50 Free Ebooks for Web Designers and Developers

Either you want to learn a new tool or just want to brush up your web and UI design skills, learning from e-books is the best and quickest way to do that. Being online or readily available on your computer or e-reader device, e-books allow you to learn while working or on the go.

And when you’re planning to self-learn the art of web designing through e-books, start with the free ones. Here are some well-written and free e-books for web designers, both novice and advanced level.

The e-books in this list focus on various subjects and are available in different formats as well. Let’s take a look.

Title: An Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

It’s never too late to learn Adobe Photoshop – the industry’s leading image editing software – and this e-book is a great beginner-friendly resource. This free e-book by Steve Bark is the first in the series on Photoshop that will explain the fundamentals of the software, from panels and tools to layers and basics of printing.

Once you grasp the basics, you can hop onto the intermediate-level guide that covers more advanced subjects such as vector tools, smart objects, and clipping masks.

Author: Steve Bark – Availability: Email download

Title: Flat Design & Colors

Flat design has been one of the most popular web UI design techniques. To get yourself familiar with Flat Design, take a look at this free e-book that talks about some useful techniques for creating highly usable yet visually interesting web designs.

Topics in the e-book include the intersection of Flat and Material Design, pros and cons of flat design, popular techniques, flat design resources, and much more, along with examples from 40 companies such as Google, Squarespace, etc.

Author: UXPin – Availability: Email download

Title: Everything There is to Know About Logo Design

The power of logo design should never be ignored. And so, to learn ‘everything’ that constitutes a great logo design, you can dig some great stuff in this free e-book.

You’ll learn everything from color, typography, and the rules for creating a logo, along with some good and bad examples to elaborate on the points.

Author: Blue Soda Promo – Availability: PDF

Title: Creative Suite Printing Guide

This handy e-book created by Adobe gives you free and updated information on printing from Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat with the best quality results.

The detailed guide discusses different tools and options within each package, broken down into chapters on how to produce files for print that will provide accurate color reproduction, pixel-perfect transparency matting and sharp lines, best practices in output generation, etc.

Author: Adobe – Availability: PDF

Title: Designbetter.co – InVision

Here is a series of well-written handbooks on different aspects of the design industry, including design thinking, design leadership, design systems, the operationalization of design workflow, and principles of product design.

By the dint of these useful e-books, the writers aim to introduce the best practices and insights from the world’s best design leaders. Moreover, some of the materials are available in audio format.

Author: Various – Availability: Read online

Title: The Guide to Wireframing

A comprehensive and free guide that walks you through the different purposes and uses, discussing various tools and basic principles of wireframing by industry experts.

You will also get a lot of information on UI trends and wireframing template libraries. The e-book is an equally helpful resource for designers, engineers, programmers or anyone who creates web products.

Author: UXPin – Availability: Email download

Title: Designing for the Web

This free e-book by Mark Boulton explores web designing from a gamut of perspectives, including research and the tools needed to get the job done to the vital elements of typography, layout, and color.

Author: Mark Boulton – Availability: PDF, Kindle, ePub & Read online

Title: Web Field Manual

A curated list of resources documenting the best information on designing experiences and interfaces on the web, the Web Field Manual is created by web designers for web designers.

This is a visual-heavy resource that gives you all the basics, along with sharing the best places to get more information on any web design-related subject.

Author: Various – Availability: Read online

Title: Getting Real

An e-book that dives into everyday problems that come up when designing a website is a favorite amongst web designers. It offers practical and easy-to-use solutions for dealing with common design challenges and tips on the project and team management.

Author: 37signals – Availability: Email download

Title: Pocket Guide to Writing SVG

In this guide, you’ll find a detailed introduction to writing SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and understand where to start. Using clear examples of fruit images and a brief description of attributes, you’ll learn SVG step by step with this handy pocket guide. Also available in Portuguese.

Author: Joni Trythall – Availability: Read online

Title: Speaking JavaScript

This ebook is a useful resource for both newbie Javascript programmers as well as for seasoned JavaScript programmers as it features the topic in great detail. The author of this e-book blogs about Javascript and his other interests on his blog 2ality.com.

Author: Dr. Axel Rauschmayer – Availability: Read online

Title: Adaptive Web Design

Learn the origins of progressive enhancement, its mechanism, philosophy, and a lot of practical ways in which you can apply progressive enhancement principles using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in this 6-chapter book.

Author: Aaron Gustafson – Availability: Read online

Title: 27 Page Type Classification eBook

The 27 pages of this short ebook will walk you through the key classifications for typography. It covers a quick history for each classification and core characteristics of the style.

