Choice is a paradox, indeed.

Impossible Motherhood by Irene Vilar

Impossible Motherhood by Irene Vilar

Irene tackles a very touchy subject, abortion. Although her book is a very frank and honest testimony on abortion addiction, it’s good that Carin Goldberg toned things down with the book cover design. The cover is very clean and minimalist, with thin curvy lines and sticks representing ’15′, the number of abortions she’s had. Goldberg didn’t overdo it, as it would have been easy to do. Instead he kept it basic but still kept things interesting and memorable.

Valkyrie by Philipp von Boeselager

The book cover designed by Jason Booher is, like a sniper shot, ‘straight to the point’. It shows a single laser dot right on Hitler’s temple. This represents the idea of assassinating the Fuhrer. Over the course of WWII Adolf Hitler survived 42 failed assassination attempts. The most famous attempt of course was ‘Operation Valkyrie’. The book is about Philip Boeselager and his brother, along with another conspirator spent months planning and preparing for contingencies, and left nothing to chance. It was a failed attempt, of course, but it will be interesting to read about it.

Book Covers that will make you smile

How to Speak at Public Events

How to Speak at Public Events

This is one of my favorite cover designs of the series. It is a mock-up of the common (and ineffective) advice to conquering public speaking: ‘just pretend the audience is in their underwear’. Ironically, the opposite happens–you feel like you are in your underwear in front of the audience.

The cover design was designed by the talented Alister MacInnes, using pixel-based characters and bright colors. There is no title in the front, but I think the picture is self-explanatory. The audience consists of members that may be in any audience where you would speak publicly such as weddings, funerals, PTA meetings, etc.

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

John Gall designed the cover design, and he designs most of Haruki Murakami’s works. He makes use of the thin Futura font and warm, natural hues. I admire how Gall plays with symmetry and beauty of the face.

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

I am a gregarious reader myself, even in my teens, and I remember buying this book for the cover design alone. The colors are lovely, and the star and girl is drawn in stick figures, like it was drawn by a pre-schooler. The title of the book is not shown on the cover. Since the book is about non-conformity, the book cover design also followed suit by being different on its own.

American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent

American Nerd by Benjamin Nujent

Jason J Heuer designed Benjamin Nujent’s book, “American Nerd”. It shows several items that are associated with nerds: an inhaler, thick glasses, retainers and a pocket protector. Even how the items are framed in an obsessive-compulsive manner reflect ‘American nerd-ness’.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Helen Yentus came up with a delightful cover design for Gilbert’s bestseller, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. The book is about a recently divorced woman who traveled to three different destinations throughout the year. The first word ‘Eat’ represents her months in Italy, wherein she recovered from her depression through food and pasta. The second word ‘Pray’ is spelled out in prayer beads, representing her months in India meditating; and finding spirituality in her life. The third word ‘Love’ is spelled out in (what I think) is flowers, representing the tropical east Indonesia where our heroine found love.

Spring, Heat, Rains by David Shulman

Spring, Heat, Rains by David Shulman

This book cover design is by Isaac Tobin. The cover design features different umbrellas of different patterns, and in the center a yellow octagon (shape of the umbrellas), bearing the title and author. I love the use of patterns and bright colors associated  with India–it’s a cheerful design that will make you smile without even trying.

Book Covers that are just plain witty

The Horizontal World by Debra Marquart

The Horizontal World

Kathleen DiGrado took on the cover design literally, be creating a horizontal cover design instead of the usual vertical book cover design. It’s smart. It’s witty. Plus it’s funny how people tilt their heads to see the cover.

Pisa, Paris and London Books by Penguin Books

Penguin books have several unique book cover designs, but these series are among my favorite. The cover only bears the place, and then plays with the letters to indicate more about the place: Pisa had a leaning ‘I’, Paris has the ‘A’ Eiffel tower, while London has the ‘o’ on the bottom parts to signify the London buses. It makes you wonder how the designer Elias Figueiroa came up with that!

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Although this is an old cover design, I can’t help but smirk at the witty use of typography. The last letter Y is used as the gentleman’s champagne glass. To those who have read the book, it is simply a nod to the lifestyle during the ‘Roaring Twenties’–wealth, fame, parties, materialism and champagne.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson

The cover is like a personification of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. The book is split into two: first is the sane and calm scheme, black and white with a border, using standard serif font and a cute bunny illustration in the middle. The right side features the disillusioned side, with neon colors, shredded fonts, and a wild leopard with his mouth open and ready for the kill. It seems like the left side is about to be eaten up by the crazy, right side of the book. An unusual cover design, but done very well.

Things I Learned from the Women who Dumped Me by Ben Karlin

Things I Learned from the Women who Dumped Me

The book cover is about ‘dissecting feelings’ by taking out the heart piece by piece. Every heartbreak is a lesson, and apparently by the cover design it is likened to a science lesson. Even the typography and the length of the title reinforced the whole scientific image. It is just as fitting because the book is a collection of funny essays from various men who have been dumped by women.

Book Covers that are creative and just–one of a kind!

Experimental Geography by Nato Thampson

The cover design is futuristic but lively. I like how it plays with lines, colors and shapes to come up with a coherent design. The design is by Kelly Blair.

Killing the Buddha by Peter Manseau

Killing the Buddha by Peter Manseau

The cover design is kind of depressing, like it’s ‘shunning’ the world. As you can see it isn’t your typical book cover: no title, no author, no subheadings or quotes. It’s just a picture of clouds with a big, red X in the middle. The red X, most especially, looks so meaningless. It doesn’t tell you what the book is about, in fact it makes you even more confused. The design won runner-up for top book cover design in 2004. It is designed by Paul Sahre.

