When I get passionate about a topic, I tend to search for the best material I can find on it in order to expand my knowledge further. Web design is no exception and this list represents the books I have found to be very useful. These are all books that I have actually read and most of which are sitting on my bookshelf right now. This list is a follow up to my article “Buy, Borrow, or Steal the Best Books to Get Ahead.”

The links lead to the book’s amazon page and they have my associate id attached to them. Because I don’t have ads on this site I have to ask that if you like this list and decide to buy a book from amazon, please use my links as it would be helpful in paying for my coffee, book addiction, and future contests. Enjoy!

Typography

1. The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

This is one of those books a lot of people with a background in graphics design loves. I think the language is way too exaggerated for a person without a graphics design background. I only include it in this list, because some of you might find that you like it since it has withstood the test of times, but I don’t recommend it for your first book on typography. Richard Rutter at webtypography.net took the elements in this book and applied it to the web very well. The site is a must read.

• 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
• 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
• 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57 percent of new books are not read to completion. (1)

Of those who did read books, most read fiction strictly for pleasure. And the #1 selling book genre is “Romance,” which was read by 64.6 million Americans in 2005. (2)

Books + Online Resources > Online Resources

In “How to Create a Blog Design from Scratch?” I talked about the first step you need to take when learning how to create a blog design. The first step being figure out what you need to know and the price you must pay in order to get there. I also talked about how most people tend to skip this step and dive in blindly. The following is the result of not knowing what you need to learn and do in order to create a good blog design.

This is you on drugs. Nah, I am just kidding… No, really this is you on drugs.

I often get asked this question by people who have been blogging for some time, but are new to blog designs. They want to get rid of their blog design templates and take their blog to the next step by having a custom blog design. There is usually just a little problem, they don’t have the money to hire someone or the expertise to build one for themselves. If this sounds like you or you just want to learn even more, then this series just is for you.

In this series, I will focus on how I would learn how to create a blog design if I were to start all over again from the beginning without any knowledge in the area of blog designs, web design, or graphic design. Basically starting over from scratch with the goal of creating an awesome blog design for my blog.

Blog design rules are not set in stone by any mean, but there are a few things that you can do when designing your blog that really will hurt your blog’s success. While we all like to believe that the content is more important than the design, there is just no getting around the fact that the blog design is what your visitors use and see when they navigate your awesome content. If you make dumb mistakes when you design your blog you can outright prevent your reader to read any further, subscribe to your blog, or buy something.

Here are five mistakes to avoid when designing your blog.