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Over the past couple of years I have read a lot about web design, graphic design, and information design. Naturally, I have read some of the better known, and oft recommended texts in these areas, and below is a summary of the most influential.
The web is a new medium of communication unlike anything seen before, and is evolving rapidly. With that comes special challenges in designing web pages and sites that are usable across the gamut of display devices and connections speeds.
Good web design ensures your site is useable and useful to the Internet community. These guidelines have been summarised no better, than by Jakob Nielsen.
Books by Jakob Nielsen
Designing Web Usability – The Practice of Simplicity
Jakob Nielsen is known to the computing word as the master of usability. He has produced numerous books that have redefined how web pages should be designed to enhance the user's experience.
In his book Designing Web Usability, he goes beyond simple page layout and design, and provides guidelines on how to best layout pages, content, and sites, plus hundreds of tips that just about every site on the web would benefit from.
Information design is the practice of gathering, filtering, and presenting information in accordance with effective design principles in order to understand – and communicate to others – the essence and meaning of that information.
Books by Edward Tufte
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Envisioning Information
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
Described as "The Leonardo da Vinci of data" by the New York Times, Edward Tufte has written three superb books on information design, These books opened my eyes to the theory and design practices of high quality information graphics.
While I have found each book enlightening, Envisioning Information has been the most influential. It concentrates on data design, showing maps, charts, presentations, diagrams, computer interfaces, data tables, stereo photographs, guidebooks, timetables, use of color, and more. Each example covers design theory that is easily applied to web design.
It is interesting to note that Edward Tufte uses the font Gill Sans throughout his web site, books, and posters, just as I have on this site. For more information on the fonts used in this site, take a look at the implementation section.
Because of the minimalist nature of this site, it is no suprise that the typography plays the most important part from a design point of view. The typographic style of the 1930s seems to be a style that resonates with me, and consequently, it is the style that has influenced the design of this site.
Books by Jan Tschichold
The New Typography
Jan Tschichold's revolutionaly book The New Typography – A Handbook for Modern Designers, published in 1928, has been recognized as the definitive treatise on book and graphic design in the machine age.
The New Typography is best summarised as "the essence of the New Typography is clarity", and "The New Typography is distinguished from the old by the fact that its first objective is to develop its visible form out of the functions of the text."
The bottom line is that you let the text, and the relationships between the information the text represents, determin the position and design of the text. Important data are rendered in large sizes, and/or noticible colours, and/or generally placed where they are the most noticible. Less important data are rendered in smaller sizes, more subdued colours, and places in less prominant positions.
The favourite artists section of this web site provides some details and example work from my favourite artists. One artist in particular, Piet Mondrian, stands out above the rest for me because of his staunch geometric style.
Mondrian's work during the 1930s and 1940s saw the development of the paintings for which he is most famous. His bold and geometric compositions were all about rhythm, contrast and balance. Mondrian's style exemplifies neoplasticism…