Sheriff of Yrnameer by Michael Rubens

Sheriff of Yrnameer by Michael Rubens

The cover design by Peter Mendelsund reminds me of vintage pop art posters. The colors are funky and fresh, and there’s something so abstract about it. It looks like a sad face belonging to Cyclops.

Book Covers that are dramatic and sad

The Thing about Life is that One Day You’ll be Dead by David Shields

The Thing about Life is that One Day You'll be Dead by David Shields

Nothing is more depressing than the title. The title is written all over the book cover, with different variations of crude handwriting. The cover design is just as frank as the book’s title. The cover design is by Jamie Keenan.

How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis

How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis

Another one of my favorite books in the photojournalism department. It was a sensational piece during that time in the 1890s, for it is the first chronicle that exposed New York’s upper and middle classes and the squalid living conditions in the slums. The cover design is the perfect preview of the contents of the book.

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

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The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Most of the books in the section feature a black background and a single picture or phrase in the center. It just gives that necessary effect of depression and mystery. Without the eerily crude cover design with a blood spatter, Jo Nesbo’s book may look like a Christmas tale or something. But it’s actually a crime novel involving gruesome murders.

John Dies at the End by David Wong

John Dies at the End by David Wong

The cover design is hilarious and gruesome at the same time–which is just like the contents of the book. David Wong’s first novel, ‘John Dies at the End’ is actually a comedy/horror novel that was first available online. The novel proved to be very popular, and had a following of 70,000 people before it was removed. The design is a bit crude, just like a B-rated horror movie, but there’s something so different and interesting about it.

The Last Skin by Barbara Ras

The Last Skin by Barbara Ras

This book, which is about poetry, is eerily beautiful but sad. The cover seems like a watercolor painting that looks somewhat unfinished. The book cover design is by Oliver Munday.

This is a product of my research and understanding of things about self-publishing. I do not have any published material out there that you can buy, at least not yet. So you see, this topic is really of great interest to me, and I hope you share the same sentiments. If the thought of self-publishing is new to you, I am hoping that by the end of this article you will want to explore this topic more. Throughout the article, you will read “books and magazines,” but don’t let that put you off if you’re a musician or an illustrator since the same points apply to every creative.

Advantages of Self-publishing

by: Zsuzsanna Kilian

Time

Compared to traditional publishing, self-publishing is faster in many ways, at least until you finally release it. This is for people who want to get their works out there immediately, as soon as a couple of weeks. Weeks? To compare, traditional publishing takes time, several months to a couple of years because you’re not the only one whose work is being taken care of. Remember this, you are not their priority even if you think you are. Self-publishing gives you the power to do things according to your plan, and that includes when to release your book or magazine.

Most undergrads have experienced several revisions on their thesis and they can do nothing to get it accepted unless a revision is actually made, right? To add, most will even be asked for multiple revisions by their professors. Everyone hates that, very time-consuming! Imagine you are your own editor, your own everything, you like your work, what are you waiting for?

Speaking of time, if your book or magazine is related to a current news trend, self-publishing works best since you can publish it while the trend is still popular.

Money

Electronic Self-publishing

Self-publishing is cheaper, if you will publish your work electronically it won’t cost more than a hundred dollars. For writers you can publish on Kindle you’ll only have to pay for the ISBN (see below). Payout is faster too, that is, if it gets a good audience.

Print Self-publishing

For people who have the capital to use for printing, it will probably cost a few thousand dollars to print several hundred copies of your book or magazine. The cool thing about this is when things go as planned, any revenue is all yours. There are also companies such as MagCloud that only print and deliver when a customer buys. See Print on Demand below.

Satisfaction

Publishing your work independently is, to a degree, rewarding. The freedom pays off when people start noticing your work. Consider Romantically Apocalyptic and The Oatmeal and other web comics. They have published their works both electronically and traditionally and have received a very good audience. Something like Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol on Kindle, although still debatable, sells better than on hard bound.

Over the few years, Kindle e-books have turned several indie writers into millionaires.

Perhaps the most important point to mention here is that when things go south you can still force yourself to strive harder to achieve the market you want to reach. As opposed to having a publishing house backing you up, when things go awry, they might just pull it off to give way to other more promising products. You are better committed to making it a success than anyone else in the world, and that’s important.

Disadvantages of Self-publishing

by: Pieter Beens

Resources

A question every self-publisher asks themselves is “will my work reach my intended audience?” Looking at publishing houses, they have all the necessary resources to market material. Chances are high, if your work is accepted, it will reach a fairly broad audience. On the other hand, self-published materials bear in them the risk of not even being noticed. You are alone in this one.

The idea of self-publishing is very sweet because you get to hold all the rights, but with great power comes great responsibility. For consolation, books and magazines published electronically are less complicated. For prints, you get to handle all printing fees, as opposed to having a publishing house to back you up.

Post-publication is the killer, your success depends on how much time and effort you actually put into initial marketing. Finding reviewers is also a part of this, to add credibility (see Consumer Trust below).

Keep in mind that self-publishing in print requires an ongoing marketing, payment processing, and shipping. You need to be superman to do all these tasks, it really is a challenge, which, if it pays off, pays very great.

Consumer Trust

Perhaps consumer trust is what separates your dreams and success by a broad margin. Self-publishers can’t expect to be popular in an instant, especially when no big and renowned publishing house is helping. The world has always worked this way since the beginning of time. People tend to flock in on the brand name.

