Reddit reviews Envisioning Information

This is just a sampling of my Amazon list, but:

• Envisioning Information
  
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
  
• Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps
  
• Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics
  
• Thinking with Type
  
• Graphic Design, Referenced: A Visual Guide to the Language, Applications, and History of Graphic Design
  
• Naive: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design
  
  Every so often I try and pick up a couple books, even just for reference sake. Sometimes its a photo book, sometimes its a reference guide, doesn't really matter so long as you can see some principles within applying to your craft.

Here's a little list of best-sellers on Amazon and a few from this thread:

• Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals
  
• Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
  
• The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition
  
• How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination
  
• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
  
• The Non-Designer's Design Book (3rd Edition)
  
• Universal Principles of Design, Revised and Updated: 125 Ways to Enhance Usability, Influence Perception, Increase Appeal, Make Better Design Decisions, and Teach through Design
  
• Envisioning Information
  
• Interaction of Color: 50th Anniversary Edition
  
• Art Fundamentals: Theory and Practice
  
• Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills
  
• Design Basics (with CourseMate Printed Access Card)
  
• Graphic Design: The New Basics
  
• Style & Simplicity: An A to Z Guide to Living a More Beautiful Life
  
• The Color Scheme Bible: Inspirational Palettes for Designing Home Interiors
  
• The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
  
• Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming
  
• The Art of Looking Sideways
  

An artist. :P

No but seriously, here are some things I'd love to be gifted as an indie game dev (if I didn't have them already):

• Rules of Play. It's maybe getting a little harder to find at a reasonable price, but is a wonderful resource. Some people pan it as a beginner textbook, but as a 10-year game dev veteran I still go back to it occasionally and it reminds me about fundamentals I've let slip over the years. Worth every penny.
  
• Envisioning Information. Not directly game dev related, but it's a definitive resource for the kinds of visual design problems we have to solve every day (and that so, so many game devs simply don't know anything about, sadly).
  
• The Design of Everyday Things. You can probably get this in paperback for super cheap. It's old, and it's about industrial design, but more importantly it's usability. The core principles in this book should be the backbone of any game designer's education.
  
• Got an excellent card/board game shop in the area? Gift certificate the fuck out of the bitch. (Video game devs loooove tabletop games. Yes, we're even bigger nerds than you thought.)

An Essential Reading List For Designers

Source: www.tomfaulkner.co.uk

All books have been linked to Amazon for review and possible purchase. Remember to support the authors by purchasing their books. If there are any issues with this listing let me know via comments or pm.

Architecture

• The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture by Phaidon
  
• The Architecture of the City by Aldo Rossi
  
• Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown & Steven Izenour
  
• Modern Architecture since 1900 by William J R Curtis
  
• Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by Phaidon
  
  Communication Design
  
  
• Essentials of Visual Communication by Bo Bergström
  
• Visual Language for Designers by Connie Malamed
  
• Visual Communication: From Theory to Practice by Jonathan Baldwin & Lucienne Roberts
  
• This Means This, That Means That: A User's Guide to Semiotics by Sean Hall
  
• Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture by Marita Struken & Lisa Cartwright
  
  Fashion Design
  
  
• Fashion Design Course by Steven Faerm
  
• Fashion Today by Colin McDowell
  
• The Fashion Designer Survival Guide by Mary Gehlhar
  
• Deluxe: How Luxury Lost it Lustre by Dana Thomas
  
• The Fashion Book by Angela Buttolph Editors of Phaidon ?
  
  Furniture Design
  
  
• Furniture Design by Stuart Lawson
  
• Eames by Gloria Koenig
  
• Design of the 20th Century by Charlotte & Peter Fiell
  
• 1000 Chairs by Charlotte & Peter Fiell
  
• The Encyclopedia of Furniture by Joseph Aronson
  
  Game Design
  
  
• The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses by Jess Schell
  
• Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster
  
• [Challenges for Game Designers](Challenges for Game Designers) by Brenda Brathwaite
  
• Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers
  
• Screenplay: The Foundation of Screenwriting by Syd Field
  
  Graphic Design
  
  
• Grid System in Graphic Design by Josef-Muller Brockmann
  
• The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher
  
• A Type Primer by John Kane
  
• The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
  
• The New Typography by Jan Tschichold
  
  Information Design
  
  
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte
  
• Show Me The Numbers:Desiginingg Tables and Graphs to Enlighten by Stephen Few
  
• Envisioning Information by Edward Tufte
  
• Information is Beautiful by David McCandless
  
• Information Graphic by Sandra Rendgen
  
  
  Industrial Design
  
  
• The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
  
• The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
  
• Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Rob Thompson
  
• Process: 50 Product Design from Concept to Manufacture by Jennifer Hudson
  
• Universal Principles of Design by William Lidwell
  
  (cont'd)
  
  

I highly recommend Edward Tufte's book Envisioning Information. It's a bit older but still incredible prescient in formulating how to lay out graphical elements such as graphs and maps. A truly gorgeous book.

Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte is great. It is more about visualization than mathematichs though.

Uncategorized:

Thoughts On Design: Paul Rand


Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design

How to Be a Graphic Designer without Losing Your Soul

100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design

Paul Rand

Paul Rand: Conversations with Students

Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design

Bauhaus

The Vignelli Canon

Vignelli From A to Z

Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible

It's Not How Good You Are, Its How Good You Want to Be: The World's Best Selling Book

Damn Good Advice (For People with Talent!)

Josef Muller-Brockmann: Pioneer of Swiss Graphic Design

Popular Lies About Graphic Design

100 Ideas that Changed Art

100 Diagrams That Changed the World

Basics Design 08: Design Thinking

Swiss Graphic Design: The Origins and Growth of an International Style, 1920-1965

Lella and Massimo Vignelli (Design is One)

The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice

History of the Poster

How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer

The Design of Dissent: Socially and Politically Driven Graphics

George Lois: On His Creation of the Big Idea

Milton Glaser: Graphic Design

Sagmeister: Made You Look

Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss?

Things I have learned in my life so far

Covering the '60s: George Lois, the Esquire Era

Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

[Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration]
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0812993012/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=VEJ64Y4T0U6J&coliid=I1WMMNNLTRBQ9G)

Graphic Design Thinking (Design Briefs)

I Used to Be a Design Student: 50 Graphic Designers Then and Now

The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design

Creative Workshop: 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills

Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference

Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Envisioning Information

The elements of dynamic symmetry

The elements of content strategy

Corporate Diversity: Swiss graphic design and advertising

Book Design: a comprehensive guide

Meggs' History of Graphic Design

Fair enough. You can improve your design sensibilities and make your outsourcing more effective, without doing any hands on design work, if your wrists can't take it. If you're interested in improving your design sense, getting copies of these books would be a good investment:

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward R. Tufte
  
• Envisioning Information - Edward R. Tufte
  
  Then just look at stuff - everything you see around you in the human built environment is an example of design - de-construct the designs you see in your head - is that good design? Why? Why not? Look at other people's websites - are they well designed? Why? Why not? Print, posters, ad's, flyers, books, signage, buildings, cars - everything. Learn to look at everything you see with a critical design eye. After a while, it will start to become natural and you'll just 'know' if something is a 'good design' - because this kind of mental practice will have turned it into a subconscious skill.

+1 for the first person to realize it's not about drinking. :)

If you're serious about infographics there's loads of good resources available. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd edition is a very good read - rock solid theory and an essential for every designer. Once you've read that check out the follow up Envisioning Information for some excellent inspiration.

Information Architecture 2 is a good inspirational book. It's about the old way of paying attention to the content and presenting it in a digestible way. There's no magic technology in this I'm afraid.

I haven't read this but it might be interesting: Information Architecture - Saul Wurman

Edward Tufte is good and more academic.

Envisioning Information by Tufte

Design is really an emotional process. A lot of what makes good design good is because it feels right, without logic. Sometimes it's instant, sometimes it takes ages. I would recommend collaborating with a designer and work through design problems together. If you can't do that, then you gotta start with the basics.

Imitate what you like. Most things you interact with in the form of media, such as websites, books, films, all have a designed element to them. Someone, at some point, though of everything that you're seeing with such excruciating detail that most of the time (just like good special effects/compositing in film) it's invisible.

Some excellent books:
The Elements of Typographic Style by Bringhurst
Envisioning Information by Tufte
Made You Look by Sagmeister
Grid Systems by Josef Muller-Brockmann (might hard to find for cheap unless it's used)


From those, branch out and find sources that YOU like, and keep adding to your library. And copy it mercilessly until you hone your craft. Be inspired! Good luck.