What are your "Design Bibles"?

I am looking to update my design skills by purchasing some reference material. Does anyone have any books they swear by that pertain to layout, design standards, etc.?

Thanks in advance.

 

I just look at other Web sites. I don't look at the code, but rather the look and feel of the sites themselves.

 

Jacob Nielsen's useit.com is the authority on usability. He says that pretty websites that are hard to use are failed designs.

 

And he's right, too.

 

Definately right, when i first started, my sites looked great (purely from my love for design) but the functionality and SEO was really poor thus making my ROI bad.

I had a simple enlightenment and made a couple of really simple sites but optimised to the fullest, and now I swear by that mentality

 

I have a list of recommended books that I have read and swear by at my blog:
webfabric.blogspot.com
I am a noob to this site, so I can not live link but the names of the books are on the right hand side under 'Recommended Reading'.
If I had to name just one, it would definitely be 'Don't Make Me Think!' by Steve Krug. I am a .NET programmer by trade so I was used to thinking a certain way about code and interface design, but the design books I have read have completely change the way I view the web and everyday objects.

 

It's not a book but i really like the 'w3' sites for standards..

 

There's only one "W3" site for standards - and that's www.w3.org

Before anyone thinks about "correcting me" I'd like to remind everyone that www.w3schools.com has absolutely nothing to do wih the W3C itself.

 

Same here.