Many reviewers still do not review self-published materials simply because there is not yet much respect for it compared to traditional publishing. This also applies to bookstores and libraries, many will not accept self-published books or magazines. This is a great problem because where else can you sell your books or magazines if no one wants to have them?

Quality

It’s hard to be critically objective, especially when you are too close to your work. There’s a great deal involved when it comes to the quality of material that is self-published. Authors tend to protect their work no matter what it takes, while an editor from a traditional publishing house will do everything they can to get it to meet their standards. Personally, I don’t want my work to be edited too much. A word or two is okay, but removing a whole line or changing a whole concept is a big no-no.

As Oscar Wilde said, “I’ll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whiches.”

Why Self-Publish?

by: Zsuzsanna Kilian

If you are the kind of person who hates doing revisions, removing parts of your work, and changing whole concepts, then by all means self-publish. You will also have full control over promotion, which is the most important thing after the material itself.

Let’s admit that publishing houses sometimes let go of really good material, thinking that they won’t reach the intended audience and won’t be a hit. Many manuscripts have been rejected because of this, some never saw the light of day because of the rejection while some did through another house (take Harry Potter for example). Few times, people who have the money will self-publish their books or magazines in print.

Admittedly, some time soon I will self-publish some of my works that have been covered with dust all these years. I have read lots of tips on how the whole process works, from writing the first draft to marketing the product continuously. Feel free to add your experience and tips in the comments.

Self-Publishing Tips:

Writing

Well, this doesn’t really need to be here since I’m not a great writer, but for people whose native language is not English like me, I suggest you grab a copy of The Elements of Style.

Editing

Many writers are self-taught and don’t have a degree in literature or writing, I’m one of them. Even for formally trained writers there are still errors in punctuation and grammar, something that you may not notice if you’re working by yourself. It is not a good thing to edit your work, especially when self-publishing, since quality is already an issue.

Surely, you know someone who you can commission to edit your work for a low price, like a friend who loves reading, a language teacher (your language teacher!), or even a student majoring in the language you are writing.

Don’t spend too much money looking for a professional book editor because self-publishing is a great risk, you may or may not get your money back. If you do spend money on hiring an editor, be frugal about it. I know many English majors and English teachers that can help me and point out my mistakes, and that in itself is a leverage. I will never spend hundreds of dollars to have someone point out my mistakes, most writers hate that (however needed).

Cover and Title

No matter how many times your elementary teacher told you not to judge a book by its cover, do not listen. The design of your cover is very important, including the title. We humans rely heavily on our vision to judge if things are good or not, safe or dangerous, and so on. Don’t take your chances, ask a friend who is a good designer to create one for you, or you can do it yourself.

Publishing

If you choose to print, you should know what Print on Demand (PoD) is. Basically, it works like this: customer orders book/magazine —> PoD company prints and delivers for a fee. Usually, fees are very low, making it a win-win between the company and the author. This is the most preferable way when you don’t have the budget to print hundreds of books/magazines at one time, it also frees you from looking for bookstores/sellers that would buy in bulk. Some PoD companies also offer editing and formatting services, again, for a very low cost.

HOLD IT!

ISBN

Most online marketplaces require an ISBN (International Standard Book Number), if you don’t have it, your book is not qualified for selling. Simply put, ISBN is one way of telling the world who the publisher is, and isn’t it great for self-publishers to have their name written as the publisher instead of some company? Well, that’s a lame explanation, ISBN identifies your books through a 13 digit number which is saved in a database, also used by libraries and book organizations for easy identification.

For more information about ISBN, please visit their website.

Marketplaces and Print on Demand

• Blurb
• iTunes
• Lulu –  Lulu sells ISBNs.
• Kindle Store –  Amazon’s Kindle have already made a couple of independent writers into millionaires. Yes, not kidding. A perfect example of this is Amanda Hocking who has already written 17 novels, sold over 185,000 copies since April 2010 (according to Huffington Post).

She also sells her books on:

• Nook
• MagCloud
• CreateSpace

Publicity

This probably amounts to more than half of the success of your book or magazine, even if your work is good, without proper publicity it won’t go anywhere. Marketing your work is time-consuming and mentally taxing, it is a good thing that the Internet spreads word like wildfire, really helpful for self-publishers of both print and electronic.

The most important, and free, thing you can do is get your presence known through social media. Facebook and Twitter are the leading avenues for marketers! Here’s 1stwebdesigner’s guide for Twitter marketing.

It also raises credibility if you allow at least a chapter or two to be read freely, or a preview of what your magazine contains.

Publicizing print is harder, though, since most bookstores won’t place self-published materials on their shelves. There is a way around this, and it involves courage! If there is a nearby bookstore, you can contact them and ask if they can do business with you (tell them you’re a local, keeps the conversation warm). You have higher chances on small bookstores, but don’t get that through your confidence.

Sending copies to established journalists or authors can also help you gain great publicity. As mentioned previously, many websites and companies won’t review self-published materials, however you can reach out to individuals who may be willing to do a review if your material is strong.

Another important tip for publicity is joining a writer’s group. Not only will writers help you writing your story, chances are there are already published authors within the group that can help you get shelved.

Wrap Up

It is true that self-published materials sometimes have issues with quality (or at the very least they’re perceived to). Self publishing is becoming common and is evolving rapidly. There maybe still some that aren’t the greatest quality, but things are changing fast and self-published materials are getting better and better. The thing is, you need to have confidence in your own work before you ever consider self-publishing it. If you’re not that confident, find an editor of a publishing house and ask for his/her opinion if it’s good or not. It really boils down to confidence.

