In the digital era, less and less people rely on paper books. That obviously doesn’t mean people have stopped reading books, just that ebooks have largely flooded the market.
There are numerous reasons for this, but the most prevalent is that ebooks can be brought to market quickly whilst their content is still relevant.
There are millions of ebooks available, teaching you everything from typography to apps. And incredibly some of the best are available absolutely free. Check out my list of essential free ebooks for web developers:
1) The Hiring Guide
A simple and stylish guide that will accompany you on the toughest journey in business, getting from employee 5 to 50. Digest the best thinking on everything from employer branding and headhunting to structuring an interview process. Fresh ideas and pro tips.
2) Mobile App Marketing
This ebook will help you submit your apps to app stores, understand the approval process and then eventually modify apps to make them more attractive. It’s also an amazing step-by-step free guide to mobile app marketing.
3) How to be Creative
MacLeod, an advertising executive and popular blogger with a flair for the creative, gives his 26 tried-and-true tips for being truly creative. Each point illustrated by a cartoon drawn by the author himself.
4) Breaking the Time Barrier
Spectacularly simple, remarkably true, for every small business owner who’s determined to grow, “Breaking the Time Barrier” will work for you.
5) Time Management for Creative People
This ebook helps you achieve your artistic and professional goals, with subjects including finding the method in your creative madness, identifying and prioritising your most important work, and getting in the right state of mind for focused work.
6) The Guide to Wireframing
A complete companion to wireframing, guiding you through theory and practice of creating winning designs across every stage in the product development process – from concept to launch.
7) Seven Rules for Better Typography
This handy free ebook from Font Shop provides a series of tips and techniques to improve your typography, ranging from basic best-practice such as avoiding the use of ALL CAPS, to which type of dash should be used in which scenario.
8) Pixel Perfect Precision Handbook
A comprehensive handbook on digital design covering much of our collective knowledge and process.
9) A Manifesto for Meaningful Design
This ebook provides a methodology for converting client input into a meaningful design approach. As with Hugh MacLeod’s book, this free PDF offers a personal insight into the process, demonstrating its value.
10) Mobile Developer’s Guide to the Parallel Universe
It’s a guide to the Mobile Developer’s Guide to the Galaxy that helps developers to learn aspects of marketing.
11) Butterick’s Practical Typography
Matthew Butterick is a designer who’s also a lawyer and his free typography volume is a suitably thorough collection of all the things you always wanted to know about typography but were afraid to ask.
12) The Creative Aid Handbook
The Creative Aid Handbook features unusual tips to nurture your creative well-being, boost your creative intellect, and foster internal inspiration.
13) Designing for the Web
Designing for the web is different than designing for any other medium. This free ebook by Mark Boulton explores the web design field from research to tools needed to get the job done.
14) Developing Modern Mobile Web Apps
A free ebook for mobile developers by Microsoft corporation that provides useful information on building mobile web apps using HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript.
15) Graphic Design for Non-profit Organizations
This ebook focuses mainly on design and best practices for non-profit organizations, but the content is a great resource in general and the teachings can be applied pretty much anywhere.
16) The App Design Handbook
Getting your mobile app approved on various app stores could be tedious, this free ebook helps you to check design principles when creating your icon and splash image.
17) Mobile Game Design
Another free mobile game developing ebook that help designers to learn about mobile game development, hidden techniques, SDK’s and how to publish on mobile app stores.
18) Native vs. Web vs. Hybrid App Development
A free ebook by Kinvey that help organisations to understand which platform to choose business mobile app : Native, HTML5 or Hybrid.
19) How To Make An App: HTML5 Mobile Edition
Another free ebook by Kinvey that will help you create HTML5 mobile apps and tools you can use to create HTML5 apps.
20) Define app requirements within 20 minutes
In this ebook “Define app requirements within 20 minutes” you will find all requirements and them are composed in an easy to fill-in document. This smart template should simplify your work with app developers.
21) Mobile UX Design: Top Mistakes to Avoid
Mobile User Experience plays a vital role in success of any mobile app. Try out this free ebook by AppSee that will help you avoid top mistakes while creating mobile UX.
22) The Swift Programming Language
A free Swift ebook provided by Apple company that will help mobile developers create apps for iOS devices using the Swift language.
23) iOS Succinctly
A perfect ebook for those developers who want to jump into the rushing madness to create apps for iPhone and iPad.
24) Android Programming Succinctly
A free Android mobile app development ebook created by Ryan Hodson that provides information related to Android UI and other useful information that will help you create mobile apps for Android.
