I posted on twitter recently asking for recommendations. Specifically for non-designers who need some design literacy, but without the goal of becoming a professional designer. Not UI design, not UX, but focusing on aesthetics.

Often pro designers recommend books from their degree program, but that’s not quite what I’m after, as those books tend to assume you’re going to be a practicing visual designer and are willing to endure textbook experiences (which aren’t known for being good reads or for achieving any level of fun). Here’s the list, annotated with my notes (as I’ve read some of them).

These are by far the two best because they are well written and in an accessible way that anyone can pick up and follow, which is not true for many supposed intro design books.

• Non Designer’s Design Book, Robin Williams. (recommended by 4 people) It’s also my current go to recommendation, and was glad to see it’s still popular for this scenario. Covers the fundamentals of making things look good, covering composition, color theory, layout, typography and more. Unlike many visual design books it’s practical and by example.
• Go, by Chip Kidd (recommended by 4). Written for kids, but don’t let that stop you. I’m part way in and that seems to just mean it’s friendly and well written. I wish more books were. It’s FUN, so rare a thing for design books.

These others have strengths and weaknesses, which I explain for the ones I’ve read.

• How To See, George Nelson. A fun and visual to thinking about design that uses a cityscape, streets, cars, buildings, as the way to start thinking about the design of things. But it’s not focused on visual design.
• The Vignelli Cannon, Massimo Vignelli. A collection of one of the most famous graphic designers works. It would help someone new to design to understand what design is, but doesn’t teach specific concepts or how to start to critique designs experienced in everyday life.
• Slideology, Nancy Duarte.  It’s primarily about presentation slide design, but it does thoughtfully introduce many basic visual design concepts).
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Tufte This book is recommended often but for the wrong reasons! It’s a beautiful book, but it’s focused on a narrow kind of design: visualizing data. It’s not easy to learn from for understanding design in general. It’s rare that most people will need to think about representing data visually, which is the focus of this book.
• Thinking With Type, Ellen Lupton. Recommended twice. I’ve read her Design is Storytelling, which is excellent, but not this one. Someone also suggested Graphic Design: The New Basics,.
• Graphic Design Rules, Peter Dawson (new to me).
• Graphic Design as a second language, Bob Gill (new to me).
• Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works, Erik Spiekermann, E.M. Ginger (It’s a friendly a short introduction, but focused on typography).
• Design Basics Index, Jim Krause (new to me).
• The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst. It’s a beautiful book but daunting in it’s depth, not an intro book for most normal people.
• he New Typography, Tschichold. It’s apparently a classic, but this is the first time I’ve heard it mentioned.