Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler’s Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works is the most comprehensive book on the design/redesign process. With the second edition, the authors bring the book up-to-date with the integration of web standards and CSS into the workflow.

Workflow That Works refers to the Core Process developed by Goto and Cotlers. The Core Process – consists of five phrases: Define the Project, Develop Site Structure, Design Visual Interface, Build and Intergrate, and Launch and Beyond – has been successfully applied to real world projects. After reading the well-documented phrases along with useful tips, checklists, forms, and worksheets, I can see why the workflow works. Each phrase is carefully designed to help keeping up the paste. As many web designers know, keeping the process flowing is not an easy task, especially with contents. I know the feeling of waiting around for the contents to come.

Beside the Core Process, I find the chapter on “Testing for Usability” is an important addition to the workflow. The authors have done a great job of clearing up the concept of usability, as they point out, “Many companies think they are already conducting usability tests, but in actuality they are running focus groups or online surveys.” After the brief explaination, they provide readers step-by-step process on conducting a small-study usability session.

“Working with Complex Functionality” is an invalable chapter for anyone who deals with e-commerce, dynamic contents, or any heavy technical related issues. The author not only teaches the assessing, creating, and inplementing of the complex functionalities, but also show how to bridge the gap between designers and engineers.

While Goto and Cotlers contribute their expertise on the workflow of web design, other expert contributors provide their advices on various topics, for instance: Jeffrey Zeldman on web standards, Eric Meyer on CSS, Jakob Nielsen on usability, and many more… On top of the expert topics, the real world examples, provided with screenshots and clear explanation, help readers visualize the before and after redesign look and feel.

Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works is clearly not a technical manual but a process guideline. While the authors aim at both high and low budgets web sites, I highly recommend it more toward the high budget ones. It will garantee to save you tremendous amount of effort and money in the long run. While this book might be helpful to web designer and developer, it is definitely beneficial to web manager and director. It will help them keep the project on track while managing the designers and developers through the process. Though the title is for redesign’s workflow, the Core Process can be apply straight to any newly design website as well.

New to web design? Want to learn HTML fast? Need to get your Flash skills up to speed? I have found three great books for you. Putting together a web page is not hard but creating an attractive, accessible, and easy to use site is not as simple as one might think. So starting off designing web page the correct way will benefit you in the long run.

Before delving into the coding and technical details, let’s begin with exploration. The best way to learn is to evaluate other websites. Exploring Web Design (Design Exploration) by Jeremy West, William Crowson, and Shannon Pochran will help you learn from good examples and avoid bad ones. The book does an excellent job of introducing the fundamental principles of web design, such as visual layouts, typography, color theory, and usability. Make sure to take the time and read “Web Accessibility” carefully. It’s one of the behind-the-scenes details that separate your site from those amateurs.

Once you understand the fundamental concepts, let Elizabeth Castro, author of the #1 best-selling book on HTML, help you with the coding. Creating a Web Page With HTML, Visual QuickProject Guide is extremely short and to the point. It’s by far the most compact book on HTML I have come across. Castro delves straight into HTML and CSS with her clear language and easy to follow instructions and illustrations. Follow the tutorials and learn the codes but do no pick up the visual layout. I wish the web page designs were stronger than what is being presented in the book.

You have studied the fundamental web design and learned the coding. That should be enough, but if you want to spice up your web page with animation and interactivity, Flash Out of the Box is your next book. Flash in not easy to learn for beginners, but this book is clear, straight forward, and easy to understand. You’ll be able to learn the basic animation techniques and pick up some ActionScript programming quickly and easily. Flash is a powerful tool, but use it with caution. Don’t abuse it with useless animation. Refer back to Exploring Web Design for appropriate use of Flash.

As you can see, I have grouped these three books together because they are for beginners in web design. From understanding the fundamental principles of web design to quickly learning HTML and CSS to incorporating Flash contents into the design, these three books complement each other even though they are written by various authors and distributed from different publishers. Though three books are recommended, you don’t have to get them all if you only need to work on a specific area.

Damian Allen’s Motion: Revolutionary Motion Graphics is the first book I read from Apple Pro Training Series and I am impressed with the clear, straightforward, and easy to follow instructional approach to learning the software. I am the type that gets impatient easily when it comes to reading and doing exercises at the same time, especially when I get lost. Fortunately, Allen knows how to craft short and concise lessons to retain readers’ attention. He understands that if an exercise is built upon the previous one, readers will get frustrated if they get lost in between. To avoid this problem, he provides projects along the way so that readers can pick up and move forward. It’s a clever teaching technique that keeps readers in tune. Many hands-on training books lose my interest by the time I get to chapter 3 if I get confused and reluctant to advance.

