A Practical Guide to Designing the invisible by Robert Mills

A Practical Guide to Designing the invisible by Robert Mills ii A Practical Guide to Designing the Invisible A Practical Guide to Designing the invisible by Robert Mills Published in 2011 by Five Simple Steps Studio Two, The Coach House Stanwell Road Penarth CF64 3EU United Kingdom On the web: www.fivesimplesteps.com and: www.designingtheinvisible.com Please send errors to errata@fivesimplesteps.com Publisher: Five Simple Steps Development Editor: Simon Mackie Copy Editor: Bill Harper Production Editor: Emma Boulton Production Manager: Sarah Morris Design & Art Director: Nick Boulton, Mark Boulton Typesetting: Nick Boulton, Colin Kersley Printed in the UK by Paramount Print Copyright © 2011 Robert Mills All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-9561740-3-1 A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library. iii iv A Practical Guide to Designing the Invisible Foreword Mark Boulton As a designer, you will be asked ‘why?’ A lot. Your colleagues will ask you. Your manager, your clients and your peers will too. The answers you give can win or lose work, determine the direction of a design or help win you awards. Early in my career, I was told several times: ‘Tell me, don`t show me’. As a commercial designer, explaining your work is a critical part of what you do. When designing for the web, we’re often wrapped up in mechanics. The nuts and bolts of the design process. Browser capabilities, the content, the imagery, the HTML, CSS or Javascript – the stuff of our designs. Each of us has a toolbox of design-related tips and tricks that we call upon when similar problems arise. What is often missing from that toolbox however, are the reasons why. The rationale. Why use black for this project? Why not? Why does that sidebar look like wood-grain? Why does this icon look like a fish? Important questions, that demand an answer. And that`s what this book will give you: some answers. So much of what we do is invisible. In fact, someone once said that design is like air: you only notice when it’s bad. The subconscious cues, messages and stories are what makes our designs effective; not how pretty they look. To create really great design, you have to understand why; not just for your benefit, but for the person you’re explaining it to. If you’re an experienced designer looking for a challenging read on semiotics, then this isn’t the book for you. However, if you`re dabbling in web design, or just starting out, then Rob Mills has crafted a super-practical guidebook that will give you a few more of those tools to put in that tool box. A few tools ready for when you need to explain why that icon looks like a fish. v ... - tailieumienphi.vn