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Design for Hackers: Reverse Engineering Beauty 1st Edition

by David Kadavy (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 232 ratings
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The smash hit web design book that debuted at #18 on Amazon.

Web design isn't just about knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. When it comes to web design for developers or web design for programmers, you need to know design principles to make beautiful and engaging interfaces.

Hackers are able to accomplish so much in so little time because they come from a community that's built upon sharing knowledge. When it comes to programming, they can learn whatever they need to learn by reading manuals, or simply typing in a Google search. But learning design isn't so simple.

Many design books try to teach design through lists of "do's" and "don'ts." But hackers know you need a deeper understanding of something to really do it well. Design for Hackers takes apart design by "reverse-engineering" Impressionist painting, Renaissance sculpture, the Mac OS X Aqua interface, Twitter's web interface, and much more. You'll learn about color theory, typography, proportions, and design principles. This theoretical advice is mixed with concrete, actionable advice such as suggestions for color scheme tools, and a chart of "all of the fonts you'll ever need."

Whether you're doing interaction design, user interface design, user experience design, iOS/Android mobile design, or good old-fashioned "web design," by the end of the book, you'll be seeing design through new eyes.
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  1. ISBN-10
    1119998956
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1119998952
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Wiley
  5. Publication date
    August 29, 2011
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.3 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
  8. Print length
    352 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"David Kadavy is the Malcom Gladwell of web design"
-Noah Kagan, Founder, AppSumo.com

"Kadavy's book does an excellent job of linking the theoretical to the practical in a very readable format."
-Brad Feld, Co-Founder, TechStars

"clear yet engaging and comprehensive"
-Vitaly Friedman, Smashing Magazine

"those coding [our world's] software and user interfaces and threading the web should all learn what this book has to teach"
-Gareth Branwyn, MAKE Magazine

From the Inside Flap

If you want to learn to create great design yourself...there simply is no way to do so with lists of rules. Instead, I want to provide you with a new set of eyes through which you can see the world anew.---DAVID KADAVY

WHY DID MONET NEVER USE THE COLOR BLACK IN HIS PAINTINGS?

WHY IS THE GOLDEN RATIO NOT ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE?

WHY IS COMIC SANS SUCH A HATED FONT?

It's amazing what you can learn about great web design by asking questions like these. Award-winning designer David Kadavy uses this reverse-engineering process in Design for Hackers to deconstruct classical design principles and techniques from web designers. Using an eclectic array of reverse-engineered examples, ranging from Twitter's latest redesign, to Target's red shopping carts, and ancient graffiti from the walls of Pompeii, he explains:

  • COLOR THEORY: How can you enliven your designs by understanding how colors interact?
  • PROPORTION AND GEOMETRY: How can you establish a grid that is suitable for the device on which your design will be displayed?
  • SIZE AND SCALE How can you create clean design just by choosing the right type sizes?
  • WHITE SPACE: How can you use it elegantly to communicate clearly?
  • COMPOSITION AND DESIGN PRINCIPLES: How can you use them to make your designs more compelling?
  • TYPOGRAPHIC ETIQUETTE: What tiny typographic details can make a huge difference in what you're communicating?

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wiley; 1st edition (August 29, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1119998956
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1119998952
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.3 x 0.8 x 9.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 232 ratings

About the author

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David Kadavy

David Kadavy

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David Kadavy is a bestselling author whose books help people be productive when creativity matters. He was design advisor for behavioral scientist Dan Ariely’s productivity app, Timeful, where David’s “mind management” principles were applied to features now used by millions – in Google Calendar. He lives in Medellín, Colombia. Follow him on Twitter or Instagram at @kadavy.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
232 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book helpful for introducing design principles and aspects like typography, composition, proportions, color theory, and sizing. They appreciate the good introduction with actionable steps and tried-and-true methods. However, opinions differ on readability - some find it excellent and engaging, while others feel it lacks depth in certain areas.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
Design knowledgeColor theorySizingStart pointReadability
75 customers mention "Design knowledge"68 positive7 negative

Customers appreciate the book's design knowledge. They say it helps them understand design principles and find it easier to work. The book covers a wide array of design principles, from typography to color, proportions, and more. It provides good insight into art and design for coders and programmers.

