Some books I'm currently reading

I'm currently part of a small team who are working on web applications. We're charting somewhat new territory in that we want to use the latest learnings from Web 2.0 in terms of simplicity, fonts, etc. And we also want to introduce dynamic transitions where appropriate. Yet we still need our applications to convey a feeling of professionalism and polish. The applications will be experienced via users' browsers, but should feel as smooth and natural as the desktop experience on a Mac. It is a balancing act!

Whenever I start a new project or job, I love to grab as many books off my shelf (and from bookstores) that pertain to the work I'll be doing. I then devour them. Sometimes I'm re-reading books I've read many times before. Other times, the material is brand new.

The books I've been reading lately have been mostly DHTML/CSS references (often published by O'reilly). In addition, I've been reading more remedial but essential works to remind me about some of the core principles of user interface design. Two books in this genre that I just re-read and that I'd like to recommend are Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug and Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell. The Steve Krug book is short and easy to consume and full of very good common sense web application design advice. And Jenifer Tidwell's book provides a survey of numerous user interface design patterns dealing with all levels of user interface concerns, such as: navigation, widgets, and even colors and background textures. These two books should be mandatory reading for anyone building user interfaces today.

Two more esoteric (to some people!) books are the two I just bought that deal with the design of digital graphic motion. The first one of these two that I read was Type in Motion 2 by Matt Woolman. This hardcover book contained tons of inspirational examples of web sites, ads, network id spots, and other media - all using digital motion graphics. As the title suggests, most of the examples in this book deal with text in motion. (Since many of the user intefaces I'm designing these days leverage moving text, I thought this book would be a great reference for me.)

The other book in the digital motion space is another book by Matt Woolman called Motion Design: Moving Graphics for Television, Music Video, Cinema, and Digital Interfaces. I'm going to start reading this book this afternoon. It covers more ground than the Type in Motion 2 book. And this book seems to contain more of the theory behind when, why, and how best to use motion in digital art and user interfaces. I'm really looking forward to this book.

I've been looking for good references on digital motion for some time now. It seems like there just aren't any books that cover the world I live and work in - where application user interfaces and digital motion graphics merge. Maybe there are some in the pipeline just waiting to be published. Or maybe I should consider writing one! Anyhow, for now the best books that I've been able to find that deal with digital motion graphics are the ones by Matt Woolman.