Hotwired Style: Principles for Building Smart Web Sites [Paperback]

Jeffrey Veen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Like it or not, HotWired, the Web presence of Wired magazine, is one of the most distinctive and interesting sites on the Web. The site's outlandish color combinations and adherence to the latest and greatest in Web technology are the perfect counterpart to its editorial identity. In HotWired Style: Principles for Building Smart Web Sites, head Webmonkey Jeffrey Veen shares some of the design philosophies and techniques he and the other HotWired designers employ to achieve these singular results. It is not a prerequisite that you agree with all of HotWired's style choices to learn something useful from this guide. HotWired Style offers sound advice on topics such as interface design and metaphors, effective hypertext, and appropriate multimedia. Unlike some Web design books, which emphasize style, this one has plenty of useable examples and some exceptional "How We Did It" sections that provide insight into HotWired's cutting-edge techniques. This isn't a tutorial, so beginners will want to supplement HotWired Style with a book (or, as Veen suggests, an online resource) on HTML and Web design.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Hardwired; 1st edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888869097
• ISBN-13: 978-1888869095
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,302,189 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Hot Weird Style April 1, 2000

By Tim

Format:Paperback

I'm giving it 3 stars because the book had a cool design and for the work he put into it. I'm a writer and designer and thought I would post my thoughts.

It makes me feel they should take books down that are outdated. This Book was published in 1997, that seems like Ancient times for the web. I bought the book with out knowing this. Try and keep this in mind.

The book contains some case studies, this makes writing the easiest. Some examples of poorly designed sites. Lots of chatty text and stories. Basically, Jeffrey takes a screen shot of a website and then writes 6 paragraphs of text. He did have some good pointers, but if you are a designer, this book will seem basic and you should know everything by now. For instance-- "Make sure to compress your images"-- Thanks Jeffrey! "This is how much our Hotwired site has changed in the last year" --Great!. "Colors look good on a web page, they make it look beautiful!"-- Good Tip!

This could probably be one of those thumb thru books for you. It's really a strange book, a basic tip book that's hard to understand for Professionals. Remember 1997 guys?

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Subject matter largely out of date January 18, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

In addition to containing quite a bit of self-congratulatory back-patting, now, in early 2000, I felt a good bit of the subject matter was out of date. In addition, all of the topics covered are available on Hotwired's Webmonkey site and are covered more comprehensively there. Don't buy this book! Instead, surf the Webmonkey tutorials.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars This book is a joke. January 21, 1998

By James Luker

Format:Paperback

This was the first book I ever purchased over the Internet, and I was impressed by how easy and quick the process was. However, this book is also a great example of how this distribution channel can be abused to sell inferior products. Had I come across this book in a real bookstore setting I could have thumbed through it's pages before taking it up to the counter and purchasing it, thus realizing beforehand what a complete joke it is.
If you were to strip the filler out and reduce the type to a normal size and ledding, you would be left with barely enough helpful content to fill a pamphlet.

A quote from Amazon's own review:
"Unlike some Web design books, which emphasize style, this one has plenty of useable examples..."

This is B.S.
A typical "How To" example from this book gives you instructions and HTML code for adding Wired's HotBot search engine to your web pages.

I received it in the mail yesterday. I put it back in the mail today, addressed to Amazon's return dept.

Jay Luker
Andover.Net