
Ask HN: Independently learning design? - nicholjs
I'm a self-taught programmer (iOS and some back end web). Here on hacker news and also on other forums and startup news sites, I always see information on learning to code. The standard routes are codeacademy, certain recommended books, types of projects to get started out on, etc. As recent as yesterday I saw a post on properly learning javascript. It was inspiring, but more so, it went in to such detail on a 6 week method one could follow.<p>Are the same sources out there to learn design? Books, apps, certain forums that designers look to (akin to stackoverflow)?
======
artursapek
Go to art school, like I did. Hahahah. No, I'm kidding, don't. But do become
educated about the past. Buy some books. I recommend starting with Paul Rand
<http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-Steven-Heller/dp/0714839949> I love that
book. I'll never let go of my copy.

The most important thing is not to focus too much on current trends. They're
mostly bullshit that will be forgotten fast. The reason I say study the past
is because everything old that has been documented is actually worth studying.
It's "stood the test of time," if you will.

I think a lot of designers today focus too much on what's happening NOW,
reading today's blogs and knowing the trends and whatever. So they go make
things with an extremely narrow perspective and think they're designing when
really they're retracing the only thing they know.

People don't know nearly enough on say, 50's modernism. Or the Bauhaus
aesthetic. Watch the Eameses' films. Know the greats. Respect them. Broaden
your awareness. Graphic design was huge before computers.

Then apply the broad ideas you absorb from that to the medium you're working
in. That's my advice. There's no Stack Overflow for design. It doesn't work
the same way as programming. You're not going to become a good designer by
visiting websites.

~~~
tansey
_> There's no Stack Overflow for design._

There are actually two stack exchange sites for design:

\- <http://ux.stackexchange.com/>

\- <http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com>

I've used both and found them very useful.

 _> It doesn't work the same way as programming. You're not going to become a
good designer by visiting websites._

No one becomes a solid programmer by visiting websites either. It's about
practice with a focused effort on improving, just like any other skill. I
would be amazed if design were any different.

~~~
artursapek
I'm aware of those, I've been to both. I agree that ux.stackexchange has
something to offer. graphicdesign.stackexchange is basically an Adobe support
site.

Programming problems are much easier to solve with a Google search. In
programming, the state of the art _is_ the most important state. Nobody really
reads or studies historical code from obsolete technology. Sure, there are
things you won't learn without a good mentor or teacher.

My intention wasn't to claim you can become a good programmer by visiting
websites, I was just trying to express that learning design is a much more
offline experience, and OP was asking for websites he should visit.

------
vickytnz
<http://hackdesign.org/> is trying to cover this exact niche (I'm following
along as a designer just out of curiosity, and it's pretty cool).

Mark Boulton's A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web (Five Simple Steps)
[http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0956174019/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_f-
cg...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0956174019/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_f-cgrb0TZS0EN)
is also a good start.

There are the usual suspects such as Nettuts, Smashing Mag, Core77, Creative
Review, Design Observer (though that's more intense).

For web typography, try <http://kaikkonendesign.fi/typography/> and the older
(but based on a lauded print book for print type design)
<http://www.webtypography.net/>

Just for the insight into the nutty world of type design, I like the MyFonts
newsletter: <http://www.myfonts.com/newsletters/cc/201301.html>

