I've heard of Robin Williams (and not the goofy, hairy guy in movies) before. This Robin is a female and her book, "The Non-Designer's Book" is quite good. I'm thinking about using it in one of my classes in the future. Robin hit the nail right on the head when she said after finding the Joshua Tree when she was a kid, she noticed it everywhere. I can say the same thing about print stuff. I notice and detest pixelated and skewed images on the web and in print on a daily basis. I am very conscious of this atrocity that lingers throughout many amateur sites and on homemade posters.
The four principles of good design in chapters 1-6 -- contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity -- make sense to me and will be easy to remember when creating my next layout. Robin's simple, multiple illustrations of how you can take a so-so design and make it more visually appealing with just some minor changes is genius. She focuses on straight lines, illustrations and type to convey clear communication on paper -- newsletters, advertisments, business cards or letterhead.
A few of my favorite tips that she mentions in the first six chapters are to provide clear communication rather than try to make a piece fun, or "dancing." It's so true that simple design is better. I also liked the chapter on repetition. Her example of how you can bold the name at the top of a business card and bold the phone number at the bottom to draw the eye up and down instead of off the paper is something I never considered. I am going to try it in some design pieces down the road.
I'd like to comment on the other book, but due to Amazon.com's lazy ways I am still waiting for it to arrive in the mail. 11 days and still waiting :-(
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