So, are you planning on self-publishing your work or are you already on the market? Share your works here and add your tips!

In this article you’ll find books teaching you how to create great websites, get ideas, learn CSS,HTML, usability, typography, be aware about user experience, web standards,markup and much much more! Check for yourself!

Enjoy this collection, create your own wishlist and keep coming back – I will continue soon with article showcasing the most popular free webdesign and development books available as well! And again – if you wish to contribute and create better this website for everyone, just contact me and check contribute section to see what I can offer in exchange. Maybe you are capable on writing good review about some of these books? It would be extremely useful as well!

1. Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

By Steve Krug

Visit Website: http://www.sensible.com/

Usability design is one of the most important–yet often least attractive–tasks for a Web developer. In Don’t Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humor and excellent, to-the-point examples.

The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques, and examples presented revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book’s assumptions, such as “We don’t read pages–we scan them” and “We don’t figure out how things work–we muddle through.” Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites.

Using an attractive mix of full-color screen shots, cute cartoons and diagrams, and informative sidebars, the book keeps your attention and drives home some crucial points. Much of the content is devoted to proper use of conventions and content layout, and the “before and after” examples are superb. Topics such as the wise use of rollovers and usability testing are covered using a consistently practical approach.

This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple of evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert’s ability to judge Web design. You’ll never form a first impression of a site in the same way again. –Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

• User patterns
• Designing for scanning
• Wise use of copy
• Navigation design
• Home page layout
• Usability testing

2. Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook

By Dan Cederholm

Web Standards are the standard technology specifications enforced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make sure that web designers and browser manufacturers are using the same technology syntax.

It is important that these implementations are the same throughout the Web, otherwise it becomes a messy proprietary place, and lacks consistency. These standards also allow content to be more compatible with multiple different viewing devices, such as screen readers for people with vision impairments, cell phones, PDFs, etc. HTML, XML, and CSS are all such technologies.

This book is your essential guide to understanding the advantages you can bring to your web pages by implementing web standards and precisely how to apply them. Web standards such as XHTML and CSS are now fairly well-known technologies, and they will likely be familiar to you, the web designer. Indeed, they are all around you on the Web. However, within web standards still lies a challenge: while the browser’s support for web standards is steadily increasing, many web developers and designers have yet to discover the real benefits of web standards and respect the need to adhere to them.

The real art is in truly understanding the benefits and implementing the standards efficiently. As a simple example of its power, you can use CSS to lay out your pages instead of nesting tables. This can make file sizes smaller, allowing pages to load faster, ultimately increasing accessibility for all browsers, devices, and web users.

• Expanded edition containing bonus material.
• Teaches how to use Web Standards effectively to build better web sites.
• Solutions style promotes learning by work-through examples and assessments.

3. Build Your Own Website the Right Way Using HTML & CSS

By Ian Lloyd

“Build Your Own Website The Right Way Using HTML & CSS, 2nd Edition” teaches web development from scratch, without assuming any previous knowledge of HTML, CSS or web development techniques. This book introduces you to HTML and CSS as you follow along with the author, step-by-step, to build a fully functional web site from the ground up.

However, unlike countless other “learn web design” books, this title concentrates on modern, best-practice techniques from the very beginning, which means you’ll get it right the first time. The web sites you’ll build will:

Look good on a PC, Mac or Linux computer Render correctly whether your visitors are using Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, or Safari Use web standards so your sites will be fast loading and easy to maintain Be accessible to disabled users who use screenreaders to browse the Web

By the end of the book, you’ll be equipped with enough knowledge to set out on your first projects as a professional web developer, or you can simply use the knowledge you’ve gained to create attractive, functional, usable and accessible sites for personal use.

4. Web Standards Creativity: Innovations in Web Design with XHTML, CSS, and DOM Scripting

By Andy Budd, Andy Clarke, Ian Lloyd, Cameron Adams, Rob Weychert, Ethan Marcotte, Dan Rubin, Derek Featherstone, Jeff Croft, Mark Boulton, Simon Collison

• Be inspired by 10 web design lessons from 10 of the worlds best web designers
• Get creative with cutting-edge XHTML, CSS, and DOM scripting techniques
• Learn breathtaking design skills while remaining standards-compliant

Here at friends of ED, we know that as a web designer or developer, your work involves more than just working to pay the bills. We know that each day, you strive to push the boundaries of your medium, unleashing your creativity in new ways to make your websites more engaging and attractive to behold, while still maintaining cross-browser support, standards compliance, and accessibility. That’s why we got together ten of the world’s most talented web designers to share their secrets with you. Web Standards Creativity is jam-packed with fresh, innovative design ideas. The topics range from essential CSS typography and grid design, effective styling for CMS-driven sites, and astonishing PNG transparency techniques, to DOM scripting magic for creating layouts that change depending on browser resolution and user preference, and better print layouts for web pages. We’re sure you will find something here to inspire you! This full-color book’s examples are not just stunning to look at, but

5. Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual

By David Sawyer McFarland

When it comes to building professional websites, Dreamweaver CS4 is capable of doing more than any other web design program — including previous versions of Dreamweaver. But the software’s sophisticated features aren’t simple. Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual will help you master this program quickly, so you can bring stunning, interactive websites to life.