25) 3 Reasons to Use Multi-Platform Technology
This ebook provides insights to help you in determining which operating system to build your company’s next application for.
26) Android Programing Ebook
A free Android programming ebook by Eduonix that will help learn beginners to understand about the Android API and updated Jelly Bean OS.
27) 3 Easy Steps to Monetizing Android Apps with Ads
Want to monetize your Android app that you have created? This free ebook from AppFlood.com will help developers to earn money through their apps.
28) Windows Phone 8 Development Succinctly
Another useful free ebook by Syncfusion that helps developers learn more about Windows Phone 8 and how to develop apps for the Windows Phone App Store.
29) Programming Windows Store Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
One of the most useful free Windows Phone programming ebooks shared by Microsoft that will help mobile app developers to program Windows Store Apps with HTML, CSS and Javascript.
30) Location Intelligence for Windows Store Apps
A free ebook by Ricky Brundritt that helps companies to create location aware applications in Windows 8.1.
31) Learn BlackBerry 10 App Development
By Anwar Ludin, this free ebook helps mobile developers to create Blackberry 10 apps with Qt, C++ and the Cascades UI Framework.
32) Logo Design Guide
Learn the basics of what a logo is, the rules of creating a logo and other things to consider like color and typography. Find out what type of things you should try to avoid and take a look at some awesomely bad design.
33) Web Design Book of Trends
This is a very good ebook for those who want to keep themselves up to date with the latest trends in web design. 11 current trends and 165 visually attractive examples are featured in this e-book.
34) Learning Web Design
This 480-page ebook will teach you how to build professional websites from scratch. From learning the fundamentals of how web pages work to building CSS layouts with multiple columns, you can find it all here.
35) Taking Your Talent to the Web
Although this ebook 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.
36) Design Your Imagination
Although this ebook is mainly written for beginners that are still learning the ropes of web design, seasoned developers will also get some useful advice from it. There are 28 chapters with numerous backing examples.
37) WordPress Meet Responsive Design
With so many different devices we can use to surf the Net these days, responsive web design (RWD) is clearly an important topic to cover for web designers. This ebook is about RWD in the context of WordPress design.
38) The Vignelli Canon
If you want to learn or understand more about the role of typography in web design, this 49-page ebook will help you do just that.
39) Pixel Perfect Precision Handbook 2
In this 165-page ebook, you will find useful quick tips and lots of illustrations on how to make sure your designs look good down to every pixel, so to speak.
40) The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
This 170-page ebook is very good for those who already have some experience in creating websites. It will equip you with the essential knowledge and techniques to make beautiful visual enhancements for your site.
41) 52 Headline Hacks
This ebook will help you to create blog post topics which will go viral. It’s like a “cheat sheet” for writers, bloggers and contributors.
42) UX Design Process & Documentation
The Guide to UX Design Process & Documentation by UXPin looks at real-life examples of design processes from companies such as Apple, Amazon, Twitter, and more. Expert advice is provided by Cennydd Bowles, Louis Rosenfeld, Ash Maurya, and others on the 7 stages of product design.
43) Testing and Redesigning Yelp’s Website
This ebook covers user testing, and optimal workshop details on UXPIN’s process for testing and redesigning core user scenarios on Yelp’s website.
44) Minimum Viable Products
In this ebook by UXPin you will find frameworks for MVPs. Also there are examples of the minimum viable products and expert opinions.
45) Ebook for Product Managers
This ebook will help Product Managers triumph in the age of user experience design.
46) Mobile Book of Trends 2014
Look no further — every mobile design trend that counts in 2014 is explained and illustrated in this free ebook. Brought to you by designers from UXPin and Movade.
47) Mobile UI Design Patterns 2014
Pinterest, Spotify, Uber, Instagram, Dropbox, Flipboard, Mailbox, Yelp — they all use mobile UI design patterns explained in this ebook.
48) Web UI Design Patterns 2014
Amazon, Kickstarter, AirBnB, Quora, LinkedIn, Eventbrite, Mailchimp, Asana — what web UI design patterns do they use and why? It’s all explained in this ebook.
49) UX Design for Startups
UX design for startups or grown-up companies that wish to keep a startup spirit and conquer the world with stunning UX design. It comprises of 127 pages of real-life based advice, 60 UX design tools and lots more.
50) Adobe Photoshop CC Crash Course
This ebook is intended for absolute beginners with Photoshop. Even if you have never opened Photoshop before, this ebook has you covered.