"The content of the book is great. It covers a wide array of design principles, from typography, to color, to proportions, to... Well, really, most..." Read more

"...I think it’s a great book for introducing the principles of web/graphic design, but the title, blurb, and back of the book duped me into thinking I..." Read more

"...I loved the format of the book. I was about 7 Chapters in when a colleague mentioned that he was sitting in on Mr. Kadavy's session at SXSW...." Read more

"...Design for Hackers was a great quick read that touched on the many aspects of design for the Internet era...." Read more

9 customers mention "Color theory"9 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's color theory helpful. They appreciate the layout, flow of design, and the golden rule. The author does an excellent job of introducing color, proportions, and type. The book includes links to online color scheme tools.

"...I learned a lot about typography, SEO, proportions, composition, and color...." Read more

"...The book includes many actionable resources: It has links to online color scheme tools...." Read more

"...There are very thorough chapters on color theory and type faces that will serve as references in projects for years to come...." Read more

"...Kadavy does an excellent job of making an introduction to color, proportions and type, both from theoretical and practical side...." Read more

7 customers mention "Sizing"7 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the sizing of the book. They mention typography, color, proportions, and font sizing and spacing. The book seems like a perfect fit for them, with proper spacing and margins for layout.

"...a wide array of design principles, from typography, to color, to proportions, to... Well, really, most of design...." Read more

"...I was impressed. I learned a lot about typography, SEO, proportions, composition, and color...." Read more

"...* The discussion of proportion, the golden ratio, and the case study involving the MailChimp logo breakdown (Chapter 5)...." Read more

"...This book seemed like it would be a perfect fit...." Read more

6 customers mention "Start point"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book's introduction helpful. It provides a good overview of the topic with an engaging narrative, actionable steps, theory, and illustrations. They appreciate the straightforward methods and techniques for creating effective design.

"...This book is a good starting point, but more information would be needed to create successful web design. Please mark if you find my review helpful...." Read more

"...reads like a college text book, blending story driven narrative, actionable steps, theory and illustrations & examples...." Read more

"...The book had a similarly good start outlining the criticality of design in even the most technical of applications...." Read more

"...Design work is still intuitive but there are many tried and true methods that eliminate a great deal of guess work...." Read more

49 customers mention "Readability"34 positive15 negative

Customers have different views on the book's readability. Some find it an excellent read with a story-driven narrative and actionable steps. The content is great, well-written, organized, concise, and deliberate. However, others feel the book lacks depth in ratio, color theory, and typography, and that it may not hold their interest.

"The content of the book is great...." Read more

"...This book gave me a reference for which fonts to use, what color schemes would work well with the message of the site, and that everything — the..." Read more

"...There were some good parts to the book. Primarily, the parts that had already been published on his blog/newsletter. They were fantastic blog posts!..." Read more

"...Why is iconography important? It is an easy to read book that is worthwhile...." Read more

Great resource for theories on web design.
4 out of 5 stars
Great resource for theories on web design.
This is a useful book, filled with theories of design principles to be used by web designers. I found the book easy to read and understand, but it can be difficult to put the theories into your actual web design practices. As you can see from the table of contents, this book contains a LOT of information. This book is a good starting point, but more information would be needed to create successful web design. Please mark if you find my review helpful. Thank you so much!
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Mike
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very solid information, ironically has a few design flaws
    Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    The content of the book is great. It covers a wide array of design principles, from typography, to color, to proportions, to... Well, really, most of design. It's all easy to understand, and it comes with a variety of examples to help illustrate and reinforce the information. It is an excellent resource for learning design, and I highly recommend it. Even with a few minor flaws, it still deserves a 5 star rating.

    Amusingly, however, I have a couple small gripes with the design of the book. As I said, there are plenty of examples to help get the point across. Sometimes, these examples are mentioned near the end of a page, and then the author begins talking in depth about the example, but the example is on the next page (the back of the current page, not just slightly to the right), requiring you to flip back and forth to finish that last paragraph if you want to see the example as you read it. There is often more content relevant to the example on that next page, so it's not like the examples feel ostracized; they don't. In fact, in most such cases, the bulk of the information is on that next page, so it wouldn't make sense to put it on the first page, either, so it's sort of a catch 22. It's just mildly annoying to not have them readily available when he first begins talking about them.

