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Product: Book - Hardcover
Title: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Publisher: Graphics Press Authors: Edward R. Tufte Rating: 5/5  You know what's so good about this book? The research, that's what. In showing both good and bad graphic design, Tufte has examples from as far back as 1686, and many examples from the 18th,19th & 20th centuries and from many different countries. Good graphic design, he argues, reveals the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space. Interestingly, some of the best examples of this come from the pre-computer era, when graphics had to be drawn by hand (and therefore more thought had to go into their design, rather than the author just calling up the Bar Graph template on the desktop.) For example, that picture you can see on the front cover of the book is actually a train timetable that packs a whole list of arrivals and departures at many different stations into a single little picture. A better example (and the "best statistical graphic ever drawn") shows Napoleon's route through Europe. It shows a) the map b) where he went c) how many people were in his army at each point and d) the temperature on the way back that killed off his army. At a glance you can see the factors that led to his army losing. AND it was drawn by hand in 1885 and is little more than a line drawing! He also gives examples of really bad design, (including "the worst graphic ever to make it to print"), and shows what makes it so bad. His examples prove that information-less, counter-intuitive graphics can still look dazzlingly pretty, even though they're useless. In some examples, he shows how small changes can make the difference between an awful graphic and a really good one. My favourite example of this is how he drew the inter-quartile ranges on the x and y axes of a scatterplot, thus adding more information to the graphic without cluttering it up. In summary, there's a lot more to good graphic design than being an Adobe guru. Reading this book made me feel like a more discerning viewer of graphics!
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Illustrator 10 for Windows and Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guide) Publisher: Peachpit Press Authors: Elaine Weinmann, Peter Lourekas Rating: 5/5 Collaboratively written by computer experts Elaine Weinmann and Peter Lourekas, Illustrator 10 For Windows & Macintosh is a no-nonsense, "user friendly" instructional guide to teaching oneself Illustrator 10. Taking a highly visual rather than textual approach to demonstrating basic and advanced techniques, this superbly organized guide supplements its pictures and sample demonstration artworks with extensive step-by-step, where-to-click, instructions to using each possible tool. Illustrator 10 For Windows & Macintosh is a "must-have" reference for all Illustrator 10 beginner through intermediate level users.
Product: Book - Hardcover
Title: Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional Authors: Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, Don Roberts Rating: 5/5 There are dozens of books that will tell you how to write 'reuseable code'. This is possibly the only book around that will tell you how to reuse code and how to modify it to your needs without breaking it. Much of it is common sense (after you've had it pointed out to you) but there's still a wealth of ideas in it that are worth having around, if only so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel' again. Personally, the most valuble knowledge I gained from the book was the relatively minor bit on unit testing. The concept of writing and starting code tests before writing the code has rippled slowly through the way I work and enriched it enormously. For me the book has been worth it on that front alone. V.
Product: Book - Paperback
Title: Official Final Fantasy VII Strategy Guide Publisher: Bradygames Authors: David Cassady Rating: 5/5 IT'S THE BEST THERE IS!!! AND THAT'S EVERYTHING I WANT TO SAY! P.S. RUBY WEAPON IS A NITWIT!!
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