Under the expert guidance of bestselling author and teacher David McFarland, you’ll learn how to build professional-looking websites quickly and painlessly. McFarland has loaded the book with over 150 pages of hands-on tutorials to help you create database-enabled PHP pages, use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for cutting-edge design, add XML-based news feeds, include dynamic effects with JavaScript and AJAX, and more. This witty and objective book offers jargon-free language and clear descriptions that will help you:

• Learn how to control the appearance of your web pages with CSS, from the basics to advanced techniques
• Design dynamic database-driven websites, from blogs to product catalogs, and from shopping carts to newsletter signup forms
• Add interactivity to your website with ready-to-use JavaScript programs from Adobe’s Spry Framework
• Effortlessly control the many helper files that power your website and manage thousands of pages
• Examine web-page components and Dreamweaver’s capabilities with the book’s “live examples”

Perfect for beginners who need step-by-step guidance, and for longtime Dreamweaver designers who need a handy reference to the new version, this thoroughly updated edition of our bestselling Missing Manual is your complete guide to designing, organizing, building, and deploying websites. It’s the ultimate atlas for Dreamweaver CS4.

6. The Web Designer’s Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide To Themes, Trends & Styles In Website Design

By Patrick Mcneil

The Web Designer’s Idea Book includes more than 700 websites arranged thematically, so you can find inspiration for layout, color, style and more. Author Patrick McNeil has cataloged more than 20,000 sites on his website, and showcased in this book are the very best examples.

Sites are organized by color, design style, type, theme, element and structure. It’s easy to use and reference again and again, whether you’re talking with a co-worker or discussing website design options with a client. As a handy desk reference for design layout, color and style, this book is a must-have for starting new projects.

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8. Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to (X)HTML, StyleSheets, and Web Graphics

By Jennifer Niederst Robbins, Aaron Gustafson

Visit Website: http://www.learningwebdesign.com/

Everything you need to know to create professional web sites is right here. Learning Web Design starts from the beginning — defining how the Web and web pages work — and builds from there. By the end of the book, you’ll have the skills to create multi-column CSS layouts with optimized graphic files, and you’ll know how to get your pages up on the Web.

This thoroughly revised edition teaches you how to build web sites according to modern design practices and professional standards. Learning Web Design explains:

• How to create a simple (X)HTML page, how to add links and images
• Everything you need to know about web standards — (X)HTML, DTDs, and more
• Cascading Style Sheets — formatting text, colors and backgrounds, using the box model, page layout, and more
• All about web graphics, and how to make them lean and mean through optimization
• The site development process, from start to finish
• Getting your pages on the Web — hosting, domain names, and FTP

The book includes exercises to help you to learn various techniques, and short quizzes to make sure you’re up to speed with key concepts. If you’re interested in web design, Learning Web Design is the place to start.

9. The Principles of Beautiful Web Design

By Jason Beaird

Tired of making web sites that work absolutely perfectly but just don’t look nice?

If so, then “The Principles of Beautiful Web Design” is for you. A simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites. Understand the design process, from discovery to implementation Understand what makes “good design” Developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette Use textures, lines, points, shapes, volumes and depth Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images And much more

Throughout the book, you’ll follow an example design, from concept to completion, learning along the way. The book’s full-color layout and large format (8″ x 10″) make The Principles Of Beautiful Wed Design a pleasure to read.

10. Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual

By Matthew MacDonald

Get everything you need to plan and launch a web site, including detailed instructions and clear-headed advice on ready-to-use building blocks, powerful tools like CSS and JavaScript, and Google’s Blogger. The thoroughly revised, completely updated new edition of Creating a Web Site: The Missing Manual explains how to get your site up and running quickly and correctly.

11. Designing Interfaces

By Jenifer Tidwell

Designing a good interface isn’t easy. Users demand software that is well-behaved, good-looking, and easy to use. Your clients or managers demand originality and a short time to market. Your UI technology — web applications, desktop software, even mobile devices — may give you the tools you need, but little guidance on how to use them well.

UI designers over the years have refined the art of interface design, evolving many best practices and reusable ideas. If you learn these, and understand why the best user interfaces work so well, you too can design engaging and usable interfaces with less guesswork and more confidence.

“Designing Interfaces” captures those best practices as design patterns — solutions to common design problems, tailored to the situation at hand. Each pattern contains practical advice that you can put to use immediately, plus a variety of examples illustrated in full color. You’ll get recommendations, design alternatives, and warnings on when not to use them.

Each chapter’s introduction describes key design concepts that are often misunderstood, such as affordances, visual hierarchy, navigational distance, and the use of color. These give you a deeper understanding of why the patterns work, and how to apply them with more insight.

A book can’t design an interface for you — no foolproof design process is given here — but “Designing Interfaces” does give you concrete ideas that you can mix and recombine as you see fit. Experienced designers can use it as a sourcebook of ideas. Novice designers will find a roadmap to the world of interface and interaction design, with enough guidance to start using these patterns immediately.

12. A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making

By Russ Unger, Carolyn Chandler

User experience design is the discipline of creating a useful and usable Web site or application—one that’s easily navigated and meets the needs of both the site owner and its users. But there’s a lot more to successful UX design than knowing the latest Web technologies or design trends: It takes diplomacy, project management skills, and business savvy. That’s where this book comes in. Authors Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler show you how to integrate UX principles into your project from start to finish.