If you want to get more into IXD, Cooper has a good list:
[http://www.cooper.com/journal/2013/01/self-study-
interaction...](http://www.cooper.com/journal/2013/01/self-study-interaction-
design.html)

~~~
nicholjs
HackDesign looks awesome!

------
subpixel
In my experience the very best way to develop design chops is to get a sense
of the kind of design you like, and then let that influence the look and feel
of your own projects.

At first you will be copying other peoples' style and that is okay. As you
proceed and improve you'll start doing your own thing. Great artists steal,
etc.

Of course, without your own projects, you'll get nowhere, as has been pointed
out.

Design it Yourself is a pretty good read: <http://amzn.to/UV6jFV>

As an aside, there's very little of the camaraderie/collaboration you're
probably used to from the hacker world in the design world. (Though
<http://hackdesign.org/> looks rad!) No one has written The Cathedral and the
Bazaar for design yet. Know that upfront and you won't be surprised when
designers act more afraid than excited at the prospect of unskilled hackers
trying their hand at design.

Don't buy into the suggestion you need to worship 'the masters' of graphic
design to learn to do your own thing. The web is not just paper that you can
click, it's a new medium. You'll learn as much studying design on the web as
you will from books.

------
breckinloggins
I'm in the same boat. I'm not very good but I'm starting to get better at
design. Here are some tips, which might be useful. None of these are affiliate
links and I'm not associated with any of them, if that matters.

\- It's cliche, but read "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman [1].
It gives you a good sense of design's place in the greater world. The best
design principles are as at home in a product development firm as they are in
the software world.

\- I own "Design for Hackers" by David Kadavy and I think it's pretty good.
The content may or may not be "obvious" depending on your skill level, but he
phrases things in a way that is understandable and reassuring to the
engineering set. [2]

\- There's a guy on HN (Jarrod Drysdale) who produced an eBook called
"Bootstrapping Design". I haven't pulled the trigger on a purchase yet, but I
need to. I've read his sample chapter and am subscribed to his newsletter and
I think he's an excellent coach. [3]

\- I keep a bookmark folder called "design inspiration" and when I find really
cool sites or apps I save them here. You might also want to keep a clipping
diary or something where you can keep notes for yourself about what you like
and don't like about certain things.

\- There's nothing wrong with imitation, within reason. EVERYONE stands on the
shoulders of giants and the guy who designed that awesome site or app probably
started by shamelessly copying existing stuff. In fact, I recommend that you
spend some time trying to EXACTLY copy things you like. You'll start to get a
feel for how to accomplish certain affects and, in general, you'll get design
a little more "in the fingers".

\- <http://ux.stackexchange.com/>

\- Have a project. Have a project. HAVE A PROJECT. It's very difficult to just
"learn design", just as it's very difficult to just "learn programming".
Unless you're just a natural autodidact, you can read all the tutorials and
books and whatever but, when it comes time to do something on your own, you'll
just be sitting there staring at a blinking cursor (or an empty Photoshop
document) unless you have _some place_ to start.

I hope this all helps, and don't be afraid to share stuff on HN with us. There
are plenty of folks who would love to give you positive criticism and
feedback.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-
Norman/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-
Norman/dp/0465067107)

[2] [http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-
Bea...](http://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-
Beauty/dp/1119998956)

[3] <http://bootstrappingdesign.com/>

~~~
QuantumGuy
<http://hackdesign.org/> is what I am using

~~~
alfredbaudisch
Hack design is really awesome. It goes down from what is design, understanding
design on everything we do, to typography and next on.

------
seanlinehan
One method that I've found useful is to completely re-create somebody else's
design in Photoshop. Find a website that you really like, take a screenshot of
it, paste it into Photoshop, and recreate the whole thing.

The benefit of doing this is three-fold. For one, you are more than likely not
going to functionally know how to re-create some effects which will force you
to go out and read targeted tutorials. Second, you will notice the subtleties
of the design that you are unlikely to notice when just looking, which will
help build your design intuition. Lastly, you won't waste time trying to come
up with an idea and failing through the execution; you will start with
something great and end with something (hopefully) great.

Clearly this isn't the way to learn the creative side of design, but it will
build up your skill-set such that you will actually be able to execute when
you have a vision.

~~~
bryans
I can vouch for this method. I've been coding since childhood and developing
websites for the past ~15 years, but I never quite figured out how to get
designs in my head on to paper (or into Photoshop). Instead, I spent years
designing websites by recreating individual elements from sites that I liked
and frankensteining those elements together to create something.. respectable.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, I opened Photoshop one day and everything
just clicked, and has been ever since. I can't say for sure if it's from
working with so many different designs or styles, or being exposed to them, or
just recognizing the styles that I preferred, but it does happen eventually.