Author: Jacob Cass – Availability: PDF

Title: 11 Things to Do with Every New WordPress Install

This guide includes 11 awesome tips on how to build a great WordPress site. If you’re a newbie on this matter and who is just going to install WordPress, this ebook was written for you.

Author: iThemes Media – Availability: PDF

Title: Building Web Apps with Go

This is a 15-chapter ebook by Jeremy Saenz, which will teach you how to quickly build web applications using the Go programming language.

Author: Jeremy Saenz – Availability: “PDF, ePUB, Mobi, and Online”

Title: Go Mobile With WordPress

It’s never too late to turn your site mobile. Learn what responsive design, mobile sites, and mobile apps is, and the tips you need to turn a site mobile-friendly.

Author: iThemes Media – Availability: PDF

Title: HTML Canvas Deep Dive

It contains exercises, interactive examples, and walkthrough lessons to get you started on building your canvas app. It is advised that you should know a bit of Javascript and HTML before going into this book.

Author: Josh Marinacci – Availability: PDF

Title: 10 Keys to Great Landing Pages

In this really short e-book, you’ll get to know the key differences between landing pages and home pages, why they are so important, and how to build smart, cool landing pages, all in less than 20 pages.

Author: iThemes Media – Availability: PDF

Title: Book of Speed

The book of speed by Stoyan Stefanov is an online, free e-book about web performance. It begins by focusing on the business implications of web performance: why speed matters to the bottom line, and then move on to changes that can improve the performance.

Author: Stoyan Stefanov – Availability: Read online

Title: PHP: The Right Way

There is so much outdated info on the Web that leads new PHP users astray. This e-book is here to stop that. PHP: The Right Way is an easy-to-read and understood e-book with PHP best practices and links to authoritative tutorials.

Author: Josh Lockhart – Availability: Read online

Title: Essential Career Advice for Developers

This book was written by the founder and CEO of iThemes, specifically for developers. It will tell you how to build your portfolio, work with clients, develop good communication skills, and inspire you to keep learning and exploring.

Author: Cory J. Miller – Availability: PDF

Title: So You Want To Be A Freelancer?

Do you want to be a full-time freelance web designer but have no idea where to start? This e-book will tell you all pros and cons of freelance web designing, along with some practical tips on how to build a strong business in this field. You’ll learn how to make money, be more organized, and find new clients etc.

Author: iThemes Media – Availability: PDF

Title: Magic of CSS

There are six chapters encompassing the box model, layout, table layout, color, typography, and CSS transitions. The book is easy to understand, well written and full of interactive examples to keep things interesting.

Author: Adam Schwartz – Availability: Read online

Title: Pixel Perfect Precision Handbook

This e-book is more about visual things, not dull long descriptions. Here the specialists from PixelPerfect share their first-hand tips and experience of many years to show you what is “Naughty” and what is “Nice”. It’s 200 pages long but you will fly through it real fast. The e-book is available in PDF and iBook formats.

Author: ustwo – Availability: PDF, iBook, and others

Title: The Woork Handbook

This book is a collection of articles written by Antonio Lupetti on his web design blog. It’s a free e-book about CSS, HTML, Ajax, web programming, Mootools, Scriptaculous and other topics covering web design.

Author: Antonio Lupetti – Availability: PDF

Title: Breaking the Time Barrier

Read the e-book to understand the difference between time and value, once and for all. This short book will not take more than an hour to read, but it could be the most important time you would have invested in the year. Just give it a try!

Author: Mike McDerment And Donald Cowper – Availability: PDF

Title: 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

Illustrated by Christoph Niemann, written by the Google Chrome team, and built-in HTML5, this charming guidebook is a handy read about how the evolution of browsers and the web is changing the way we work and play online.

Author: Google Chrome Team – Availability: Read online

Title: IOS Succinctly

This e-book packs a fair bit of information in its 118 pages, and is an essential read for anyone interested in developing apps for iOS. Ryan Hodson covers all the basics you need to know and then some, including iOS basics, multi-scene applications, audio, and a few other essential topics.

Author: Ryan Hodson – Availability: Email download

Title: Objective-C Succinctly

This e-book is a companion to the iOS Succinctly e-book, and discusses the primary programming language that underpins all things Mac, iPad and iOS, Objective-C. This e-book is an in-depth read and discusses everything you’ll need or want to know about Objective-C. Topics discussed include data types, memory management, protocols and error handling.

Author: Ryan Hodson – Availability: Email download

Title: Developing Modern Mobile Web Apps

This e-book contains a wealth of suggested patterns and practices for you to follow when designing a mobile web application. Across more or less 100 pages, the e-book discusses important topics such as choosing between a web or native experience, choosing devices, delivering mobile-friendly experiences and testing your app on multiple devices.