Apple Motion software is an amazing tool for creating motion graphic, but I wouldn’t know its power without the guidance from Allen. The Grand Tour manual that comes with the software does not help much. With Allen’s Motion, I get to understand the way Apple Motion works as Allen carefully walks through the essential features, including Generators, Layers, Objects, Particles, Behaviors, Keying, and Keyframes.

While Adobe After Effects and Macromedia Flash rely heavily on their Timelines for animation, Apple Motion comes with a Timeline, but not necessarily as its main feature. As a Flash veteran, I could not imagine creating motion graphics without a Timeline (except for ActionScript programming), but Allen proves me wrong. Throughout the lessons, I rarely pick up the Timeline and still am able to create animated effects with the “Mini-Timeline,” Behaviors, and Particles. Not having to invest tremendous amount of time to get comfortable with the Timeline is an advantage for beginners. They can jump right in to create dazzling motion design.

Although Motion is 500 plus pages, it takes me about ten hours to complete fourteen chapters. Each lesson is clearly explained with step-by-step instructions along with full color screenshots to complement the exercise. The hands-on trainings progress seamlessly from introducing the fundamental concepts to using templates to producing title sequence and a DVD motion menu. Allen’s sense of humor helps keep the reader moving through the lessons quickly and painlessly. After completing this book, I am ready to leave Flash to pick up Motion for producing web motion graphics and then go back to Flash for interactivities.

The strength of Apple Motion is its ease of use and its professional result. Experimenting is a great way to learn, but understanding the way Apple Motion behaves will save you an enormous amount of time, and that is where Allen’s Motion comes in to play. Read the book, comprehend the basic concepts, and go wild. As for Apple Pro Training Series, I am looking forward to other titles for the well-thought out exercises to learn Apple’s products.

I read Song Vinh’s journal every day. Once in a while, he reveals a poem or two; therefore, I’ve already gotten a glimpse of his work. When he announced the release of Huong Mua, I was excited and could not wait to get my hands on his book of poems.

Huong Mua is a gift from Song Vinh to many of us, expatriate Vietnamese, whose bodies are living in other lands but whose hearts and souls will never leave our homeland. In “Thang Tu, XXIX,” he shares, “Toi thanh goc My coi long Viet Nam.” Even when he becomes an American citizen, his roots are still in Viet Nam. He uses the words “luu vong (in exile)” and “tha huong (release from homeland)” repeatedly throughout his poems to describe our lost state of mind. His words speak eloquently the reality of our lives in other countries. In “Than Phan,” he expresses, “Gom thay cai canh tha huong / hai muon nam van khong thuong que nguoi.” Twenty years later, he still cannot fall in love with another ground. I am sure many of us feel the same way.

Beside the love for our homeland, Song Vinh is also a kind-hearted man who appreciates everything around him. In “Dem o B645/E207,” he describes his bitterness, witnessing an elderly Vietnamese man who takes out the trash from his office, even though there is nothing wrong with being a janitor. He reminds us in “Thi Tham Voi Nhau” to dream of simple life instead of desiring the whole heaven. He goes into his personal life in “Thinh Thoang” as an orphan child who misses his mother.

From reading his work, I truly respect Song Vinh for his use of language. His rhyme schemes are minimal yet he is able to paint images that are both aesthetically beautiful and easy to visualize. I like his use of personification in “Chuyen Mua” as he describes, “Xe lan nhip moi qua cau / Cham cay den do cho lau cung danh.” He gives the car human characteristics as she rolls tiredly over the bridge, hits the “tree” (a red light) so she must stop. Many of his wordplays are artfully constructed. In “Thang Tu 2” he forms a line of eight words consisting of Trinh Cong Son’s song titles such as “uoc mi bien nho mot loi chia tay.” The technique is both innovative and clever.

Christmas is around the corner and what could be better than a gift filled with beautiful poetry in your native language? Huong Mua is unquestionably a perfect present for any overseas Vietnamese. For those, including me, who would like to learn and broaden our native language, this book is highly recommended. His words are simple yet they are filled with emotion and liveliness.

