[Scribus] Basic design books, Scribus Digest, Vol 43, Issue 5

[Gregory Pittman]

Martin Langeland wrote:
>>> Can anyone recommend a good book on design, in English, suitable for a 
>>> beginner who knows quite a lot about software but not much about 
>>> professional design?  
I can also endorse "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by 
Edward Tufte as has been mentioned, as long as you understand what this 
is so good at: not just what you might expect from its title, but help 
with understanding that, as the basis for a given project you are always 
trying to transmit information whether it's quantitative or not.
So much of what you can see may be attractive, may draw your eye to it, 
may be very compelling in one way or another, but you always have to go 
back to the reason why you are designing a project and what it is that 
you /want/ the reader to notice and remember most. If you distract the 
reader from that message or you obfuscate it with a lot of visual noise, 
attractive or not, you have not accomplished your mission.

And just like beginning to read the nutrition labels on foodstuffs in 
the grocery can be very enlightening, looking at ads, newsletters, other 
layout projects with the right "eye" can teach you a lot about what's 
good and what's not. After all, if you can't develop a sense of what 
good design is about your work is going to be imitative rather than 
creative.

For entertainment value, I have also enjoyed leafing through the book 
"Web Pages That Suck", which has a lot about design as well.

Greg