Author: Microsoft – Availability: PDF, ePUB, Mobi

Title: Mobile Game Design

Mobile gaming is definitely one of the hottest forms of gaming today. If you’ve ever thought about getting in on the mobile gaming market while the going’s good, give this e-book a read. The design is simplistic, but the content is excellent and covers topics such as SDKs, publishing to app stores, as well as traditional and hidden mobile game mechanics.

Author: Chroma Coders – Availability: PDF

Title: Web Design Book of Trends

This is a very good e-book for those who want to keep themselves updated with the latest trends in web design. 11 current trends and 165 visually attractive examples are featured in this e-book.

Author: Marcin Treder – Availability: Email download

Title: Taking Your Talent to the Web

Although this book was written in 2001, a lot of its suggestions and guidance on the topic of transitioning to the World Wide Web are still applicable today. The paperback version has a 5-star rating on Amazon.com.

Author: Jeffrey Zeldman – Availability: PDF

Title: UX Design for Startups

This 127-page e-book will provide you with practical tips and a list of more than 60 tools for UX design. Written in large font for easier reading, this e-book is available in 3 formats: EPUB, MOBI and PDF.

Author: Marcin Treder – Availability: ePUB, MOBI and PDF

Title: WordPress Meet Responsive Design

With so many different devices (with different screen resolutions) that we can use to surf the Net these days, responsive web design (RWD) is clearly an important topic to cover for web designers. This e-book is about RWD in the context of WordPress design. It’s available in 3 formats: PDF, Kindle, and EPUB.

Author: Michael Pick – Availability: PDF, Kindle, ePUB

Title: The Vignelli Canon

If you want to learn or understand more about the role of typography in web design, this 49-page e-book will help you do just that.

Author: Massimo Vignelli – Availability: PDF

Title: Web Style Guide

Perhaps one of the most important web design books to be published, this is the third edition of the guide written by Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton. It is offered on the site in its entirety.

Author: Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton – Availability: Read online

Title: Access by Design

This is another book written by Sarah Horton, published back in 2006, so, as you can imagine, a lot of the technical relevance is gone. However, the general information and tips are still easily applicable in today’s terms, and it is worth keeping around as a reference.

Author: Universalusability – Availability: Read online

Title: Building Accessible Websites

Joe Clark points out before the beginning of the book that it is outdated in certain areas. The book was last updated back in 2007, so you can understand that some of the info (specifically the tables as layout design section) are no longer usable. But he has some great advice on creating general layouts and how to keep your site accessible.

Author: Joe Clark – Availability: Read online

Title: Getting Real

Written by 37signals, this ebook has 16 chapters and 91 essays. They cover a wide range of topics that are not only helpful but largely practical, including how to fix time and budget issues, and how to know when to scale.

Author: 37signals – Availability: Email download

Title: Task-centered User Interface Design

Those who’re planning on building applications, particularly those dedicated to teaching computer systems, can benefit from learning more about interface design. The book has tips that will assist readers particularly in creating simple mobile applications. So, while it was not relevant a few years ago, it is relevant now.

Author: Clayton Lewis and John Rieman – Availability: Read online

Title: HTML & CSS Tutorials

This site has long been known for providing great tutorials for designers. Now, you can download the HTML Dog book for free.

Author: HTML Dog – Availability: Read online

Title: Developing User Friendly Flash Content

Not a lot of people use Flash anymore as it becomes increasingly buggy and clunky for web design. But it is still a relevant format, and this guide will show you how you can use it to create a user-friendly and accessible website. It is old, but Flash itself has not changed much since its creation to make the info that outdated.

Author: Chris MacGregor – Availability: Read online

Title: Eloquent JavaScript

Probably one of the best free resources for JavaScript information, this is an excellent breakdown that will teach you how to fully utilize and implement Java to any web format. It was originally written in 2007, but has been lovingly maintained and updated, with the last update on January 25, 2012.

Author: Marijn Haverbeke – Availability: Read online

Title: Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

Written by Shawn Lawton and sponsored by a number of well-known companies such as HP and Adobe, Just Ask has both an online and print version available. Out of date but still useful, it is one of the commonly recommended books on the topic of web design, and one of the most popular, on accessibility, you can find.

Author: Shawn Henry – Availability: Read online

Title: Introduction to Good Usability

Peter Conradie, also known as Peter Pixel, wrote a number of articles on usability on his blog. He gathered some of his more popular posts together, added some new content and put it in an ebook for anyone to download for free. Although already a few years old, it is a good read.

Author: Peter Conradie – Availability: PDF

Title: The Elements of Typographic Style Applied To The Web

Many people have read the classic ‘The Elements of Style’. Imagine that book rewritten with a focus on typography and its place in web design. This book is a must-have.

Author: Richard Rutter – Availability: Read online

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