If you're intentionally trying to learn design and you put in the time to
consciously recognize what you're looking at and how it works, I bet that
light bulb moment would happen much quicker.

------
bennyg
It's all about metacognition. You need to look at the designed things in your
life and understand WHY you like or dislike them. Look at the spacing of text,
the font choices, the color choices, the contrast between fonts/colors/etc,
the shape of things. Design is also how things work, not just how they look.

------
dreamdu5t
The only necessary book on design, at only 46 pages, is "Notes on Graphic
Design And Visual Communication."

I have met AIGA award designers and Internet design celebrities who don't know
some of the basics laid out in this short book.

It's probably the only _handwritten_ book you'll ever read:
[http://www.amazon.com/Crisp-Graphic-Design-Visual-
Communicat...](http://www.amazon.com/Crisp-Graphic-Design-Visual-
Communication/dp/1560520442)

------
zengr
I have started out with Graphics Design course[1] at Berkeley Extension in SF
downtown (good for people who work in the bay area).

It's once a week, I enjoy learning the very basic elements of design like
understanding and using shapes.

Other than that, keep reading books and ux.stackexchange.

In my day job, I work as a software engineer.

[1]: <http://extension.berkeley.edu/spos/graphicps.html>

------
seanMeverett
Subscribe to dribbble's popular RSS feed. You'd be surprised how good your
taste becomes just by being surrounded by it. Also, you'll start to pick up
details about how they do it. You just study it at the pixel level and try to
replicate in photoshop. That's the best way I've found...

------
codebaobab
Here's a similar Ask HN from a few years back:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1103578>

I recommend Before&After (a magazine and a couple of associated books)

<http://www.bamagazine.com/>

------
ctbeiser
Having self-taught myself a lot about design, let me give you a few pointers.

The number one rule is that you have to start paying attention to the design
of everything. Don Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" is a good start on
developing this, and you really shouldn't miss it. But this applies to
everything: when something's nice, figure out why. Notice typefaces, and form
a mental library so you can identify them.

It's a bit of an odd path, but I'll also suggest, since you're interested in
interactive systems, reading several great Human Interface Guidelines. Apple's
OS X ones are my favorite (You might even want to get an older version,
because they're a bit more general), but the Nokia Meego ones are worth a look
too. Most others are too mediocre to teach you anything though.

Some other books I have to suggest: Bringhurtst's "The Elements of Typographic
Style." Definately read some kind of lighter treatment of type first, so you
know humanists from geometrics, serifs from sans, high and low contrast, and
so forth, but if you want to _really_ get it, this is the book. If you go in
knowing that some of what he's saying is opinion, this is the book you need to
read.

The Universal Principles of Design: It's really not the best book, and there's
some things, like the readability research, that's actually just complete
crap, but it's an alright, quick overview of a few dozen concepts. If you
understand the concepts in it, skip it, but as a first intro, you could do
worse.

The Humane Interface: Other than Raskin's whining about the Canon Cat not
being a hit for slightly too long, it's got some interesting concepts that all
designers should understand.

Thoughtful Interaction Design: This one's very theoretical, and very heavy
reading; it's really about a way to view the design process, and how it
proceeds, more than it is about how to design. Don't read it until you've done
a few projects.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information: This is a great book on
presenting information. Just ignore the ridiculous stuff about minimizing ink,
and think of it as minimizing the cognitive load.

For a quick overview of a couple interesting concepts, you might try
method.ac, reading the wikipedia pages on Fitt's Law and
<http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk> and trolling through
<http://informationarchitects.net/blog/>.

Stay away from ux.stackexchange.com, news.layervault.com, PSDtuts, et. c. It's
almost all crap, about tools rather than actual designing. In general (very
much in general), if a blog post on design is short, it's crap, 95% of the
time.

------
starpilot
<http://littlebigdetails.com> shows some really exceptional examples of
ergonomic design.

------
canibanoglu
Would you mind giving a link to the post about JavaScript that you mentioned?
I would really appreciate that.

