Book: Practical Guide - Designing for the Web

Designing for the Web

By Mark Boulton

Mark Boulton’s essential introduction to designing for the web using the principles of graphic design.

Printed copies currently only available to US customers.

About this book

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web aims to teach you techniques for designing your website using the principles of graphic design.

Featuring five sections, each covering a core aspect of graphic design: Getting Started, Research, Typography, Colour, and Layout. Learn solid graphic design theory that you can simply apply to your designs, making the difference from a good design to a great one.

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web is a stand-out book amongst web design books. Mark finds the right balance between practical and inspirational. And it's beautifully designed.

This book is about graphic design basics as applied to web. It will provide you with a base-line understanding of typography, colour theory and layout, all built on top of a base of research and process. It will give you what you need to take your designs to the next level.

Topics include

In this part, you’ll learn about what it takes to get started for designing for the web. You’ll learn about the various tools, processes, and practices.

Design begins with information, information gleaned from research. This research in turn informs ideas. In this part, you’ll learn the various techniques to help get your design off on the right foot.

Typographic design is more than just picking a font. In this part, you’ll learn how good typographic design is at the very heart of good web design.

In this part, you’ll learn basic colour theory. How to create stunning colour palettes and ensure they are applied to the web in the best way possible.

In this part, you’ll learn how to use compositional devices such as The Golden Section, and grid systems to bring your designs together.

About Mark Boulton

Mark Boulton

Mark Boulton is a web designer and author. He is Design Director at Monotype, previously founded his own studio, Mark Boulton Design and co-founded Five Simple Steps.

Sometimes outspoken, always passionate, Mark started out designing web sites when he was the 'young guy' in the studio back in 1997. He's been banging on about applying the fundamentals of good graphic design on the web ever since, much to the dismay of his family, friends and colleagues. Mark lives in south Wales with his wife and daughters, a small collection of neglected bonsai and a guitar he wish he owned when he was 18.

Designing for the web is different than designing for any other medium. The breadth of skills required is sometimes daunting.

Mark Boulton