Design & Graphics Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability is a very useful book for web site designers. This stuff is not rocket science: the principles of usability are well known, and it's just a matter of applying them to each domain, which Nielsen has done for web design. One note: I enjoyed the first 4 chapters greatly (Page, Content, Site design) and to some extent found the chapter on Internationalizing useful, but the other chapters (Intranet, Disabilities, the Future & Conclusion) can be skipped by the reader. I found the copious examples especially helpful (and unusual, but I assume that the full-color printing is why the book costs so much). In fact, once could get 70% of the ideas of the book merely by reading the margin notes next to each example. Roger C. Parker's One Minute designer is a treasure: anyone doing text layout should read it. I found it as enlightening as Nielsen's Designing Web Usability, and practical in the same way. The classic book of design, The Design of Everyday Things is a must read by anyone who creates objects for human use. After reading this book, you'll never be able to look at another doorknob or electric switch the same way. J.E. Gordon's Structures, or Why Things Don't Fall Down is an enjoyable, readable intruction to the science of forces. I learned about shear, stress, tension and how forces are used to build things. I especially enjoyed his explanation of how trusses work. Edward Tufte's Envisioning Information is a classic in the field of graphic design. I also think it is an important book for people designing user interfaces.His other 2 books are worth getting, though by the 3rd one he definitely starts to repeat himself. Forrest Mims' classic Getting Started in Electronics is entirely drawn/written in a spiral bound, ruled notebook. An incredible book for those seeking to entwine text and graphics into a single meaning-thread. I wish more CD-ROM designers were aware of this book! Dictionary of Symbols by Carl Liungman (Norton Press) - Want to know more about the connection between images and meaning? Looking for a tattoo design? Trying to create icons for your software program? This book is a fascinating compendium of the world's symbols. Architecture: Form, Space & Order by Francis Ching - a beautiful book, which is a canonical example of how lay information out visually. His Architectural Graphics invented and defined the handwriting used by Architects.