March 28, 2024

10 Free EBooks for Web Designers

Several weeks ago we published a post that told you about 10 free online books for web designers. We received lots of positive feedback from many of our readers who appreciated the great information, but one common question was, “Is there a PDF version?”. It turns out people really like their PDF’s, but unfortunately, that group of free books only had online HTML versions. So I set out on a quest to find more free books for web designers, but this time I made sure each had a PDF version.

The following ten books contain a wide variety of valuable information for web designers, ranging from HTML5 to a guide for managing your time. There’s plenty here to keep you busy reading for a while. Enjoy!

Introduction to Good Usability

ebooks for designers

This guide is especially handy if you haven’t done a lot of webdesign yet or if you are involved in webdesign but don’t do any of the real work. I hope to shed some light on some common interface elements and mistakes people often make with them.

How To Be Creative

ebooks for designers

If you’ve ever felt the draw to do something creative but just haven’t been able to pull it together, you’ll love this manifesto. Hugh MacLeod, an advertising executive and popular blogger with a flair for the creative, gives his 26 tried-and-true tips for being truly creative. Each point illustrated by a cartoon drawn by the author himself.

Why design?

ebooks for designers

What designers offer to clients is a way of thinking. The “Why design?” booklet outlines the role of design in business strategy. It seeks a common framework for why design adds value to clients’ interests.

The Design Funnel: A Manifesto for Meaningful Design

ebooks for designers

Would you like a process which would help translate the often vague, unclear wishes of your clients (and yourself, for that matter) into a clear and solid basis for your design? This manifesto will show you how.

HTML5 Quick Learning Guide

ebooks for designers

This guide introduces you to just the main elements of HTML5 that you’ll probably want to use right away. This guide is for those who want to get the basics figured out first, and worry about the finer details later on.

Time Management for Creative People

ebooks for designers

Written by Mark McGuinness, this e-book serves as a guide for creative people to help them be more productive and better manage their time.

The Woork Handbook

ebooks for designers

The Woork Handbook is a free eBook about CSS, HTML, Ajax, web programming, Mootools, Scriptaculous and other topics about web design… directly from Woork!

Eloquent JavaScript

ebooks for designers

Eloquent JavaScript is a digital book providing a comprehensive introduction (tutorial) to the JavaScript programming language. Apart from a bookful of text, it contains plenty of example programs, and an environment to try them out and play with them.

A Concise Guide to Archiving for Designers

ebooks for designers

This guide provides designers with the proper ways to store and describe their collections in 10 short chapters. The author, Karin van der Heiden, provided the translation.

Type Classification

ebooks for designers

This book has been made to help you learn the 10 broad classifications of type. These are the basic foundations of what you need to learn to learn typography and it is essential for any designer to know how to classify type.

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Henry Jones is a web developer, designer, and entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience. He is the founder of WDL and ThemeTrust.

47 Comments

  1. Warren Jerzyszek Reply

    Hey, thanks for taking the time to find these ebooks out and share them with us! I’ve been looking for a good book on HTML5 for some time and hopefully I don’t need to look anymore. I cant wait to get stuck in and get up to speed with the not to distant future for web designers/developers. Thanks once again for sharing.

  2. Camille Reply

    Great collection! I checked out the previous list “10 Free Online Books” as well. Weird that it’s so timely. Just this morning, I was trying to think of ways I can buy a book on web design. This solves it.

  3. Confused Reply

    What’s so great about the HTML5 book. It’s 6 pages long, which in my opinion, doesn’t qualify as a “book”. It doesn’t say much at all. I just don’t get why others are saying this is great.

  4. Digital Marketing Consultant Reply

    Time Management for Creative People – this suggests I am not the only one that is looking into project managing my creativity! A good start.

    Already reading the section on Prioritise ‘important but not urgent’ work.
    I’ll be interested to learn about how to select which priority is the priority.

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