Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: New Riders Press
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0321680138
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #183,486 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

This video on DVD is by renowned designer and author Andy Clarke. In his book, Transcending CSS: The Fine Art Of Web Design (New Riders), Andy set the stage for the development of progressive Web site design using XHTML, CSS and other Web-standards technologies. In this new video, he takes a step back and teaches some fundamental concepts about designing using CSS and working with a range of browser tools to open up the creative opportunities.

Viewers will learn how to design for the web by using the browser and how to lay the foundations for their designs using meaningful and accessible markup. You'll learn about the fundamentals of CSS typography and color, and how to lay out pages using CSS floats, positioning, and columns. The design workflow becomes faster and more efficient, and more accurately representative of how designs will be viewed in the final result.

Andy demonstrates these concepts using examples from a fictitious social networking site he created and files are included on the disc for viewers to follow along.

Running Time: 2 hours 2 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for int/adv level web dev/designers, March 1, 2010

By 

Matti Salokangas (Akron, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Designing with CSS for a Beautiful Web (DVD)

I have also read Transcending CSS, so was not sure how much more this DVD could offer but i'm a big fan of Andy Clarke, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised with the layout and step by step layout of the DVD. Andy provides realistic examples and walks you through the html and css as he develops a fictitious site called "Activate the Death Ray". Having developed quite a few websites myself and work day to day as a web developer a lot of the dvd was re-enforcing concepts I already understood, but it is always great to hear them from a modern day CSS master such as Andy. I did pull away with some nifty css tricks that I am certainly going to add to my collection and will make developing for the web a bit easier.

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars, because as I was watching it jumped back to the chapter menu (which was quite annoying) after some of them ended, rather than just playing through. Bloopers at the end were funny, wish Andy had been a bit more of the "blooper's" Andy during, would have made it a bit more fun.

Overall, well done, a lot of stuff to put into one dvd and i'm passing it around the dev team where i'm at to make sure everyone is up to speed with standards compliant web development and have at the least a basic idea of design concepts, such as typography and color.

If you aren't sure, buy it. You can get it on [...] for cheaper than amazon too.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new way to work, April 19, 2010

By 

A. Solove "Electric Eloquence" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Designing with CSS for a Beautiful Web (DVD)

This video was incredibly helpful. I am a professional web designer who regularly reads blogs, pokes around sites, and reviews CSS books, so I didn't expect to learn much. And, when it came to the box model or specifying colors, I didn't.

But seeing the working methods and process, and hearing about the thought process behind the design steps, was incredibly helpful. You walk through making a linear outline of the page content (which makes it accessible and well-structured) in a word processor and then HTML, then styling the typography, roughly laying out the page, and then lots of finishing touches like beautiful buttons, image replacement, etc.

I ordered this DVD as inspiration before starting a new client project, and I already feel like they're getting more than they originally paid for!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CSS based web design tutorial, April 30, 2010

By 

Pam R (Port Huron, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Designing with CSS for a Beautiful Web (DVD)

This video shows the how and why of moving to standards compliant accessible web design. In it, CSS wizard, Andy Clarke presents his belief that creating a web site should be approached from a browser instead of from a fixed mock up of the design. He explains how end users can alter a layout as they often enlarge or shrink web pages to fit their screens or to make the print easier to read. Instead of beginning with a model that's done on a rigid page meant for print he relates how using a browser will let a design flow through all the changes that might be affected by the end user or viewing device.

Along the way, Andy covers the basics of CSS layouts, as well as working with type and color to enhance a design. His methods, tools and resources are shared. I particularly liked the way he pulls the background color throughout the other areas of a website. The humorous outtakes at the end of the video show a more comical side than is seen in the main portion.

If you haven't already been convinced to move to a more modern approach when building websites or need a refresher on why to do so, this video will be a valuable tool. Following Andy's advice will save work time as well as enhance design skills. I thoroughly enjoyed this DVD and would recommend it to anyone wishing to reinforce their web authoring ability.