• Understand the various roles in UX design, identify stakeholders, and enlist their support
• Obtain consensus from your team on project objectives
• Define the scope of your project and avoid mission creep
• Conduct user research and document your findings
• Understand and communicate user behavior with personas
• Design and prototype your application or site
• Make your product findable with search engine optimization
• Plan for development, product rollout, and ongoing quality assurance

13. Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions

By Bill Scott, Theresa Neil

Want to learn how to create great user experiences on today’s Web? In this book, UI experts Bill Scott and Theresa Neil present more than 75 design patterns for building web interfaces that provide rich interaction. Distilled from the authors’ years of experience at Sabre, Yahoo!, and Netflix, these best practices are grouped into six key principles to help you take advantage of the web technologies available today. With an entire section devoted to each design principle, Designing Web Interfaces helps you:

• Make It Direct-Edit content in context with design patterns for In Page Editing, Drag & Drop, and Direct Selection
• Keep It Lightweight-Reduce the effort required to interact with a site by using In Context Tools to leave a “light footprint”
• Stay on the Page-Keep visitors on a page with overlays, inlays, dynamic content, and in-page flow patterns
• Provide an Invitation-Help visitors discover site features with invitations that cue them to the next level of interaction
• Use Transitions-Learn when, why, and how to use animations, cinematic effects, and other transitions
• React Immediately-Provide a rich experience by using lively responses such as Live Search, Live Suggest, Live Previews, and more

Designing Web Interfaces illustrates many patterns with examples from working websites. If you need to build or renovate a website to be truly interactive, this book gives you the principles for success.

14. Head First Web Design

By Ethan Watrall, Jeff Siarto

Want to know how to make your pages look beautiful, communicate your message effectively, guide visitors through your website with ease, and get everything approved by the accessibility and usability police at the same time? Head First Web Design is your ticket to mastering all of these complex topics, and understanding what’s really going on in the world of web design. Whether you’re building a personal blog or a corporate website, there’s a lot more to web design than div’s and CSS selectors, but what do you really need to know? With this book, you’ll learn the secrets of designing effective, user-friendly sites, from customer requirements to hand-drawn storyboards all the way to finished HTML and CSS creations that offer an unforgettable online presence. Your time is way too valuable to waste struggling with new concepts. Using the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory learning experience, Head First Web Design uses a visually rich format specifically designed to take advantage of the way your brain really works.

15. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites

By Peter Morville, Louis Rosenfeld

In Chapter 6 of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the authors discuss the details of good search-engine design. In a bitingly humorous segment, they analyze a Web site’s search-page results: “Let’s say you’re interested in knowing what the New Jersey sales tax is…. So you go to the State of New Jersey web site and search on sales tax. The 20 results are scored at either 84% or 82% relevant. Why does each document receive only one of two scores?… And what the heck makes a document 2% more relevant than another?”

With a swift and convincing stroke, the authors of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web tear down many entrenched ideas about Web design. Flashy animations are cool, they agree, as long as they don’t aggravate the viewer. Nifty clickable icons are nice, but are their meanings universal? Is the search engine providing results that are useful and relevant? This book acts as a mirror and with careful questioning causes the reader to think through all the elements and decisions required for well-crafted Web design. –Jennifer Buckendorff –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

16. Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS (2nd Edition)

By Dan Cederholm

No matter how visually appealing or content-packed a Web site may be, if it’s not adaptable to a variety of situations and reaching the widest possible audience, it isn’t really succeeding. In Bulletproof Web Desing, author and Web designer extraordinaire, Dan Cederholm outlines standards-based strategies for building designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control – key components of every sucessful site. Each chapter starts out with an example of an unbulletproof site one that employs a traditional HTML-based approach which Dan then deconstructs, pointing out its limitations. He then gives the site a make-over using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), so you can see how to replace bloated code with lean markup and CSS for fast-loading sites that are accessible to all users. Finally, he covers several popular fluid and elastic-width layout techniques and pieces together all of the page components discussed in prior chapters into a single-page template.

17. Sexy Web Design: Creating Interfaces That Work

By Jina Bolton, Elliot Jay Stocks

Sexy Web Design is an easy-to-follow guide that reveals the secrets of how to build your own breathtaking web interfaces from scratch. You’ll be guided through the entire process of creating a gorgeous, usable web site by applying the timeless principles of user-centered design.

Even if you’re short on design skills, with this book you’ll be creating your own stunning web sites in no time at all.

Throughout, the focus is on simple and practical techniques that anyone can use – you don’t need to have gone to art school or have artistic flair to create stunning designs using the methods outlined in this book.

The book’s full-color layout and large format (8″ x 10″) make Sexy Web Design a pleasure to read. Master key web interface design principles Design amazing web interfaces from scratch Create beautiful, yet functional, web sites Unleash your artistic talents And much more

18. Robin Williams Design Workshop, 2nd Edition

By Robin Williams, John Tollett

Learn design theory and practical know-how from the award-winning author/design team, Robin Williams and John Tollett! Robin Williams introduced design and typographic principles to legions of readers with her best-selling Non-Designer’s book series. Now she and designer/co-author John Tollett take you to the next level of creative design with practical advice and lessons in composition, visual impact, and design challenges.

Presented in Robin and John’s signature style—writing that is so crystal clear, it’s accessible to absolutely anyone—and illustrated with hundreds of full-color design examples, the ideas in this book tackle design theory, visual puns, and layout and graphics strategies for real-world projects. Developing designers will appreciate the authors’ imaginative approach and well-chosen examples.

• Discover practical and effective design principles and concepts—and how to apply them to virtually any project.
• Learn why some designs are attention-getting and others are not.
• Learn how to choose just the right look—corporate or casual, classic or trendy—for specific types of projects, such as business cards, letterhead and envelopes, newsletters and brochures, logos, advertising, and more.
• Test your design acumen by comparing before-and-after examples.
• Find a wealth of inspiration for your own design projects.
• Gain insight into the design process by studying the work of guest designers, who offer their personal commentary and insights.

