Resources

I am proponent for continuing self-education. Curiosity drives me and I love to work with curious people. Remember, application is the best learning tool. Challenge yourself and your ideas every day.

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UX reading

• Beginning fundamentals:
  • Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
  • The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett
  • A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making by Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler
• Understanding the user better
  • Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
• Science of users
  • Designing with the Mind in Mind by Jeff Johnson
• Marketing
  • Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising by Ryan Holiday

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Visual design reading

• Layout
  • Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A Visual Communication Manual for Graphic Designers, Typographers and Three Dimensional Designers by Josef Müller-Brockmann
• Typography
  • Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton
• Branding
  • Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team by Alina Wheeler

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YouTube videos

I highly recommend watching YouTube videos on every design topic or question you may have. You'll get a variety of perspectives, which is great!

• High Resolution: a Video-series on Design

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Open source

Zero barrier to entry aside from your technical portal device and your digital umbilical cord.

• Color
  • Adobe Color CC (previously known as Adobe Kuler) a free web based color palette tool with color rules.
• Video game development
  • Unity 3D (royalties after a game makes a specified amount; additional restrictions for mobile)
  • Unreal Engine (royalties after a game makes a specified amount in a calendar year)
  • Blender 3D creation suite

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Level Up

I challenge you to try this list out for 1 week. Regardless of your experience level, there is always another horizon.

• Feed your curiosity & learn something new every day
  • What does a molecular biologist do?
  • How is an oil rig constructed?
  • What materials are used to fabricate X, Y, Z?
  • How many species of penguins exist? Insanity.
• Challenge perceptions of your previous self
  • One of my favorite exercises is to deliberately catalog art that I would never have created; especially if the art elicits a negative or neutral response. Clearly that work resonated, and I want to know why. Just by adding it to my visual library I have a unique reference point outside of myself. Not liking something doesn't mean it's bad or socially immoral or bound by some other artifice of constraint - I'm forced to think differently.
• Keep a reference book open and understand a new term every day
  • I'd like to think this is why libraries have enormous books on display with pages flipped every so often.
  • Truly understand the term or concept enough to relate to someone else.
  • Review previous terms.
• Try out a new method/process/technique/software related to your craft
  • Experimentation is critical to improvement.