Great Books

Learn design theory and practical know-how from the award-winning author/design team, Robin Williams and John Tollett! Robin Williams introduced design and typographic principles to legions of readers with her best-selling Non-Designer's book series. Now she and designer/co-author John Tollett take you to the next level of creative design with practical advice and lessons in composition, visual impact, and design challenges. Presented in Robin and John's signature style—writing that is so crystal clear, it's accessible to absolutely anyone—and illustrated with hundreds of full-color design examples, the ideas in this book tackle design theory, visual puns, and layout and graphics strategies for real-world projects. Developing designers will appreciate the authors' imaginative approach and well-chosen examples. Discover practical and effective design principles and concepts—and how to apply them to virtually any project. Learn why some designs are attention-getting and others are not. Learn how to choose just the right look—corporate or casual, classic or trendy—for specific types of projects, such as business cards, letterhead and envelopes, newsletters and brochures, logos, advertising, and more. Test your design acumen by comparing before-and-after examples. Find a wealth of inspiration for your own design projects. Gain insight into the design process by studying the work of guest designers, who offer their personal commentary and insights.

If you just stumbled into design, maybe via a hobby that grew into a career, and you want to improve your work without having to enroll in a degree program, this book can bridge some of the gaps in your acumen. Not really a primer on basic facts, Design Workshop is more like a guide to style. The first chapter quizzes readers on mostly technical, basic details of design (like dpi), all of which can be found in Williams's previous publications (for example, The Non-Designer's Design Book). Readers will be dismayed, possibly annoyed, that the quiz answers are not provided. Even if not knowing the answers means that you need remedial help, it feels like a bit of a tease. The next chapters show how to use stock images, or your own images, to increase the visual impact of your piece (basically through an increase in contrast). The best part of this section, and the book as a whole, is the "before-and-after" approach in the examples; they're like a series of makeovers. The captions effectively describe what was changed in the image, and how it improved the design. The book applies a similar set of makeovers to various types of design projects: logos, forms, newsletters, tables of contents, etc. In the final section, seven designers, including coauthor Tollett, break down the process that they went through on a job of their own. Self-taught graphic designers probably would make the best audience for this book, but designers who are of their own "school of thought" might find fault with some of the tenets that are put forth. Graphic design by nature is a subjective enterprise--at the mercy of "styles." What you get in this book is more of a "desktop-publisher style" (many of the drawings are clip art, for example). There's a lack of sophistication in the design of the book, as well as in the illustrations of posters, letterheads, advertisements, and other applications that are used as examples. On the other hand, this same open, naive look gives the book an inviting appeal, and makes it perhaps a bit less daunting than style guides, such as Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style, that are intended for die-hard professionals. --Angelynn Grant Topics covered: Style advice for design projects, including: Logos Business cards and letterhead Invoices and forms Advertising Billboards Web sites Tables of contents and indices Newsletters and brochures Flyers

Andy Dougan's biography provides a detailed look at of Robin Williams's life and career from his poor-little-rich-kid childhood to his successes in such films as The Fisher King, Awakenings, and Mrs. Doubtfire. Dougan interviewed Williams five times and spoke with the actor's schoolmates, teachers, colleagues, and costars.

A lot has happened in the world of digital design since the first edition of this title was published, but one thing remains true: There is an ever-growing number of people attempting to design pages with no formal training. This book is the one place they can turn to find quick, non-intimidating, excellent design help from trusted design instructor Robin Williams. This revised classic--now in full color--includes a new section on the hot topic of Color itself. In The Non-Designer's Design Book, 3rd Edition, Robin turns her attention to the basic principles that govern good design. Readers who follow her clearly explained concepts will produce more sophisticated and professional pages immediately. Humor-infused, jargon-free prose interspersed with design exercises, quizzes, and illustrations make learning a snap--which is just what audiences have come to expect from this best-selling author.

Over the course of the last several years, the DIY market has exploded spawning magazines, books, movies and fueling the growth of the online, handmade marketplace. In Robin Williams Handmade Design Workshop: Create Handmade Elements for Digital Designs, best-selling author Robin Williams and Carmen Sheldon take designers away from their computers and show them, step-by-step, how to use traditional artist's tools to create handmade elements for their digital artwork. The authors provide a wealth of new ideas to jump-start creativity and get graphic designers thinking in new ways. Each how-to is illustrated with tons of photos to show how to use paints, inks, textures, modeling pastes, and more to create handmade materials that can then be scanned in and used to create one-of-a-kind print projects or web sites. Examples of finished projects and Web sites are featured throughout the book to provide both instruction and inspiration for designers to use in their own projects.

With Robin Williams' guiding hand, non-professionals, artists, and designers alike have learned the principles behind elegant design. Now that much of this same audience is working on the Web, Robin has focused her attention on the specific needs of this medium with Robin Williams Web Design Workshop. John Tollett and Dave Rohr pitch in with their illustration and graphics experience to create a handsome and engaging instructional book. The ideas in this book tackle all aspects of Web design theory, including all the ways that color, fonts, clip art, photographs and so on contribute to creating a visual impression. Then the book takes the user through site planning and layout, navigability, and functionality, all in Robin Williams' clear and accessible style.

