My last book review was nearly a year ago. It’s time to change that.

In the last few months I struggled a little bit with designing a few websites. Yes, I am a web developer. And yes, I create good designed web pages. But usually I get a Photoshop File and build the site from that. That needed to change.

My weapon of choice was Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty by David Kadavy. And it is really great. From layout over fonts to color you will find everything covered in this book you need to design a webpage. After this you have all the basic knowledge about design. The next step is experimentation and learning from good looking sites.

Sadly the next book is only available in German, but “Kunst. Die ganze Geschichte” is a good companion for the design book. It covers the complete history of art and explains the different styles and why the artist has painted the image how he has painted it. You can get a great deal of inspiration from this. And to every cologne citizen: you can get into the museums for free on every 1st thursday. Use that!