    Also, of slightly more importance, be careful with the section and chapter title pages. They're almost all black, and fingerprints show up very easily. When I tried to wipe a couple off, I actually smudged some of the ink, causing it to fade in spots. So if you get annoyed with your fingerprints on those pages, be careful how you try to wipe them off.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Edward
    4.0 out of 5 stars Did I misinterpret the purpose of this book?
    Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Rating this book is difficult. After finishing it, I would have given it 5 stars. I was impressed. I learned a lot about typography, SEO, proportions, composition, and color. It gave me a lot of reference points to use for making design decisions in those areas in the future. But something in my gut told me to hold off on reviewing this until I tried to design something and see how this book changed my process.

    This led me to confusion. I opened photoshop to design a website I already had plans for. This book gave me a reference for which fonts to use, what color schemes would work well with the message of the site, and that everything — the fonts, the images, the boxes — should be proportional to each other. The book taught me to use all these things to create a hierarchy to show the reader what’s most important. But I still felt unsure about some critical design decisions: whats a good width layout to use for a website? I use a 5K monitor, and I see a lot of well designed sites that either expand to take up the whole width of the screen or expand to a maximum width and then stop. What goes in to making that decision? What about adjusting for mobile? But then I remembered that Kadavy said at the end of the introduction, “After reading this book, you still may not be totally satisfied with the very next design that you create.” He also brushes off the importance of giving you concrete rules to follow and instead wants you to know the more abstract principles that go into design.

    So am I wrong to want to critique him for not doing something that he said he wasn’t going to do in the book? He did a great job at what he said he was going to do in the introduction. This is a beautiful and well written book.

    Could it be that I misinterpreted the purpose of the book? He clearly states it’s about understanding the principles that go into design and not a how-to manual for web design. But the title “Design for Hackers” and the subtitle “reverse-engineering beauty” imply that he’s going to go over concrete examples of beautiful designs. It even states that’s what he’s going to do on the back of the book for web design. Could it be that I missed these examples in the book? No. I read his section on reverse-engineering Twitter. It’s six pages. He mentions it uses the golden ratio for proportions (which he says later is not all its cracked up to be), and then offers user personas, use cases, and wireframes for the Twitter design. Those last three things he never mentions again in the book (I checked the index). The bit on Target isn’t even about web design. It just talks about the power of the color red.

    Maybe Kadavy didn’t write the back of the book. Or come up with the title. It doesn’t match the message of the book and it’s great advertising for persuading readers to buy the book. The title grabs the attention of any engineer who wants to learn design by speaking their language. The back of the book asks questions that you want to know the answers to, and you’ll get them if you buy the book. Or maybe he’s just a great salesman and wrote it himself. Either way, what he’s selling on the cover is a subtle bait-and-switch from what he’s selling in the intro — which he fulfills greatly.

    My theory is that Kadavy wanted to write a book on the principles of design that are used on the web (which he does a great job of in the book), but for some reason felt like it would sell better if he promised to “reverse-engineer beauty”, which he half-heartedly attempts to do. I think it’s a great book for introducing the principles of web/graphic design, but the title, blurb, and back of the book duped me into thinking I would be ready to design a beautiful website after reading it. So since you’ve read this far, you’ve been warned.
    23 people found this helpful
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  • tiutmcclain
    5.0 out of 5 stars It goes beyond being a good book
    Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I purchased the Kindle Edition of the book after reading many of the rave reviews coming from the 2012 SXSW Twitter feed. I was not able to attend the event and the idea of "reverse engineering" design was appealing to me. I took a chance on the book without review. After purchasing the book, I looked thru the table of contents and was worried that the book would be another design book. As I started to read, the Author's humor and wit surfaced in the opening pages. I loved the format of the book. I was about 7 Chapters in when a colleague mentioned that he was sitting in on Mr. Kadavy's session at SXSW. The report from the field suggested he captivated the audience in person as much as through prose. At that point, I decide to send a "tweet" mentioning the book. The simple gesture solicited a response with the Author and the conversation continued - amazing and greatly appreciated.
    I hope to the use the book in design and presentation workshops as well as a resource for a variety of website redesign projects. I would recommend the book to individuals looking for a design overview and appreciation of applied design. In my humble opinion, this book is to design what Presentation Zen is presentations. I hope you find the review useful. Enjoy the book!
    4 people found this helpful
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  • kevinc
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good Introduction
    Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Design for Hackers was an excellent introduction to thinking like a designer. Since I am mainly a programmer, I often let design go untouched as it hinders my ability to quickly implement new ideas. I also avoid design because of my lack of knowledge on the subject.