Because "there's more to Web design than Photoshop and HTML," Robin Williams Web Design Workshop covers everything for the working Web designer including "how to survive dealing with clients." Although Dreamweaver, GoLive, Photoshop, and other applications are mentioned (Flash even gets its own chapter), the book covers the gamut of Web design and technology issues rather than focusing on an individual application. Each chapter is divided into sections, often no more than a couple of pages long. The chapter on backgrounds, the area of a Web page that seems to attract the worst design crimes, shows you how to avoid "the heartbreak of bad background design" in no less than eight sections. In many books this subject would be lucky to get eight paragraphs; Robin Williams Web Design Workshop uses a clear two-column layout and plenty of real-life example screen shots to get the message across. Some pages consist only of captioned screen shots providing a great source of visual ideas. There's a good balance between purely design-related issues and the technical stuff. Subjects like search engines, embedded fonts, DHTML, and forms are given a thorough overview, highlighting the main issues, and links to sources of more in-depth information are often to be found at the end of the chapter. If you like to learn by example and see yourself more as a designer than a programmer, but want a working knowledge of current Web technologies from a book that you can read away from your computer, this is it. --Ken McMahon, amazon.co.uk

This popular book shows readers how to take advantage of the iLife '08 applications that to many are the coolest parts of using a Mac. Through tutorials, tips, and techniques readers will learn how to use each of the powerful applications -- individually and as part of an integrated, interactive suite. Robin and John also cover the features of the immensely popular .Mac Web Gallery, which enables you to share your iPhoto library with family and friends with just a few clicks. Friendly, practical instructions will have new and veteran Mac owners using all that's new in the suite in no time. They'll find everything about getting on the Internet and using email; using the way-cool iChat AV, which adds audio and video to instant messaging; using iTunes, including access to the iTunes Music Store; the new video libary in iMovie; new organization and editing tools in iPhoto; new animated themes in iDVD; and much more!

If you think web design is beyond your reach, or if you want your existing web site to look more professional, this thoroughly updated classic is the place to turn! In these pages, best-selling authors Robin Williams and John Tollett share the creative ideas, useful techniques, and basic design principles that are essential to great Web design-all in the context of the most current technology, software, and standards. Throughout, the authors' aim is to inspire you and spark your creativity rather than sedate you with pages and pages of code. To that end, you'll find loads of real-world examples, interesting illustrations, and the simple instructions you need to implement the techniques and concepts described in these pages.

The Non-Designer's Web Book is a pretty, full-color guide for aspiring Web designers. The authors first explain how to browse and search the Web and then discuss how to plan and post a Web site. Then they get you into the real work of designing Web sites, whether for business or personal purposes. The authors teach you basic design principles--covering such areas as alignment, proximity, repetition, and contrast--and then discuss design issues that are specific to the Web: You learn about creating pages with careful attention to color, graphics, typography, tables, and more. Finally, you learn how to test, fix, upload, update, and register your site. The book isn't an HTML primer, but you do get a few tips on tweaking your pages by editing HTML code. The authors discuss a variety of Macintosh and Windows programs for creating Web pages, such as Adobe PageMill, Claris Home Page, and Microsoft FrontPage, and they also discuss image editors, such as Adobe Photoshop. At the end of each chapter there's a quiz for reviewing what you've learned.

Design and typographic insights from the author of The Non-Designer’s book series (over 700,000 copies in print!) This book offers decades of experience from one of the greatest computer book authors. Here in one volume, Robin Williams has joined together a new edition of her classic The Non-Designer’s Design Book—in glorious full color for the first time—and her best-selling The Non-Designer’s Type Book. Robin uses her straightforward and lighthearted style to define the principles that govern good design and type as well as the logic behind those principles. Using numerous examples, you’ll learn what looks best and why on your way to designing beautiful and effective projects. Whether you are a Mac user or a Windows user, a type novice or an experienced graphic designer, you will find inspiration and direction for the design quandaries and conundrums you are sure to encounter! These essential guides to design and type will teach you about: The four principles of design that underlie every design project Categories of type Working with color How to combine typefaces for maximum effect Readability and legibility The proper typographic treatment of punctuation Letter spacing, line spacing, and paragraph spacing Special characters and accent marks

These days, it's not just corporate marketing directors tasked with giving computer-based presentations—anyone forced to stand in front of a crowd and talk for more than three minutes had better know how to put together a slide presentation. You're not a professional designer, but you want your slides to look professional. What do you do? Enter Robin Williams, the beloved, best-selling non-designer's designer (with over 850,000 copies of The Non-Designer's Design Book in print!) who has taught an entire generation the basics of design and typography. In The Non-Designer's Presentation Book, Robin expands upon the design principles introduced in her award-winning Non-Designer's series. She explains four fundamental principles of good design as applied to digital presentations, and adds four more principles specific to clear communication with slides. Whether you work with a Mac or PC, PowerPoint or Keynote, let Robin guide you, in her signature, light-hearted style, through the entire process of creating a presentation—from using the right software to organizing your ideas to designing effective, beautiful slides that won't put your audience to sleep.In this essential guide to presentation design, you'll learn:What makes a good presentation or a bad oneHow to plan, organize, and outline your presentationFour principles of designing effective presentationsFour principles for designing beautiful slides that communicate clearlyAn exhaustive list of timeless presentation rules...that you should totally ignore