The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, 2nd Edition Review

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The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, 2nd Edition ReviewI'm not a graphic designer, I'm a techie. This book is a good introduction to graphic design for the web that even I can understand.
Jason Beaird takes us through the design process in a number of steps: layout, colour, texture, typography and images. He shares his wealth of in-depth knowledge in a way that makes it accessible even to those of us who do not have a university degree in design. He doesn't dumb it down, he just explains things very well using an easygoing literary style sprinkled with good-natured humour.
By itself this book will not teach you good web design. It doesn't go into any technical details and it (naturally) focuses on the visual part and aesthetics. Things like semantics and accessibility are subordinate and some of the practices he suggests are less than ideal from those points of view.
There are even some fairly serious errors in the code samples, but those are most likely introduced by the editor rather than the author.
If you know your way around (X)HTML and CSS, but struggle with making your sites more visually attractive, this book is a very good resource. It won't automagically make you a top-notch designer, but it will teach you the foundations and - most importantly - explain WHY things are the way they are.
If you are a web design beginner the book is a good resource for the graphic design part, but don't pay too much attention to the technical parts.The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, 2nd Edition Overview
This second edition of The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is the ideal book for people who can build websites, but are seeking the skills and knowledge to visually enhance their sites.

This book will teach you how to:

Understand the process of what makes "good design," from discovery through to implementation
Use color effectively, develop color schemes, and create a palette
Create pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, and symmetry
Employ textures: lines, points, shapes, volumes, and depth
Apply typography to make ordinary designs look great
Choose, edit, and position effective imagery

And lots more...

This revised, easy-to-follow guide is illustrated with beautiful, full-color examples, and leads readers through the process of creating great designs from start to finish.

It also features:

Updated information about grid-based design
How to design for mobile resolutions
Information about the future of web fonts including @font-face
Common user-interface patterns and resources


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CSS3: Visual QuickStart Guide (5th Edition) Review

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CSS3: Visual QuickStart Guide (5th Edition) ReviewI am already comfortable with using CSS with my web design, but being self taught, I wanted something to round off my knowledge of the language, as well as prepare me for the future that is CSS Level 3. I really applaud the way this book is designed and the Author takes time to thoroughly walk you through the steps of implementing what he's teaching. Downloadable files from his website are perfect and contain just about every Selector and Declaration he teaches in the book.
The book also dives into the new HTML 5 standard, and teaches that along side CSS3, because, really HTML 5 and CSS3 need to be together. Having read HTML5: Up and Running by Mark Piglrim before I read through this book, I was already aware of all the new elements that I could style, and that helped me get through the book more efficiently. A very straight forward book, very nicely laid out, and a few chapters at the end to help you get the most out of CSS3.
However I did find a few problems, including a few very very minor typos. The typos should cause very minimal confusion if any, so I wouldn't worry about that. However there was one major flaw I found in his code. Internet Explorer has a mode called "Quirks Mode", a backwards compatible mode that helps to display older web pages more "correctly". The author states at the end of the book, that your web pages will usually always trigger Quirks Mode in all versions of IE. And this was true, using the author's demo files, I could NOT get HTML5 and CSS3 elements to display properly (if at all). It took me a while to figure out why this was, as Internet Explorer 9 (of which I have the beta for as of this review) was supposed to support most if not all of the new standards. Then it hit me! The author of this book has a slight bad habit of placing comments (in the case of his book the ) RIGHT before the DOCTYPE of all of his documents, including the code in the book. It's a very easy thing to overlook, but if ANYTHING(even comments) is placed before the DOCTYPE (the code for HTML5 DOCTYPE is ) Internet Explorer will be forced into Quirks Mode every single time, no exceptions. Surely enough, I removed the comment from the beginning of the document and the document then displayed perfectly in IE 9 beta. (Not tested in earlier versions of IE, but I'm fairly sure IE 8 is incapable of proper rendering of HTML5/CSS3 in the first place)
Despite this problem, I really enjoyed this book. The problem described above is by no means a deal breaker, but just something to be aware of when reading through the book. Never place anything before the DOCTYPE of an HTML document, except server side code like PHP, since it is removed by the server before IE sees it. I would definitely recommend this book to both beginners and intermediates of the CSS language, but it may be a bit basic and lengthy for experts of the language.
CSS3: Visual QuickStart Guide (5th Edition) OverviewWith CSS3: Visual QuickStart Guide, readers can start with a tour of the stylesheet language, or skip ahead to any chapter of the book to look up specific tasks covering just what they need to know. This task-based, visual reference guide uses step-by-step instructions, and plenty of screenshots to teach beginning and intermediate users CSS. Best-selling author Jason Cranford Teague takes readers through today's CSS essentials and provides extensive coverage of CSS3 and CSS 2.1 techniques. The book outlines what can be done with CSS3 now and how the latest browsers have implemented many of the new features. Both beginning users, who want a thorough introduction to CSS, and more advanced users, who are looking for a convenient reference, will find what they need here in straightforward language and through readily accessible examples.

