Just a few months back, i had bought “The Principle of Beautiful Web Design” from sitepoint.com and my review is that its a great resource book for web designing. In this book, despite of focusing on tips and steps to how to create beautiful web design, it teaches us the basics of web design, typography, coloring, color balance, texture, use of white space etc etc. Overall, i would recommend it if you would like to learn more about web designing.
One thing that i learnt from the book is the importance of creating a wireframe before doing any web design. Most web designers that i know, including me, did not bother to create any wireframe before doing any designs. For me, i think that creating a wireframe is unnecessary as i thought i can “picture” the whole layout in my head. Normally, when i do web designing, the outcome of the design is very different from the inital design that i wanted. This is where doing wireframe comes in. When doing wireframe, if gives you a clear idea of how you want your designs to look like in the end and while doing your designs, always refer back to the wireframe as a guideline. Another important factor is that, it allows designers to choose the “best design”. What do i mean by best design? Normally, when web designers started on a design, they don’t just do one wireframe, they do several wireframes. And then, they choose the best design out of the several options and began working on it.
Another thing i learnt is about the “discovery of the design process”. This refers more to meeting clients to “discover” what type of designs they wanted for their company. Also, the importance of bring a voice recorder when meeting clients. And one important thing is that always do research for the client company before meeting them. Research for information like, what the company do? role of the company? does company has exsiting logo etc.
This is the final wireframe that i had chosen for my blog. 
