Great Pages: A Common-Sense Approach to Effective Desktop Design

Rating:
Summary: A short, entertaining, and extremely useful book
Review: If you are involved in page layout - using type and/or graphics -you will probably benefit from a thorough reading of this short book. I have several books by this author but "Great Pages" was the one that gave me the confidence, as an amateur, to explore page layout on my own and to believe in my design decisions. The book itself is a good example of the principles it teaches. It is engagingly written, deftly designed, and has plenty of enlightening, often humorous, illustrations.

The chapter titled "Considerate typography" was especially helpful. Some other standout chapters were "Words and Pictures," "The 'so-what,' 'wowee,' and 's'posed-to' syndromes," and "How to use color functionally." A few examples of the checklists sprinkled throughout the book are "How to decide whether the designer is right for you," " Five reasons for redesigning," "You already know the fundamentals," "Here are ten ways to intrigue and attract your readers," "Here are nine ways to edit for the reader," and "Here are eight ways to design for the viewer."