Non-Designer’s Book of Design
by Robin Williams
While reading these first five chapters a few points were held with repetition (He, He). And to me these came across as the most important. The first major point to take away from these first chapters is to open up one’s own eyes. Learning to see what works and what doesn’t is more important than the specific pieces of advice. Honestly most the learning came through examples that were very self-evident in observation. These ideas are not something to be overly studied but simply noticed. Look at the cards and see that spreading information arbitrarily doesn’t actually look good, that centering font has a dullness to it. The number one lesson here is to “try” to notice these details of Proximity, Alignment, Repetition and Contrast. Beyond learning to look; practice became another repeated concept. Look around notice what works and what doesn’t and try to change it, at least in your head, to follow the design principles within the first chapters.
When it comes to confusion and disagreement a professional designer has a very good defense. The examples given, along with their explanations, were very clear and though wordy at times clearly started the changes and illustrated the principles that the author intended. The only thing I can truly speak against is the author has clear experience and thus is undermined when saying that it’s easy for a newbie to take risks and not be timid. This learning process clearly involves much trial and error to get a solid and fluid grasp on. I feel to fully grasp the practice and not just the theory would take more hands on experience than Williams spoke of.
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