By : saikiran - Designholik

This is a good book for anyone who's just starting out in web design, especially those with a creative slant than a technical one. It is all about principles of design, layout ideas, color theory, textures, typography.

Information Architecture

Importance of information architecture (IA) is explained, like how to take the requirements before starting the design process and how to start the design process. Unfortunately most of the clients do not provide enough information for design process.

Grid system

Very well explained about the importance of grid system. I found some interesting things like “The Rule of Thirds”, “960 Grid System” , “Symmetrical Balance” , “Placement” , “Continuance” ,“Isolation“,“Contrast”. Fixed versus Fluid layouts helps the beginners to understand about the browsers, screen resolutions etc…

Color

Color tools and resources introduced like Color Scheme Designer 3, Adobe Kuler, COLOURlovers, Color Stream iPhone App, Pictaculous makes the designer’s work easy to create color palettes for their awesome designs. I liked “the psychology of color “ and how it affects the perception that your site will convey to the visitor. Meanings of colours and examples are great.

Typography

Web Font Services, Text Image Replacement, sIFR and Cufón, Text Spacing, Text Alignment, Typeface Distinctions, Serif Fonts, Sans-serif Fonts are worth reading. Anatomy of a Letterform is fantastic. Several links for free font galleries and commercial font galleries are shared.

Overall this book is worth reading for beginners to understand the principles of beautiful web design. You can find this book here

WISHING YOU ALL HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2011

Also wishing designers an IE free New Year ;)