My English tutor uses Picturing Texts by Lester Faigley, Diana George, Anna Palchik, and Cynthia Selfe to develop my writing. I must confess, this is the first textbook that I read from cover to cover, and many revisits are necessary. Design has always been my passion, and I am working on my writing; therefore, this book matches my interests.

Picturing Texts breaks down into seven detailed chapters, from exploring (“Picturing Texts”) to analyzing (“Looking Closer”) to evaluating (“Making Lives Visible,” “Representing Others,” and “Constructing Realities”) to recognizing (“Picturing Argument”) and to constructing (“Designing Texts”) the visual texts. The authors have done an exceptional job of explaining each topic with visual examples along the way to make their points clear. The strength of Picturing Texts is the insightful essays written by professional writers and designers. My favorite pieces include: the disturbing family home video of “What’s Wrong With This Picture” by Michelle Citron, the psychological driving behind advertisements “Shock’s Next Wave” by Bruce Grierson, the interesting theory of “Squaring the Circle” by Jessica Helfard, the creative process using comic and words of “Through the Door: Digital Production” by Scott McCloud, and the misrepresentation of “In Brochures, What You See Isn’t Necessarily What You Get” by Jennifer Jacobson.

Of course, you can’t get away with writing and designing assignments from a textbook; however, these exercises are well developed to help you expand your writing and juice up your creativities instead of stressing you out like a Biology textbook does. Furthermore, the book features work from the provocative concept designer Tibor Kalman, the brilliant typographer Paula Scher (check out her brief documentary video from Adobe Studio), and many other well-known artists to get you inspired.

The Web is a perfect medium for bringing words and images together. While Picturing Texts makes many references to the Internet, it does not delve into hypertexts and online writing. Other than the lack coverage for Web writing, Picturing Texts is an essential textbook that appeals to both writers and designers. Thanks to my English tutor for sharing the book. Now I hope to pass it on to you.

True! Design is everywhere you look but if you don’t understand what you are staring at then design is useless. Fortunately, Steven Aimone’s Design! will open up your mind and guide you to see the purpose of design. What are descriptive, narrative, emotive, utilitarian, and decorative of designs? What are the elements of design (lines, shapes, textures, colors, etc.)? Why are a certain elements arranged they way they are? Why is design space important? If you’re unclear about the answers to these questions, this book will help you straightened out.

As someone who gets involved with web design as a passion, I had no prior training on design. While my classes at La Salle were too busy shoving down Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and other software programs, the fundamentals of design were not part of the curriculum. One of our art professors realized the important of the missing part and tried to cover it but the class was not as successful as it should be. The hands on assignments she gave us (the black squares exercises) were definitely on the right track but most of my classmates thought they were kindergarten because the theories were missing. If she had this book to accommodate her assignments, the class would have been a huge success; therefore, Design! should be a required textbook for any Art 101 or Introduction to Visual Design classes at colleges and universities.

Design! is not only an invaluable design inspiration but an enjoyable reading as well because of its easy to read approach and clear visual examples. I recommend this book enthusiastically to anyone who designs for a living or pleasure and to anyone who simply enjoys and appreciates the aesthetic qualities from the work of art.

One of the benefits of working at Vassar is being around two of the most talented senior graphic designers (George Laws and Charles Mosco) who are expert in typography. Whenever they produced a poster, I often studied it carefully to figure out how they handled their types. Most of the time, I find their type treatments to be elegant and well communicated. Inspired by their works, I constantly seek for type books to sharpen my skills. In most cases, there are books that focused mainly on theories while others gave examples without detail explanations. Fortunately, Timothy Samara’s Typography Workbook bridges the gap.

The book divided into two main parts. The fundamental section covers technical aspects such as letterform, spacing, variation, color, and expression, and so on to help you understand the basic principles of typography. This section is crucially important; therefore, many revisits may be necessary. Once you comprehend the theories, the second section puts your knowledge to work. Whether you design a book, website, poster, identity, motion graphic or other media, this book provides tons of real-world examples with clear explanations to fuel your imagination.

I am so glad the book dedicated a section to web design. Even though the web is limited in typography due to the dependable on the users part, you still can design elegant and beautiful sites with appropriate execution of type treatments, especially with the power of CSS. Just incase you’re wondering, this book is strictly on the design of types; therefore, it does not cover any CSS. However, one of the inspiring features on this book is the interview with respected designers in different fields to give you a sense of how they approach their projects.

