The
Non-Designer's Design Book
Review by
Lance-Robert, VP-Finance
Robin Williams
Peachpit Press
144 pages, paperback, approx. $14.95
Originally assigned as an optional textbook for an information design class, The Non-Designer's Design Book has earned its place among my top references. At under $15, it is also my least expensive reference. I have bought multiple copies for myself and other writers I've trained or worked with.
Robin Williams (no relation to the comedian of the same name) originally wrote Macintosh manuals, such as The Little Mac Book, but has since greatly expanded her expertise and audience.
Easy to read from cover to cover, the book uses a light writing style and humor to simply explain four visual design concepts: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.
Contrast means to avoid page elements that are similar to each other. For example, if you have two fonts that are not quite the same, then you should make them very different so that your reader can distinguish one from another and not think the printing press made an error.
Repetition means that your documents have a consistent look and feel throughout.
Alignment means that information is logically and consistently aligned on each page.
Proximity means that related page elements are physically close to each other, such as a figure and its caption, and are separated from unrelated elements. As the author states on page 14, there is a handy acronym for remembering these four design concepts; for decency's, sake I will not state it here.
What my students and I found most useful were the realistic before-and-after examples. Of all the teaching methods, I find learning by example to be one of the easiest to grasp and retain. The author redesigns various page layouts, resumes, business cards, and advertisements, each time showing you and explaining the redesign process in stages. She includes brief quizzes in various sections to test and reaffirm your knowledge. Like my teacher before me, I found it well suited for the training environment.
The author also lists various practical and decorative fonts. She gives practical examples and explanations of fonts that do and do not belong together. This comes in handy if you work for someone who actually lets you use another font besides Times Roman on occasion.
Throughout the book, the author encourages readers to make informed choices. "Don't be a wimp," she says. She encourages you to try out new designs and to not hesitate just because they've never been tried before.
The sequel to this book is Robin Williams Design Workshop, coauthored with John Tollett. I also recommend that book. Although not as easy to read and more expensive, it builds on the concepts described in the first book. It has more detailed information and provides more practical examples from everyday correspondence.