    Design for Hackers was a great quick read that touched on the many aspects of design for the Internet era. Topics such as the golden ratio, color theory, and typography were somewhat short on depth, but did open my mind to new schools of thought. And for that alone I am thankful for picking up this book.

    If you are looking for depth than this book may not suit you, however if have limited knowledge on design and you want a quick primer I highly recommend it.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • B. Eaton
    5.0 out of 5 stars Takes you where you need to go, not necessarily where you want to go
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 28, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I purchased this book so I could muddle through creating web designs for non-profit activities that didn't justify spending money on a professional (mainly because for such work there is no money to spend). I was expecting a list of "do's and don'ts" with a tiny bit of context that would at the very least stop my designs looking like an explosion in a Clip Art factory. In this regard I have been somewhat disappointed as this book actually requires me to do some creative thinking for myself - there are some excellent (almost prescriptive) guidelines in the book for things such as picking colours and fonts, but joining everything together is clearly going to take a lot of practice. If I were a churlish reviewer, rating the book on its suitability for my purposes, then I would have given it four stars. But I'm a professional who appreciates the reasons why my clients pay me for the stuff that I'm actually good at (i.e. not design) and I realise that some of my greatest growth experiences have come from learning the "wrong" (i.e. unintentional) thing. This book is one such experience.

    Anybody that comes anywhere near building user interfaces or hard-copy publications (i.e. web and desktop developers, copy writers, marketing execs, small business owners, school fair and bake sale organisers, careless cat owners, etc.) should read this book - even if only to stop you looking like a total design amateur. It's genuinely fascinating in the way that it explains why fonts, colours, layouts, and logos, look the way they do from a historical context. The message that design is a product of both intent and environment is re-iterated and illustrated with examples throughout the book. The level of detail seems unnecessary at times, but by the end of the chapter it becomes clear that the author's judgement was spot-on. You may think you don't need to know some of this stuff but actually you do.

    The author's tone is that of a good professor - he clearly wants you to learn and enjoy this stuff, so he explains everything clearly and doesn't take for granted that you already understand these design concepts. I felt like this book was educating me, but at no point did I feel out of my depth or patronised. Only time will tell if I am able to put it into practice, but right now I feel like my life is richer for having read it.
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  • Oriol Olive
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
    Reviewed in Spain on April 9, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    There are a lot of good examples and all the items are very clear.
    Really a great book for people who like to understand why it works and how to make it work.
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  • Jonas Zumkehr
    5.0 out of 5 stars Toole Einführung in die Welt des Design
    Reviewed in Germany on June 13, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Ich finde es ein tolles Buch für alle, die nach den wirklichen Grundlagen für (Web)Design suchen. Das Buch behandelt Typographie, Proportionen, Typografischer Weißraum (White Sapce) und Farben sehr ausführlich. Oft wird auch die Geschichte zur Hilfe genommen, was vielleicht für den einen oder anderen langweilig erscheinen mag. Mir hat es gefallen.

    Ich hätte eigentlich 4,5 Sterne vergeben, weil das Buch noch ein bisschen "runder" hätte sein können. Ich vergebe aber 5 Sterne, weil der Autor auf seiner Webseite zum Buch wirklich viele Themen aus dem Buch kostenlos zur Verfügung stellt.

    Achtung: Viele Beispielbilder (besonders im Kapitel Farbe) können nur richtig nachvollzogen werden, wenn man einen Kindle mit Farbbildschirm benutzt. Mit der Kindle App auf dem Nexus 7 kann man das Buch gut lesen.
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  • Robert Casanova
    4.0 out of 5 stars Alcuni consigli estetici per entrare nel mondo della grafica web
    Reviewed in Italy on January 7, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Per alcuni può essere un libro ovvio, per altri magari no.

    Si parla dell'importaza delle proporzioni, di tipografia, di estetica del colore, di tutto quello che si mescola in armonia e distingue il Bello dal mediocre o dal brutto.

    Leggetelo, vi farà bene.

    The cult of Beauty!
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  • Arnaud
    3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but confusing
    Reviewed in France on December 12, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    The book is very interesting.
    The brief history of art, the key concepts for design, the color patterns and the font choices are really good vulgarisation.

    But the SEO part is totally out. Its place is not here although it is interesting. And some concepts could have been explained more clearly instead.
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