Typography Workbook indisputably is an invaluable resource and an inspirational supply for designers. The best part about type design is that you can communicate effectively without images. In real-life, images are not always available; therefore, type design skills come extremely in handy. Pick up this book and start investing your time on typography. It will definitely paid off down the road.

During my sophomore year in college, I had an internship opportunity with Trump Marina assisting an in-house graphic designer with various ads. At that time, my Photoshop skills were limited and I did not know how to create those simple yet useful effects to make my graphic design more appealing. As a result, both my internship and my desire to be a graphic designer ended that summer. If I had read Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Classic Effects back then, I wouldn’t have disliked graphic design so much; however, I am still glad that I have focused my energy on the web.

Before delving into each project in the book, I glance at the final piece and use my own methods to see if I can come up with the same result. Of course, there are many different ways to come up with the same effects in Photoshop; however, I find Kelby’s techniques to be more concise, simplier, and faster. Time is money so if I can come up with the same effects in lesser amount of time, why not following his methods?

Kelby has done a great job of keeping his instructions clear, easy, intuitive, and with a sense of humor. Furthermore, he has selected effects that I had always wanted to know when I first stepping into the graphic design era. Although I work mainly on the web and have been using Photoshop for years, I still find Photoshop Classic Effects to be an invaluable resource for quick and simple tasks.

Now that I am looking at my bookshelf, I am surprised that there is no book on Photoshop. Well, Classic Effects will be the first one. So if you’re looking into becoming a graphic designer whether creating magazines, brochures, banners or even web graphics, pick up this book – especially students – to save you the miseries I went through when I first started out. Kelby has written a classic Photoshop book with this one.

One of the greatest strengths behind Dan Cederholm’s Web Standards Solutions is accessibility. This is not only a markup and style handbook but an accessibility guide as well. Dan does an incredible job of keeping accessibility in mind throughout the book. It is an extremely important matter that other technical writers usually missed unless they are writing about accessibility.

Web Standards Solutions divided into 16 short and sweet chapters covering the core elements of web standards style and markup such as: list, table, forms, CSS layouts, image replacement, and many more. The simple, clear and concise instructional style makes this book to be an invaluable reference for web designers and developers.

What I like best about this book is Dan’s minimal approach to markup and style. In fact, “Minimizing Markup” is my favorite chapter. Clear and simple markup keeps file size small, makes codes easier to read, and most importantly, optimizes well for search engines.

To keep this review short and sweet just like the book, I highly recommend this book to web designers, programmers, developers, content managers and anyone who have the passion for creating slender, accessible and compatible websites. Web Standards Solutions is an excellent handbook to keep by your side when delving into XHTML and CSS. You will be amazed by how many times you’ll flip through the book searching for the best solutions and answers.

Do you have what it takes to bring design in-house? Let the folks at OrangeSeed Design help you make the decision. Bringing Graphic Design In-House not only guides you through the process of creating your own logo, letterhead, business card, brochure, newsletter and website, it also assists you to determine whether to outsource or go for it. If you decided to hire a design firm, the book also provides tips to select the right agency to fit your needs and budget.

The first section of the book breaks down the pros and cons of bringing design in-house including managing the projects, buying appropriate software programs, working with design agencies, and so on. Even though this section is short, it contains valuable resources to help you evaluate whether is it feasible or not to handle in-house.

Once you have decided to go in-house, Section 2 will walk you through the fundamentals of design such as: layout, color, typography, and much more to help you achieve your goal. Pay close attention to the Project Management piece, it is also an important part of design basics.

After you have grabbed the basic concepts, Section 3 provides case studies to show you how the basic concepts in Section 2 applied into the real world projects. Section 3 fills with in-house design examples with brief explanations to feed your hungry mind.

Now that you have understood the basic concepts and seen real world case studies, let’s move into Section 4 where you will find creative solutions to your projects. The book discusses 10 useful “Design Systems” to help you make the connection across the board from print to online materials. The book then devoted each segment delving into the studies of logos, stationary, brochures, newsletters, and websites to help you visualize the creative process behind each design.

OrangeSeed Designs has done an exceptional job of explaining basic graphic design for non-designers and beginners. Although the book covers web design as well, it only focuses the visual elements and web design is much more involved than just the appearence. If you are thinking of bringing graphic design in-house, this book is definitely your best friend; however, if you are also thinking of bringing web design in-house to save money, you need to pick up Carrie Bickner’s Web Design on a Shoestring as well. In fact, I highly recommend both of these precious books to in-house designers and beginners. They will make your job more pleasant and successful.