Read the first sections of our interactive books ‘Typography and layout’ and ‘User Interface’
Read the first sections of our interactive books ‘Typography and layout’ and ‘User Interface’
Meet our interactive books ‘Typography and layout’ and ‘User Interface’ in a revolutionary web format!
Preorder is open. And—you can start reading the books right now: the first sections are available for subscribers. If you subscribe to a book before it’s fully published, you will get 2 extra months for free. The subscription isn’t ticking yet—we’ll start your subscription clock later. The book is being published in parts, and the readers still have their paid year plus 2 months as a gift.
It’s a good time to subscribe or present the subscription to your friends as a Christmas gift.
Typography and layout
‘Typography and layout’ is Artem Gorbunov’s practical guide to typography and layout with an emphasis on design for the screen. The interactive handbook is intended for web and user interface designers, software developers, content authors and editors.
Unfortunately, many books about typography and modular grids don’t answer exactly how to create an expressive page with a solid layout. At best, the designer is left with no choice but to earch for scattered clues of meaning and copy some decent examples.
‘Typography and layout’ consistently answers the how‑to question. The author visually explains how to create clean and compact layout for websites, online services, applications or media.
The first section ‘Layout basics’ is already available for subscribers. In this section, Artem Gorbunov introduces the rule of the inner and the outer, the principle of modularity and the rule of anchor objects. To show how the principles work in practice, the author redesigns a poster step by step. Readers learn how to place elements in a simple layout, control the proportions, margins, line width and spacing.
User Interface
Ilya Birman’s ‘User Interface’ is a practical guide to the user interface. This interactive handbook is intended for web and user interface designers, editors, managers, and everyone who is involved in product development.
There are plenty of works on the user interface, but the classic writings are too academic and illustrated with obsolete examples. At the same time, contemporary authors discuss design trends and surface details, express personal opinions, but do not provide fundamental knowledge. The readers can’t put an integral picture and a set of values together, so they are left with no choice but to draw inspiration from Dribbble and Behance.
This handbook progressively reveals the key principles of a good user interface. They worked twenty years ago and they will work twenty years from now. Each principle is illustrated with both historical and contemporary examples. After underlining the principles, the author proceeds to the laws of interaction, then discusses the language of the interface, both textual and graphical. The final section of the book addresses screen layouts.
The first section, ‘Fundamentals’, is already available for subscribers. In user interface, visual trends change, new platforms appear, input and output methods evolve. But the basic principles—humaneness, absence of modality, consistent magic—have been and will be relevant in any case. That’s why it’s not just the first Macintosh and the latest Apple Watch among the examples. We’re also showing a microwave oven, car navigation system, DJ CD player.
The revolutionary interactive format of our books
We have radically reconsidered the format of a digital book.
Existing e‑books stand far from high standards of paper book publishing. Typography is poor, navigation and search is inconvenient. The layout and fonts are not controlled by authors and publishers. E‑books like these are randomly divided into screen pages: each time you open them, the same illustration may appear at the top, bottom, or even on the next page. On tablets, the pages get mixed up because of an accidental device rotation.
The bureau’s interactive book combines the convenience of scrolling and visuality of a paper book. It is divided into spreads that you can scroll through from beginning to end. The text on the spread may be scrolled when necessary, while the illustrations retain their position on the screen. The reader can easily remember the location of an idea in the book and return to it later. Spread is a semantic unit rather than the result of mathematical division of the book into “screens”.
Christmas gift
By the way, you can present a subscription as a Christmas gift. Make friends, acquaintances, and colleagues happy. When you present a book as a gift, you will pay for the year of subscription and not have any additional charges. The gift receiver will get a nice letter with a message about the gift from you. When the subscription ends, they will be able to use their bank card to extend the subscription at a lower price.