It will be hard to find articles on making antennas that aren't complicated...that's because they are very complicated.
There is some software called NEC (Numerical Electromagnetic Code). It allows you to essentially "draw" the antenna using many small wires, the show how the antenna will radiat energy put into it. It will also show the antennas impedance, which is a very important aspect of making an efficient antenna. MININEC is nice and easy to use. The number of segments (wires used to make the antenna) is limited, but it's fairly high for simple structures. Go to
http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/swindex.html for an achive of a lot of NEC and NEC2 software.
Look up SWR and, impedance matching, polar plots, radiation patterns, and gain. You don't have to understand any of them to use the software, but you should know what they are to understand the data you'll get from the software.
Have fun!