19. Designing with Web Standards (2nd Edition)

By Jeffrey Zeldman

Standards, argues Jeffrey Zeldman in Designing With Web Standards, are our only hope for breaking out of the endless cycle of testing that plagues designers hoping to support all possible clients. In this book, he explains how designers can best use standards–primarily XHTML and CSS, plus ECMAScript and the standard Document Object Model (DOM)–to increase their personal productivity and maximize the availability of their creations. Zeldman’s approach is detailed, authoritative, and rich with historical context, as he is quick to explain how features of standards evolved. It’s a fantastic education that any design professional will appreciate.

Zeldman is an idealist who devotes some of his book to explaining how much easier life would be if browser developers would just support standards properly (he’s done a lot toward this goal in real life, as well). He is also a pragmatist, who recognizes that browsers implement standards differently (or partially, or not at all) and that it is the job of the Web designer to make pages work anyway. Thus, his book includes lots of explicit and tightly focused tips (with code) that have to do with bamboozling non-compliant browsers into behaving as they should, without tripping up more compliant browsers. There’s lots of coverage of design and testing tools that can aid in the creation of good-looking, standards-abiding documents. –David Wall

20. Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design

By Robert Hoekman Jr.

Designing the Obvious belongs in the toolbox of every person charged with the design and development of Web-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process–in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them.

CSS Topic

21. CSS: The Missing Manual

By David Sawyer McFarland

“Almost 500 pages of CSS help, with more than 100 pages of practical tutorials to guide you through the process of implementing and refining CSS to save you many a wasted hour. At GBP25, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better guide to designing with CSS.”

You can tap into the real power of this tool with CSS: The Missing Manual. This second edition combines crystal-clear explanations, real-world examples, and dozens of step-by-step tutorials to show you how to design sites with CSS that work consistently across browsers. Witty and entertaining, this second edition gives you up-to-the-minute pro techniques.

You’ll learn how to:

• Create HTML that’s simpler, uses less code, is search-engine friendly, and works well with CSS
• Style text by changing fonts, colors, font sizes, and adding borders
• Turn simple HTML links into complex and attractive navigation bars — complete with rollover effects
• Create effective photo galleries and special effects, including drop shadows
• Get up to speed on CSS 3 properties that work in the latest browser versions
• Build complex layouts using CSS, including multi-column designs
• Style web pages for printing

22. CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions

By Andy Budd, Simon Collison, Cameron Moll

Over the past couple of years, web designers and developers have begun taking more care in designing and building web sites. Less readily do they turn to old-fashioned techniques such as GIF spacers, tables for layout, and deprecated HTML elements, which can cause accessibility/usability problems and are just bad practice. There are three main web standards married together to create usable, standards-compliant web designs – XHTML for data structure, JavaScript for dynamic effects, and Cascading Style Sheets for styling your data.

Working as a companion to our Web Standards Solutions book, this title covers advanced Cascading Style Sheet techniques, and includes are all the techniques you need to master CSS and craft modern, standards-compliant web page designs. You’ll already know why you should be using CSS, so we don’t bore you with pages of theory; instead, we jump straight into practical solutions, allowing you to get what you need as quickly as possible.

Renowned web designer Andy Budd starts off by introducing the elements of an effective CSS toolkit, including good working practices, the cascade, the box model, relative and absolute positioning, floating, and more. He then delves into advanced techniques like replacing images, styling links and lists, creating navigation menus, making forms look good, debugging and overcoming browser quirks, and hacking and filtering. The book is rounded off with two case studies to give you inspiration for your own designs, written by two more of the world’s finest web designers, Simon Collinson and Cameron Moll.

23. The Ultimate CSS Reference

By Tommy Olsson, Paul O’Brien

A complete and thorough and up-to-date reference guide for CSS.

Stop wasting time doing Internet searches only to find inaccurate, out-of-date, or incomplete information. “CSS: The Ultimate Reference” includes all the ins-and-outs you need to know including compatability information for all major browsers, lists of useful hacks, known bugs in CSS, and much more – all presented in a beautiful, full color layout that will have you coming back over and over again.

Coverage includes: CSS 2.1 syntax and specifications, including features from current CSS 3 working drafts that are implemented in one or more major browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera), and useful browser-specific features A clear and concise guide to the CSS cascade, including compatability information, known bugs and useful CSS hacks A media type guide, with coverage of which media types apply in which user agents under what conditions. A quick-reference guide to currently supported at-rules (@import, @media, etc.). An alphabetical property reference.

24. The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web

By Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlag

Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites. By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). By the time you’ve finished perusing the volume, you’ll have a new understanding of the graphically rich, fully accessible sites that CSS design facilitates. In sections on design, layout, imagery, typography, effects, and themes, Dave and Molly take you through every phase of the design process–from striking a sensible balance between text and graphics to creating eye-popping special effects (no scripting required).

25. CSS Cookbook, 3rd Edition (Animal Guide)

By Christopher Schmitt, Dan Cederholm

This cookbook provides you with hundreds of practical examples for using CSS to format your web pages, complete with code recipes you can use in your projects right away. With CSS Cookbook, you’ll go beyond theory to solve real problems, from determining which aspects of CSS meet the specific needs of your site to methods for resolving differences in the way browsers display it.

Arranged in a quick-lookup format for easy reference, the third edition has been updated to explain the unique behavior of the latest browsers: Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft’s IE 8, and Mozilla’s Firefox 3.

• Learn the basics, such as understanding CSS rule structure
• Work with web typography and page layout
• Create effects for images and page elements
• Learn techniques for formatting lists, forms, and tables
• Design effective web navigation and create custom links
• Get creative by combining CSS with JavaScript
• Learn useful troubleshooting techniques, hacks, and workarounds

26.

