My first career was as a reporter on daily newspapers. As I got promoted to editing and eventually webmaster jobs, I needed to learn about design. Newspapers had been trying to figure out which designs attract the most readers for a century. The Poynter Institute, founded in 1975, began doing quantitative research as part of its journalism education mission. Seven years later, Gannett, a large newspaper publisher, introduced USA Today, based on the latest graphic and readability research. About the same time, Edward Tufte wrote his seminal book on graphic design (See recommendation #1). With the arrival of the web, companies like Google and Microsoft took the research to new levels. For example, Microsoft used readability research to create Verdana, a font designed to be legible with then-low resolution screens. Of course, the advertising and direct-mail industries had been conducting design research for decades to enhance sales. In short, you can’t pretend to be a competent designer, webmaster, or editor in this day and age without understanding quantitative readability research.
I wrote...
After Yorktown: The Final Struggle for American Independence
By
Don Glickstein
What is my book about?
The American Revolution was the United States’ first world war. It involved not just American rebels and England, but France, Holland, Spain, the Indian Kingdom of Mysore, Native American nations, and enslaved people. It was fought from the Arctic to South America, from South Africa to the Mediterranean. The war’s last battle was fought in India, where a Muslim co-belligerent of the American rebels battled the British. After Yorktown tells the story of the people and the war that continued long after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.
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The Books I Picked & Why
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte
By
Edward R. Tufte
Why this book?
Tufte, a former Yale and Princeton professor, made his reputation by challenging assumptions about how to present information graphically. The result is a series of gorgeous—I don’t use that term lightly—books that look at the hard evidence. This is his first. From the concept of density of information to his popularization of sparklines, from his insistence on graphical integrity to his devastating critique of PowerPoints and how they contribute to the downfall of civilization, Tufte has been the country’s leading voice for evidence-based design. It all began with this 190-page book that will never go out of print.
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Designing Web Usability
By
Jakob Nielsen
Why this book?
Edward Tufte provided the intellectual framework to evidence-based graphic design, but Jakob Nielsen got down and dirty with web design. His lab research looks into stuff like eye fixations and click rates. But don’t get the wrong idea: He translates the research into practical suggestions about how to design web pages and web interfaces. While this book is ancient by tech standards, its principles remain unchallenged. His many other books report findings about facets of good design ranging from eye-tracking research to designing for cell phones.
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The Fundraiser's Guide to Irresistible Communications
By
Jeff Brooks
Why this book?
If there’s anyone who cares about effective graphic design, it’s direct-mail experts and fundraisers like Brooks. Brooks devotes about one-quarter of his book to the “design of fundraising”—how to use graphics to improve response rates. If folks can’t read your pitch because of poor design, all the words you write won’t make a difference. “It doesn’t matter how great a piece looks if it’s hard to read,” he says. He deflates designs that make the designer feel good, but make the reader toss the communication because it’s just too much work to figure out.
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Ogilvy on Advertising
By
David Ogilvy
Why this book?
Ogilvy was the original “mad man” (to cite the 2007–2015 TV show), the foremost advertising executive of the mid-20th century. Although his book is about advertising, you’ll be able to see a theme here that runs through all my top 5 choices: Design should be based first on customer-focused communications research, not on how the designer feels. One of the ads Ogilvy cites was extraordinarily successful—and a graphic atrocity. How could that be? Ogilvy spills the beans.
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The Big Red Fez
By
Seth Godin
Why this book?
Why are three of the five books I recommend about graphic design written by marketing types? They know that their livelihood depends on effective design. Godin is one of those smarmy marketing types—who else would name a book about web design after a fez?—but he knows his stuff. He argues that website owners shouldn’t take their cues from their IT people, who don’t know nothin’ about sales, customers, and web design. Tufte and Nielsen present the data dispassionately; Godin tells it like it is. This book expands on his legendary essay, “Really Bad PowerPoint,” which you can still find as a free download on the web.
