I recently read the 'a book apart' series and found it to be somewhat handy yet confusing at the same time. The books on techniques, like html5 and CSS etc were plain and simple: they gave you an insight to the new techniques that we've all learnt to use recently [some more than others], however, it's the books that talk more about design as a job that raise my eyebrows, and make me wonder if the book I'm reading is fiction or non fiction.

Design is a Job being the most recent, has its merits in places and does describe how some design jobs work and gives some tips in making it easier for yourself. However, It also contains such crazy references such as 'Slapping your client' in a bid to find out if the quote you presented to them was high enough.

it's madness!

I feel I've been taught design in a completely different way to how all these books claim to facilitate clients and 9 month projects. My guess is that maybe it's different from company to company, maybe you need to have a large studio or have multinational companies approaching you for all this to make sense. But to me, being a small designer in what seems to be a very large uncharted ocean of 'design jobs', I can't get my head around what these books claim and preach.

I think I'd much prefer a book that was down to earth and less pretentious. using metaphors that almost relate to design but are never really clarified as to how they cross over....

on the thought of nonsensical pseudo-design metaphors, it would seem that smashing magazine is a culprit here. a recent article on building a CMS started its "guide" with an analogy of making sheds. now I like a good analogy from time to time, but is one was longer than the actual tutorial itself, and lead itself so far down the analogy of shed making that I wasn't sure if I was on smashing magazine's website anymore or had accidentally clicked an advert for gardening 101.

What happened being helpful without folding our legs, hovering 2 feet from the ground and glowing golden?