The Art & Science of CSS

By Jonathan Snook, Steve Smith, Jina Bolton, Cameron Adams, David Johnson

CSS-based design doesn’t need to be boring. “The Art & Science of CSS” brings together a talented collection of designers who will show you how to take the building blocks of your web site’s design (such as headings, navigation, forms, and more) and bring them to life with fully standards-compliant CSS.

This full color book helps you to design web sites that not only work well across all browsers, are easy to maintain, and are highly accessible, but are also visually stunning.

Create truly attention-grabbing headings. Discover multiple ways to present images effectively. Use background images to give your site zest. Build usable and attractive navigation. Design forms that are stylish and functional. Learn how to break away from the square box gclich. Create funky tables. And lots more From the Publisher.

This book is ideal for anyone who wants to gain the practical skills involved in using CSS to make attractive web sites, especially if you’re not the type who likes to learn by memorizing a formal specification and then trying to work out which browsers implemented it completely (does anyone enjoy reading specifications?). The only knowledge you’ll need to have is some familiarity with HTML. This book will give designers the skills they need to implement their ideas, and provides developers with creative inspiration through practical examples.

27. CSS: The Definitive Guide

By Eric A Meyer

CSS: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition, provides you with a comprehensive guide to CSS implementation, along with a thorough review of all aspects of CSS 2.1. Updated to cover Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft’s vastly improved browser, this new edition includes content on positioning, lists and generated content, table layout, user interface, paged media, and more.

Simply put, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a way to separate a document’s structure from its presentation. The benefits of this can be quite profound: CSS allows a much richer document appearance than HTML and also saves time–you can create or change the appearance of an entire document in just one place; and its compact file size makes web pages load quickly.

Author Eric Meyer tackles the subject with passion, exploring in detail each individual CSS property and how it interacts with other properties. You’ll not only learn how to avoid common mistakes in interpretation, you also will benefit from the depth and breadth of his experience and his clear and honest style. This is the complete sourcebook on CSS.

The 3rd edition contains:

• Updates to reflect changes in the latest draft version of CSS 2.1
• Browser notes updated to reflect changes between IE6 and IE7
• Advanced selectors supported in IE7 and other major browsers included
• A new round of technical edits by a fresh set of editors
• Clarifications and corrected errata, including updated URLs of referenced online resources

28. Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns

By Michael Bowers

Visit Website: www.cssDesignPatterns.com

Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns is a reference book and a cookbook on how to style web pages using CSS and XHTML. It contains 350 ready–to–use patterns (CSS and XHTML code snippets) you can copy and paste into your code. Each pattern can be combined with other patterns to create an unlimited number of solutions.

Each pattern works reliably in all major browsers without the need for browser hacks.

The book shows how to

• Code CSS and XHTML
• Turn HTML into XHTML
• Use CSS Selectors
• Use six CSS Box Models
• Create rounded corners, shadows, gradients, sprites, and transparency
• Replace text with images without affecting accessibility
• Style text with fonts, highlights, decorations, and shadows
• Create flexible, fluid layouts
• Position elements with absolute pixel precision
• Stack elements in layers
• Size, stretch, shrinkwrap, indent, align, and offset elements
• Style tables with borders and alternating striped rows
• Size table columns automatically
• Integrate CSS and JavaScript without embedding JavaScript in XHTML
• Create drop caps, callouts, quotes, and alerts

The book’s layout, with a pattern’s example on the left page and its explanation on the right, makes it easy to find a pattern and study it without having to flip between pages. The book is also readable from cover to cover, with topics building carefully upon previous topics.

A software developer can use this book to learn CSS for the first time. A designer familiar with CSS can use this book to master CSS and XHTML. If you are completely new to coding or completely new to CSS and XHTML, you may want to read an introductory book on CSS and XHTML first.

Typography Topic

29. The Elements of Typographic Style

By Robert Bringhurst

This lovely, well-written book is concerned foremost with creating beautiful typography and is essential for professionals who regularly work with typographic designs. Author Robert Bringhurst writes about designing with the correct typeface; striving for rhythm, proportion, and harmony; choosing and combining type; designing pages; using section heads, subheads, footnotes, and tables; applying kerning and other type adjustments to improve legibility; and adding special characters, including punctuation and diacritical marks. The Elements of Typographic Style teaches the history of and the artistic and practical perspectives on a variety of type families that are available in Europe and America today.

The last section of the book classifies and displays many type families, offers a glossary of typography terms, and lists type designers and type foundries. The book briefly mentions digital typography, but otherwise ignores it, focusing instead on general typography and page- and type-design issues. Its examples include text in a variety of languages–including English, Russian, German, and Greek–which is particularly helpful if your work has a multinational focus. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

30. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs)

By Ellen Lupton

Visit Website: http://www.papress.com/other/thinkingwithtype/index.htm

“Worthy of adding to your library; it’s essential if you salivate when you look at well-designed and well-chosen type.”

“Design isnt just about how things look, the answer to a design challenge is more about discovering why certain things work. In steering projects toward visual solutions that deliver clear messages, we have to look at the very building blocks of design. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, – Students aims to get at the heart of this issue.” — Brian E. Young (March 2, 2009)

Share Your Thoughts!

What is your favorite design book you have ever read? Share your recommendations as well so I could maybe improve this article so we all could have ideal Christmas wishlist, you can bookmark for later reference. Now when anybody will ask what would you wish, you can just point to this article and slowly create your own library, which will never disappear as virtual resources could!