Good design is a combination of several different skills. The most important are: composition and typography. Composition is the arrangement elements on the pag

Good design is a combination of several different skills. The most important are: composition and typography. Composition is the arrangement elements on the page, while typography is self-explanatory. There is also the matter of illustration, which often comes into play, and can include drawing, technical illustration, and photoshopping. Start by getting some pro design software: Quark, (or Indesign) Illustrator, and Photoshop, if you don't have them already. Initial exercises: Try to re-create a page from a book or a magazine in Quark; try to re-create a logo or illustration in Illustrator; and try editing some photos in Photoshop. There is no shortcut: all of this is hard work and will take years to learn. If you want ONE book that has the absolute highest ratio of useful information to page length, the book you need is "Logo, Font, and Lettering Bible" by Leslie Cabarga. If you get that book, you will also want a copy of Fontographer.