Although PDFs have been around since 1991 (the technology was originally called Interchange PostScript and we’re all thankful for the name change), PDF files continue to litter my desktop like tiny red-bannered bunny rabbits. I download at least one or two of them per day from many different technology, design, and other sites, and half the time, they go unread. The other half the time, the PDFs are read and promptly discarded. For some reason, the ones that go unread end up in a file on my desktop called “useful.”
Two recent design-focused PDFs that may be of interest are:
10 Years of Photoshop by Jeff Schewe, which can be found on Design by Fire’s site. The PDF itself is rather ugly in a designerly way but the history is rich. There’s even a photo of the off-the-shelf Adobe Photoshop 1.0 box, which looks surprisingly like the Adobe Photoshop 8.0 box.
Budget Design by Didier P. Hilhorst and Daniel S. Rubin, which can be found at Sinelogic Press free for another few days. The focus is on workflow, which is boring, but I like the design of the document.