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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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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With so many web design blogs available on the Internet it can be hard to know which ones are worth checking out, so we have compiled a list of 20 web design/development blogs we think you should try and read. Some of the websites in this list you will have heard of but some are small blogs with fantastic content that we hope you will check out.

Design Instruct

Design Instruct is a regularly updated web magazine for designers and digital artists where you can find and learn design tips and tricks.

Twitter – RSS Feed

UX Booth

The UX Booth is a blog by and for the user experience community. Our readership consists mostly of beginning-to-intermediate user experience and interaction designers, but anyone interested in making the web a better place to be is welcome.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Vandelay Design Blog

Vandelay Design Blog is a blog which showcases the best in design and resources, it also runs regular giveaways.

Twitter – RSS Feed

The Web Design Blog

The Web Design Blog was setup in 2009 by freelance web designer Phil Matthews with the intention of providing web design news, articles, tutorials and interviews for everyone to enjoy!

Twitter – RSS Feed

Just Creative Design

Just Creative Design is the personal portfolio of Jacob Cass, the blog includes graphic design tips, articles and resources on most subjects of design.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Six Revisions

Six Revisions is a blog ran by Jacob Gube that publishes practical and useful articles for designers and web developers.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Line25

Line25 is a blog ran by Chris Spooner, the site is based around web design and includes a wide range of posts to help feed your creativity.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Tutorial9

Tutorial9 is a collection of teachers, experts, and caring folk from around the world, all gathered in one place to pass along our knowledge to absolutely anyone interested in learning.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Onextrapixel

Onextrapixel is a blog dedicated to delivering useful, comprehensive and innovative information for designers and web developers.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Webdesigner Depot

Webdesigner Depot is an exciting blog designed to explore different web and graphic design techniques, great examples and best practices.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Design Heaven

Design Heaven is a new design blog which posts inspirational articles showcasing the best in design from around the web to help inspire designers.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Speckyboy

Speckyboy Design Magazine was originally the personal portfolio for Paul Andrew but is soon grew into a blog. They cover a large variety of web design and development based topics.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Hongkiat

Hongkiat is a technology and design blog that constantly showcase some of the best materials, resources from the Internet to inspire their readers.

Twitter – RSS Feed

DesignM.ag

DesignM.ag is a community-based website for web designers and developers. The site includes a popular blog, a user-submitted news section, a design gallery, and a design job board.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Design Shack

Design Shack showcases inspiring web design, alongside resources and tutorials for you to succeed in the same way.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Colorburned

Colorburned is a design blog featuring some of the best design news, resources, and tutorials from around the web.

Twitter – RSS Feed

PelFusion

PelFusion is a design blog, which covers a large area of web design and development as well as running regular industry related giveaways.

Twitter – RSS Feed

[Re]Encoded

[Re]Encoded is a resource both for active web designers/developers and for people who simply enjoy good design and want to learn more, see more and do more than they already do.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Tutorialzine

Tutorialzine provides you with high-quality tutorials, freebies and resources that will help you with your day-to-day development needs.

Twitter – RSS Feed

Abduzeedo

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. They also include tutorials on Photoshop and Illustrator.

Twitter – RSS Feed

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There’s a never ending supply of information out there for us web designers. If there’s something we need to learn, we can find it in one form or another. Sometimes it may be on a blog or it could be in a book. While you may have to shell our some money for a good web design book, there are a number of them out that have online versions that are totally free. Here are 10 you should find very useful.

A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web

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.

Getting Real

Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries.

The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web

In order to allay some of the myths surrounding typography on the web, is structured to step through the principles found in Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style, explaining how to accomplish each using techniques available in HTML and CSS.

jQuery Fundamentals

jQuery Fundamentals was written to help you understand the fundamentals of this JavaScript library and teach you how to complete basic tasks with jQuery.

Web Style Guide, 3rd Edition

Consistently praised as the best volume on classic elements of web site design, Web Style Guide, now in its third edition, maintains an emphasis on fundamentals while bringing every chapter topic up-to-date.

Access by Design

Access by Design offers guidelines for universal usability, and the online version includes examples and links to related articles and tutorials.

Web Designer’s Success Guide

Web Designer’s Success Guide is the definitive guide to starting your own freelance Web design business. This book gives you step-by-step instructions on how to do things like transition from full-time to self-employment and how to price your services appropriately.

The Web Book

The Web Book contains all the information you need to create a Web site from scratch. It covers everything from registering a domain name and renting some hosting space, to creating your first HTML page, to building full online database applications with PHP and MySQL. It also tells you how to market and promote your site, and how to make money from it.

Dive Into HTML 5

This book seeks to elaborate on a hand-picked Selection of features from the HTML5 specification and other fine Standards.

http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/index.html

This book will help you understand and apply principles to make your products more accessible.

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I know what you are saying. What do you want me to do? Turn off my computer? What? Yes! Turn it off and step away. Sometimes we need to disconnect from the internet and revert to a more basic technology: Books! Here are 8 suggestions from my bookshelf.

Bullet Proof Web Design

This book helped me learn how to make table-less websites. Dan Cedarholm takes you from the basics to the advanced css ninja skills. He also shows how popular websites are (horribly) coded and then shows you a better way to code them. This book is a staple in my library which i still reference a lot.

CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions

The only other css book I own. This book is the older geekier cousin of bullet proof web design. less pictures, way more technical, but still amazing. this book gets down into the nitty gritty of css. Css mastery is worth reading, and re-reading again and again.

Caffeine For The Creative Mind

Not specifically a web design book but a great addition to a library anyways. Do you ever feel stuck or uninspired? This book has tons of little creative exercises that will jump start your brain and inspire you.

Don’t Make Me Think

Another great staple in a web designers library. The information in this book may seem obvious but its really good to sit down and think about usability and testing. Web conventions exist for a reason! This book is a quick read that will get you thinking about your users.

Making And Breaking The Grid

This book was required reading (or rather viewing) for one of my classes in college for a good reason. Grids are the skeleton of good design – without them our designs would be chaotic and unorganized. Once you know how to establish a follow a grid structure, you learn how to break it!

History Of Graphic Design

Web design is deeply indebted to its closely related cousin graphic design. If you don’t read this book (which you probably should) just flipping through it will surely give you inspiration. Its amazing to see what designers produced before computers existed! Learn from your design elders and read this book!

Thinking With Type

While this book may be written for a print designer we can still gain alot of information from it and apply it to the web. Thinking with type is a great intro to typography book with tons of pictures and examples of how to make beautiful type.

Fingerprint

Fingerprint will help you think outside the ‘div box’ that we often get trapped in as web designers. This book is packed with hand drawn inspiration and insight from designers about the creation process.


Other Resources



Thinking with type: the companion website


Design History
Design History is a great site by Nancy Stock-Allen that provides a brief outline of the history of graphic design.




Elements of typographic style applied to the web


What are some of your favorite web design related books?