MY BOOK RECS

Universal Principles of Design

At first, I thought this book was about the elements and principles of graphic design (balance, contrast, unity, etc.). But that’s not the case. This book delves into deeper topics like phenomena, human psychology and influential biases. It even explores the impact of design across multiple fields, including architecture, engineering, digital applications and physical products. This one book taught me so much and I constantly reference it. They also have an amazing four-hour LinkedIn course that analyzes all the chapters with newly added sections. I highly recommend this book for anyone in the creative field.

Good Services

This book is a must-read for any leader who has to make critical business decisions. A Good Service, according to Lou Downe’s definition, can be tough to provide. But he shows how anyone can do it with 15 simple principles. The intriguing focus of the book is why we should care more about the people on the other end of the screen rather than what’s ON the screen.

Tragic Design

This is a fun one. In this book, you travel back in time and learn examples of bad designs. However, you quickly realize that bad design is more than just bad typography or poor contrast. In fact, bad design can exclude, anger, depress and even kill people (no joke). This book will give you a sense of what not to do and a better understanding of how design affects people in the grand scheme of things, whether it’s intentional or not.

The Win Without Pitching Manifesto

This bite-sized read is for my busy freelance designers who work with clients day in and out. This book cuts to the chase. If you’re like me, you’ll feel much more valuable and appreciated after you’ve read it. If you’re tired of clients low-balling you, micromanaging you and constantly making changes, then this book is just what you need. It will make you a more effective freelance designer while teaching you negotiation tactics and leadership skills for greater self-confidence.

The Brand Gap

If you’re an early-career designer who loves branding and logo design, I highly recommend this small book. Using five simple principles, it discusses what branding is and how to effectively apply brand strategy and brand execution. It’s full of deep practical insights and highly engaging visuals.

The Design of Everyday Things

If you’re a product designer, you’ve probably read this book or, at the very least, heard of the author. Don Norman is considered the father of UX design. He was solving problems via “UX Design” before that was even considered a thing. This book provocatively proposes that product faults lie within the design and not the users. The simplest products like doors, stoves or even bath faucets that are poorly designed can cause the greatest frustration. By combining psychology with design, Norman gives insights on how to design with ever-changing technologies. I’ve read this book three times.

Emotional Design

Another great book by Don Norman. This book takes product design to a deeper level. A product must do more than meet the user’s needs. It must attend to the visceral, behavioral and reflective parts of our emotions. Good products need to look good, give pleasure and tell stories.

Research for Designers

Prewarning: this book is incredibly dense. However, if you’re looking for empirical advice on how to properly write research problems, form problem statements, write hypotheses, collect and synthesize data and produce full-scale research reports and documentation, this is the book for you. This is often the type of research format that is used to challenge existing theories or form new ones.

User Friendly

Written in a story-driven format, this book unfolds the history of product design and the products themselves within each chapter. Its pages are rich with rare stories and exclusive interviews. It’s a must-read for anyone who cares about design and the challenges it has to meet in the coming years.

The New Art of Ideas

Anyone who wants to create the next big thing would greatly benefit from this short book. It leverages three principles: The Goal, The Gap, and The Gain, to help you create ideas that people can’t turn down. This book is for those who want to become an innovative product designer or business leader.

Don't Make Me Think

This is such a great book for those who do any type of interface design (bonus points for the humor). The author gives digestible tips to increase the usability, functionality and interactivity of your website. There’s no doubt that web and mobile applications should be intuitive, but how to achieve that can be more difficult than you might expect.

The Strategic Designer

When I read this book, I was completely blown away with the number of references and sources. This book explains how to become a more effective designer by sharpening your strategy skills, thinking through problems rationally and building strong client relationships. The process to make this happen involves collaboration, context and accountability.

Just Design

This was one of those good finds that I came across in a dusty thrift store. It showcases inspiring examples of real-life projects when designers used their knowledge and resources to produce work that created positive change.

The Design of Dissent

Prewarning: this book contains graphic posters. This is another book that showcases a collection of illustrations that resulted from protest and activism. It focuses on the rise of authoritarian leaders, nationalism, corporate greed and more. Many posters in this book greatly impacted the social and cultural climate of their day and still offer valuable lessons for modern designers.

Universal Methods of Design

Here’s another great book for product designers. In the digital era, we often think solving problems is simply a matter of conducting basic qualitative or quantitative research to make design decisions. But this book opens your mind to 125 different ways to conduct valuable research. Additionally, it gives you pointers on each method and indicates which methods are best suited for different strategies.