Thanks!

~~~
sk2code
Here you go: [http://javascriptissexy.com/how-to-learn-javascript-
properly...](http://javascriptissexy.com/how-to-learn-javascript-properly/)

~~~
canibanoglu
Thank you very much! :)

~~~
nicholjs
That post was amazing. Even the related ones he wrote on Backbone.js and
Node.js are worth going through.

~~~
canibanoglu
Exactly my thoughts! Very well written guides (tutorials?). Thanks a lot again
for the link.

------
rikacomet
step 1: Go through lot of tutorials in Photoshop, replicate different type of
effects, patterns, actions.

step 2a: move on to Illustrator, once you start needed quality images.

or/and

step 2b: start using your html/css knowledge with your new found design
skills, to start making websites

after that you are pretty much done.

~~~
ctbeiser
I mean no offense here, but this isn't design. This is parroting visual
effects.

------
gbog

      Inoculate yourself against bad design and subscribe to Jakob Nielsen  newsletter.

------
Tomino
maybe you can check out <http://psd.tutsplus.com/>

------
nsfmc
a long long time ago, i wrote a post here on hn on how to get started on web
design [0], but since you already have the technical bit, you can just skip
ahead to the Design part.

That said, I don't think that many "howto design" books are all that
interesting (and the best design books are mystifying in a way which defies
reason), but you _will_ find books about the nuts and bolts of design which
are very good even if you're totally green to the field. The other most
important thing is that you keep making things. Even little things. Make them
and show them to people and get feedback. Lather, rinse and repeat.

Anyhow... You will want to specifically look for books on Typography, Color,
Layout, Photography, Contrast/Scale, and Poster Design. Poster Design is
actually sui generis despite appearing to be a subset of graphic design.[1]

My belief is strongly on the side of typography being the most crucial skill a
designer needs (since its use of space/contrast/layout) is basically design in
a micro level, rather than on the macro (page) level. The skills you pick up
in typography _do_ translate over, but it takes lots of practice. Since
illustrators are readily hopping into many design jobs, our best bet is to
differentiate ourselves with our exhaustive knowledge of typography.

A great book on "Book Typography" is Cyrus Highsmith's Inside Paragraphs.

A good book on "Display Typography" is Wolfgang Weingart's My Way to
Typography.

Three good books on "Typographic Fundamentals" are: Ellen Lupton's Thinking
With Type, John Kane's Type Primer and Erik Spiekermann's Stop Stealing Sheep
(and find out how type works).

One excellent "Typographic Reference" is Robert Bringhurst's Elements of
Typographic Style.

One good book about "Design Process" is Nancy Skolos & Tom Wedell's Graphic
Design Process.

No design book suggestion will be complete without mentioning Emil Ruder's
Typographie, Josef Muller-Brockman's Grid Systems and Armin Hofmann's Graphic
Design Manual.

 _That_ said, a good starter is layout/formmaking Christian Leborg's "Visual
Grammar," part of Princeton Architectural Press' Design Briefs series[2] (all
of which are good for skimming the next time you find yourself in a
bookstore/amazon showroom).

Finally, I never realized it until I made a joke about it, but you can
summarize many of the principles of good UI Design in PEP 20, which is to say
that if you care about API Design and Code Cleanliness and all that stuff,
then you probably already have the right attitude towards graphic/visual
design. Take those principles and apply them visually when you make anything
or use them as a rough litmus test for your designs then break the rules as
you see fit.

Have fun! Relax. Don't Panic!

[0]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1605228> [1]: While poster design
employs many of the same structural techniques as Capital-D Design, it has its
own rules which are useful to know, but above all it is free to play with
scale in a way which is _difficult_ in web and book design. Still, knowing
about it will inform your own work and probably make it wayyyy more fun. [2]:
[http://papress.com/html/book.list.page.tpl?action=seriessear...](http://papress.com/html/book.list.page.tpl?action=seriessearch&__searchfield=Design%20Briefs)

------
taligent
<http://dribbble.com>

<http://news.layervault.com>

