This article was published 5 years ago, therefore the contents of this post may be out of date.

Sometimes it feels like we all have to be the office expert. From the fundamental HTML and CSS to user experience principles and even client management. The range of skills that designers and developers need is huge. Fortunately, there are tons of free ebooks that will make you a better designer or coder. Whether you’re looking for a quick guide to design tools use or in-depth books, there’s something for everyone out there.

In this post, I’ve collected 15 best free eBooks for designers & developers.

1. Pixel Perfect Precision Handbook

The Pixel Perfect Precision Handbook is four years old, produced by ustwo design studio. Seems safe to say it’s a hit with web designers, and it isn’t hard to see why. This free eBook reveals the pixel perfect principles necessary for great web design. Accessibility, design techniques, Illustrator & Photoshop insights and advice on branding & visuals are all covered.

2. Resilient Web Design

Resilient Web Design, you might think that this is a handbook for designing robust websites. This is not a handbook. It’s more like a history book.

In the world of web design, we are mostly pre-occupied with the here and now. You won’t find any code in the book but it’s here to help you build better websites. You will find ideas and approaches. Ideas are more resilient than code.You probably find the most resilient ideas from the history of web design into an approach for building the websites of the future.

3. Getting Real

Getting Real is packed with keep-it-simple insights, contrarian points of view, and unconventional approaches to software design. This isn’t a technical book or a design tutorial, it’s a book of ideas. Anyone working on a web app – including entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, executives, or marketers – will find value and inspiration in this book.

4. Pocket Guide to Writing SVG

This guide is meant to provide a quick but thorough introduction to building SVG inline, and while it in no way covers all the available features, it should prove helpful in getting you started. It’s intended for designers and developers looking to add SVG to their workflow in the most accessible way possible.

5. PHP: The Right Way

There’s a lot of outdated information on the Web that leads new PHP users astray, propagating bad practices and insecure code. PHP: The Right Way is an easy-to-read, quick reference for PHP popular coding standards, links to authoritative tutorials around the Web and what the contributors consider to be best practices at the present time.

6. The Modern Web Design Process

Web designers often think about the web design process with a focus on technical matters such as wireframes, code, and content management. But great design isn’t about how you integrate the social media buttons or even slick visuals. Great design is actually about creating a website that aligns with an overarching strategy.

7. Fixing the Enterprise UX Process

Fixing the Enterprise UX Process is based on the 25 years that Joe Natoli has in the User experience industry, this book gives actionable advice and activities for improving the enterprise design process, advice on how to run better user research, generate requirements, collaborate, and create together.

8. The Web Typography Checklist

The Web Typography Checklist eBook is here to improve typography in responsive web design, and it’s has a practical and straightforward checklist that comes with useful explanations for each criterion. Learn how to check for device consistency with your interface’s typography. This eBook has written by a responsive designer with 20 years of web experience.

9. Responsive Web Design Best Practices

Learn what the best practices when it comes to responsive web design this book contain the best expert advice, tutorials and case studies.

The eBook has actionable guide explains proven responsive design techniques & shortcuts. Case studies analysing 35 hand-picked responsive design examples from Uber, Virgin America, Smashing Magazine, Palantir, MailChimp, and others, best practices for responsive workflow, mobile-first design, navigation, layout, images, technical execution, typography, and more.

10. Color Theory in Web UI Design

Get a practical overview of colour theory: the emotions conveyed by each colour, the art of combining colours, best practices for mixing colours, ensuring colour consistency, different colour schemes, and more.

This eBook has straightforward writing style distils theory that gets you into practice with 24 visually rich examples including Mozilla, Squarespace, Cadbury, and others, learns how the six main colour schemes apply to modern web design,

11. Design Systems Handbook

A design system unites product teams around a common visual language. It reduces design debt, accelerates the design process, and builds bridges between teams working in concert to bring products to life. Learn how you can create your design system and help your team improve product quality while reducing design debt.

12. Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design

Accessibility is designing products so that people with disabilities can use them. You’ll find advice on everything from including people with disabilities in your projects, to questions for recruiting screeners and usability testing checklists. This eBook is a goldmine for user experience specialists focused on accessibility.

13. Everything There Is To Know About Logo Design

We take for granted what a logo really does for a company. Typically we see them stamped on products, hidden in the top left hand corner of a website or printed on marketing collateral just because. Yet, a great logo can tell the story of a brand, be the best advertising money can buy and and continually build trust for a business. The power of logo design is something that shouldn’t be ignored.

14. So You Want To Be A Freelancer?

It’s an exciting and challenging world of working in your pajamas and being your own boss. But if you want to be a freelancer, you have to weigh the costs. This eBook presents a few of the “ins and outs” of being a freelance web designer while offering practical tips for creating and growing your own web design business. Learn a few pointers on getting organized, tracking expenses, dealing with clients and staying motivated to do the work.

15. Breaking The Time Barrier

This eBook is here for you to understand the difference between time and value, once and for all. This 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.

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15 Best Free eBooks for Designers & Developers