Designing brand identity

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1. dpiersJan 2013
   I asked myself the same question around 6 months ago, so I talked to the most talented designer I know and asked him for a list of the most influential books he had read whilst developing his skills.

   Here is the list, in the order he recommended reading them:

   Creative Process: http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-Others/dp/140...

   Design Thinking: http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Rand-A-Designer%60s-Art/dp/030008...

   Typography: http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-Designers-Critical-Stude...

   Spatial Relationships - Grids: http://www.amazon.com/Making-Breaking-Grid-Graphic-Workshop/...

   Reduction: http://www.amazon.com/Symbol-Steven-Bateman/dp/1856697274/

   Color Theory: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Color-Subjective- Experience/dp/0471289280/

   Branding 101: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Brand-Identity-Essential-Bra...

   I've been making my way through the list, and it is amazing how much my approach to design has changed. Before I was winging it and was never really sure if I was making something that would look good, but now I feel like I have a solid foundation to build on.

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2. arkitaipMay 2011
   IMHO you first need to understand design, its various sub fields (i.e. typography, colors, layout), user experience design/interaction design/usability, and finally how all of this applies to the web. You can learn the basics by reading books but the only way to truly understand and master is by study this things in the world and by practicing them. Start thinking about design, analyze it in your daily life, do your own makeovers of sites you use, design a blog theme, etc, etc.

   As for web typography, you want to check of the latest generation of font embedding because that's where the real magic's at. The most known web font solutions are: CSS3 (font-face), typeface.js, cufon, flir, sifr, Google Font API, Typekit.

   Here's a list of quality books on design and typography:

       A History of Graphic Design
       Before & After Page Design
       Designing Brand Identity
       Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
       Graphic Design Solutions
       How Designers Think
       Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
       Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop 
       The Complete Manual of Typography
       The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations
       The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
       The Elements of Typographic Style
       The New Typography
       The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
       Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers
       Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design 
   	

   Books on web design:

       About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
       Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become  
       Bulletproof Web Design
       Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide
       Designing Web Usability
       Designing With Web Standards
       Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design
       Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction
       Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
       Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
       Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites
       Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web  
       Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction
       Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
       The Essential Guide to User Interface Design
       The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
       Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology
       Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks

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