Not all of us are great graphic designers. That includes me. I occasionally do a bit of design dabbling, but I do not feel very confident at coming up with something completely on my own. Semantics, structure, nice and valid code, no problem. Tweaking an existing design? Sure. But creating a graphic design from scratch? I’d rather not.

However, armed with Jason Beaird’s book The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, I can at least get a better grip on some of the principles behind graphic design for the Web.

The book’s five chapters describe and explain the major parts of the design process: layout and composition, colour, texture, typography, and imagery. Everything is explained in a straightforward and, as far as I can tell, correct way.

I don’t agree fully with everything in this book from a technical (coding) point of view, and I don’t even think most of the graphic design examples are really that good looking. Reading the book will, however, give you some solid design theory to help you create better designs or make better decisions when modifying existing designs.

Obviously reading this book will not make you a great graphic designer. I think you need talent for that, and some of us just don’t have that. But what this book will do for you is help you understand how graphic design works. That, in turn, will help you when you need to do a bit of design work as well as when communicating with graphic designers.

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
Author: Jason Beaird
ISBN-10: 0975841963
ISBN-13: 978-0975841969