Ask HN: Designers, what is the single book developers should read on design?

"The Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice"

By Robin Williams (not that Robin Williams)

Quick, easy read geared towards non-designers (it's in the title!) that explains the basics of C.R.A.P. (Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity), 4 things that will change the way you look at things and stop centering everything :D

edit: formatting

Understanding Comics By Scott McCloud.

It won't teach developers anything about Photoshop or CSS, but it's an incredible book in terms of Visual Iconography and its effects on readers/users.

His follow up 'Reinventing Comics' is also a must read. To quote Will Wright (The Sims, Spore)

"Anyone involved in interactive entertainment (games, web, etc.) should read this book. Scott McCloud has once again transcended the world of comics and tapped into much deeper issues of creativity, entertainment and economics."

Practice. Fire up Photoshop, and paste in a bunch of designs that are well done. Start picking out individual elements, and then recreate them from scratch. You'll constantly be asking yourself why your redesign comes short, and through this, you'll begin to understand the subtle differences that make a great design.

I've never read a book on web design in my life, and I've kicked out some award winning layouts. The trick, don't stop refining the design, and don't be afraid to take a step back. The only time the design stops improving is when you stop working on it. Continue to refine, and you'll look back tomorrow, and laugh at the layout you once thought was acceptable. Fast forward another day, and you'll do the same. Have patience. Although great designs might look simple, realize they've gone through an endless number of revisions to reach that point.

Thanks for the recommendations everybody. I will probably end up buying each of these and going through them.

I have picked up a lot of design tips over the years but never spent time to really learn the fundamentals of what makes good design. It is a bit like non-graduate programmers who skip over compsci theory, for eg. I know how to do stuff in CSS, I know how to copy and paste templates from the web, but never understood why certain designs and UI's are good and others aren't

I will prob do a blog post on these books and tips etc. in a few months once I go through it all properly - thanks again.

The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

Also see this site, which adapts the book's contents to the web: http://webtypography.net/toc/

The Humane Interface. I think its nerdiness would suit a developer. Learning lots as a interface designer.

I would start with Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1933820241?tag=bagcheckcom00-20), reason being that from an incremental perspective, a developer should be in control of how the user interacts with the application, not with the design elements (which most designers believe are the interaction). CRUD is the basis of the user experience, everything else is just fluff.