and also…

Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug

Krug’s short, sharp tome on making your web pages easy to use is often name-checked by designers, and rightly so. An invaluable guide to the subject of usability and usability testing, it is everything that I always wished that Jacob Nielsen’s earnest screeds were — ie. light, fun and engaging.

Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm

When I first started down the Web Standards path, I found guidance in this book. Dan Cederholm spells out the basics in simple but comprehensive terms, and then shows you how to put it into real-world practice. A web standards primer, and one that is always worth referring back to.

CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Cameron Moll & Simon Collison

Another one of those books that taught me much of what I needed to know to get started with Web Standards and to break out of the sinful ways of table-based markup. Andy Budd and colleagues first cover the basics before sharing a fistful of slick CSS techniques that will get you well down the road to becoming a CSS ninja.

It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be by Paul Arden

So well known that it’s almost a cliché but Paul Arden’s little book of wisdom deserves a place on any creative’s shelf.

Some designers flip through logo collections when they’re feeling stuck; I flip through this book.

Running Your Own Business by Kevin Duncan

An excellent book for anyone running their own business because it utterly and completely dispenses with ‘business speak’.

Kevin Duncan spells out what needs to be done in shatteringly simple terms and reading his books (or hearing him speak) is like combining a meeting with a really engaging business advisor with a great night down the pub.

How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy

Another splendid book for designers who find the ‘business’ side of the design business a bit daunting. A mixture of advice, views on different aspects of the design community, interviews and general handed-down wisdom.

MAMP Pro MAMP

In web design/development you need a local development server — a walled garden where you can work on your creations before sending them out into the world wide web. Without MAMP this would be complicated. With MAMP it's a one click process. And with MAMP Pro it’s enormously more flexible.

Snapz Pro X Ambrosia Software

If you want to explain something to somebody don’t tell them; show them. Snapz Pro X makes it incredibly simple to record not just screenshots, but video captured straight from your screen.

I can explain something with a narrated 20-second video that might otherwise need three pages of text.

Adobe Photoshop Adobe.com

Photoshop needs no introduction. It’s the undisputed king of image editiors and my only port of call for the graphical side of any design (well, apart from Adobe Illustrator).

Silverback ClearLeft

A new kid on the block, Silverback might just do for usability testing what iTunes did for digital music distribution — ie. make it so simple that people jump on board.

This Mac-only software takes advantage of the built-in webcams included with all modern Apple laptops to simultaneously record the screen and the person using it. So simple that, like most brilliant ideas, you can’t believe nobody thought of it before.

OmniOutliner Pro The Omni Group

Where to start? This application is so multipurpose that any time when I think to myself “What’s the best tool for that?” the answer is usually OmniOutliner.

Information architecture, to do lists, project scoping, code snippet libraries, contact lists, drafting business policies, timesheets… the list is endless.

Scrivener Literature and Latte

When it comes to simply writing, however, Scrivener is my go-to guy. Designed to allow writers to work in the rather non-linear way that writers tend to do, it is the perfect tool for extended text content creation. It provides the ability to fold your reference materials into the project file and, finally, its organisational features permit you to combine your various chunks of text in wonderfully flexible ways.

An invaluable app, perfect for creating and structuring the content of a design project.