Nowadays, we always use internet as our main resource to acquire knowledge and improve our skills. Everything is there. Just one click, you can get whatever information that you need. However, please do not forget our traditional source of knowledge which is by reading a book.

There are a lot of books that you can get about design, usability, typography, CSS, software and many other related topics. Below are some of book would give benefits for you. Hopefully all of these books can make you a better designer and business owner. Here are some short reviews.

The Web Designer’s Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends and Styles in Website Design

Author: Patrick McNeil
Price: RM 103.80
Store available: MPHonline, Amazon.com

This book compiled more than 7000 websites which are the best and arranged thematically. You will easily review them by colors, design style, type, theme, element and structure. At the end, you will expand your design vocabulary and train you to break down your favorite sources of design inspiration into bite-sized chunks that you can use in your own work. Plus, you will get inspiration for your next projects.

Layout Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Building Pages in Graphic Design

Author: Kristen Cullen
Price: RM 87.50
Store available: MPHonline, Amazon.com

Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. More than a collection of great examples of layout, this book is an invaluable resource for students, designers, and creative professionals who seek design understanding and inspiration.

The author, Cullen approaches layout with a series of step-by-step fundamental chapters (a “how-to” of layout) addressing topics such as The Function of Design, Inspiration, The Design Process, Intuition, Structure and Organization, The Interaction of Visual Elements, Typography, and Design Analysis. The book offers inspirational quotations and a unique, progressive design that truly reflects its content.

The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design

Author: Craig Grannell
Price: RM 116.37
Store available: Kinokuniya, Amazon.com

The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design is a special book—it will tell you all you need to know to design fantastic web sites that are standards compliant, usable, and look fantastic, but not overwhelm you with waffle, theory, and obscure details. It is designed to be invaluable to you, whatever stage you are at in your career, with a mixture of practical tutorials and reference material—beginners will quickly pick up the basics.

The Elements of Typographic Style

Author: Robert Bringhurst
Price: RM 165.80
Store available: MPHonline,  Amazon.com

It’s a book packed with design wisdom. Bringhurst has produced what is essentially a first principles of typography—a grammar of good taste based on the relationship between form and content of printed matter. It’s also a very beautiful book in its own right. You will not fail to discover visual pleasures on almost every page, and the text is illustrated with such an astonishing variety of beautiful fonts, that this almost doubles as a catalogue of type designs.

Typography Now: The Next Wave

Author: Rick Poynor / Edward Booth-Clibborn
Price: RM 165.80
Store available: MPHonline, Amazon.com

This book is worth having for a few reasons. One, there are some interesting pieces that stand out from the rest and will spark ideas. Two, the designs serve to remind us that just because you CAN make a piece of text jagged, cluttered, and obscure doesn’t mean you should. Three, it will get you thinking about the place of the designer/typographer/graphic artist.

Caffeine for the Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain

Author: Stefan Mumaw / Wendy Lee Oldfield
Price: RM 70.50
Store available: MPHonline,  Amazon.com

It’s great to do an exercise each morning to get your day started, or even just when you’re feeling you need a little inspiration. There have all types of exercise such as design, photography, idea kindling, play, problem solving and writing also.

How To Be A Rockstar Freelancer

Author: Collis Ta’eed / Cyan Ta’eed
Price: $ 29
Store available: Amazon.com

This book is suitable for those people who want to start his or her career as a freelancer. The book provides information about how to figure your hourly rates, increase your rates over time, getting leads, managing clients, marketing, and subcontracting. If you have not yet decided on what you want to be, How to Be a Rock star Freelancer can help you by providing an accurate illustration about the field of works and the lifestyle of a freelancer. This can help you decide whether being a freelancer is suitable for you or not.

How To Be A Rockstar WordPress Designer

Author: Collis Ta’eed / Cyan Ta’eed
Price: $ 29
Store available: E-junkie.com

The book is aimed at anyone with a solid understanding of HTML/CSS. You don’t need to know PHP, you don’t need to have ever even touched WordPress before. The examples begin from scratch and build on each other, while basic PHP principles that are used are explained in an easy to understand manner.

Happy reading to all of you!

Eeee bomm! bomm! pshh! pshh! (Yeah I’m trying to make sound of fireworks. Haha.)

Tomorrow is holiday. Yippie. It means we’re celebrating Deepavali. It’s also known as festival of lights. How will you to celebrate and feel it? So  tommorow, dress well with colorful, eat roti canai with teh tarik and eat some sweets (if i’m not mistaken it called as laddu).

We wish you a very peaceful, safe and happy Diwali.

Vavava Happy Deepavali. Selamat Menyambut Perayaan Deepavali. Selamat Bercuti

Lecturers: What is good design?
Student A: Viewers or users can understand what the designers want to deliver through his art or design
Student B: Creative and good for clients.
Student C: ….

…

Here are the some of great quote that I would like to share about “Good Design”.

Good design is good business.
Tom Watson, Jr., President, IBM (1952–1971)

For a definition of good design, I go back to Vitruvius, who suggested
that good design was “solidity, commodity and delight.”
Hugh Dubberly, Co-founder, Dubberly Design Office.

Good design today requires more vision (a larger point of view versus the single brilliant idea), more consistency (a deeper underlying structure of language and form versus the simple, uniform application of visual elements) and more patience (persistence over time versus creative authoritarianism).
William Drenttel, partner, Jessica Helfand/William Drenttel design firm.

Design is the term we use to describe both the process and the result of giving tangible form to human ideas. Design doesn’t just contribute to the quality of life; design, in many ways, now constitutes the quality of life.
Peter Lawrence, Founder, Corporate Design Foundation

Scientists spend their time trying to discover what’s already there.
Designers spend their time inventing what doesn’t yet exist.
Peter Lissaman, aerospace engineer and professor, University of Southern California.

Good design is design that surprises, something that is unexpected but immediately comprehensible and pleasing.
Norman Klein, Cultural critic and professor, California Institute of the Arts

Let me share something with you; I’m going to be 30 this year, and for once I never will imagine that I’m going to cry while watching a story about gang of toys. Precisely, never cross in my mind that I would be so emotionally touched with the latest production of Pixar Animation Studio, Toy Story 3.

Being an avid (or dare to say, hardcore?) fan of Pixar movies since the first Toy Story back in 1995, I’ve been watching all of their movies until now, and its amazing that even with all those attention of details paid to their visual presentation fidelity and special effects, their upmost priority had always been on the storytelling part; suffice to say, all their movies are far better than any of live action movies by their Hollywood neighbors. And after 10 hits in the row, Toy Story 3 is not an exception.

I’m not a movie reviewer (and this not even an entertainment blog), but this quote from Washington Posts (via Rotten Tomatoes) summarize my feeling about this movie perfectly:

It’s an emotional dissonance Pixar has always been supremely comfortable with, as Toy Story 3 once again proves with knowing humor, wildly imaginative visual virtuosity and bittersweet rue.

If I were to be nitpick, perhaps its 3D version. I’ve watched this movie twice, once with 3D glass (both at IOI Mall Puchong), and I couldn’t justify the extra RM10 surcharge for the 3D viewing. Nothing made it extra special compared to normal 2D viewing, and you won’t miss anything.

But you will if you don’t watch this movie yet. My personal rating: 5/5.

Now any of you want to make fansite for this movie? Get affordable shared hosting at Embunweb.com here!