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Introducing HTML5 (Voices That Matter) Review

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Introducing HTML5 (Voices That Matter) ReviewHTML5 is creating more and more a name for itself in our industry, but while it excites those on the cutting edge of web technology, many are left feeling uncertain about it. Its ongoing development has been victim of politics, fragmentation and more, leaving few to have a good grasp of its current status. However, a lot of the technologies that make up HTML5 (and more) have become mature, even implemented across all the latest browsers--but did you know that? If you've kept an arms length to everything going on with HTML5, now is the time to dive into its waters and explore.
Fortunately, you don't have to do it all by yourself: just get Introducing HTML5, written by Bruce Lawson (Opera) and Remy Sharp (Left Logic).
Exactly as its name implies, Introducing HTML5 is an introduction to all the new semantics and application-oriented technologies that make up the HTML5 spec. You don't have to be a web development expert to read this, but you'll come out closer to one when you've finished. All you need is a good grasp of web standards-based techniques, e.g. semantic markup; separation of structure, presentation and behavior; and accessibility. Bruce and Remy will teach you everything you need to know to bring your skill set to the next level.
Starting out light, Introducing HTML5 first teaches you the most important new HTML5 elements and their semantic purposes, which is especially helpful if, like me, you kept an eye on these since the early stages of HTML5, but got confused as their meanings were changed or redefined.
The book continues with the new HTML5 Forms, serving as a nice segue into the more JavaScript-reliant HTML5 Audio and Video, before it hunkers down on the real new technologies in HTML5, starting with Canvas and going all the way to the Messages, Web Workers and Web Sockets APIs.
Throughout the book, Bruce and Remy do a great job at not just introducing the new technologies, but informing you exactly of what does and doesn't work in which browsers. Even the latest releases of browsers have some glaring bugs here and there, but where fixes are available, they are presented, and where not, workarounds explained. As a result, Introducing HTML5 is a tremendously practical book, going well beyond a surface-level introduction and straight-up teaching you how to wield these new technologies today.
One thing I am personally very happy about is how the book teaches you how to implement things in an accessible way (via ARIA or otherwise), making sure that visitors to your sites aren't left out. HTML5 is exciting, but our excitement shouldn't come at the cost of accessibility--and following Bruce and Remy's advice, it won't.
The compact but dense information in Introducing HTML5 means that in just an afternoon or two, you'll find yourself brimming with new knowledge, excitement and ideas for making your websites or web applications richer, more exciting and more powerful. All in all, a highly recommended read.Introducing HTML5 (Voices That Matter) OverviewSuddenly, everyone's talking about HTML5, and ready or not, you need to get acquainted with this powerful new development in web and application design. Some of its new features are already being implemented by existing browsers, and much more is around the corner.Written by developers who have been using the new language for the past year in their work, this book shows you how to start adapting the language now to realize its benefits on today's browsers. Rather than being just an academic investigation, it concentrates on the practical—the problems HTML5 can solve for you right away. By following the book's hands-on HTML5 code examples you'll learn:
new semantics and structures to help your site become richer and more accessible

how to apply the most important JavaScript APIs that are already implemented

the uses of native multimedia for video and audio

techniques for drawing lines, fills, gradients, images and text with canvas

how to build more intelligent web forms

implementation of new storage options and web databases

how geolocation works with HTML5 in both web and mobile applications
All the code from this book (and more) is available at www.introducinghtml5.com.********There appear to be intermittent problems with the first printing of Introducing HTML5. If you have one of these copies, please email us at ask@peachpit.com with a copy of your receipt (from any reseller), and we'll either provide access to the eBook or send you another copy of the print book -- whichever you prefer. If you'd like the eBook we can add that to your Peachpit.com account. You can set up a free account at www.peachpit.com/join . Thanks so much for your understanding!

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