Inspired CSS: Styling for a Beautiful Web, DVD [DVD-ROM]

Andy Clarke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0321572653 | ISBN-13: 978-0321572653 | Edition: 1

In Transcending CSS: The Fine Art Of Web Design (New Riders), renowned designer and author Andy Clarke set the stage for the development of progressive Web site design using XHTML, CSS and other Web-standards technologies. In this new DVD-ROM video, Andy follows up on the core principles of transcendent CSS, taking you even further along the path to creating beautiful and accessible Web sites using minimal, semantic markup. In Inspired CSS: Styling for a Beautiful Web, Andy Clarke shows you how to take your design to the next level using typography, microformats, advanced CSS selectors, layout techniques employing floats, positioning, and margins, and CSS3. Throughout the video, Andy demonstrates these concepts using examples from a fictitious Web site he created. Files are included so you can follow along.

With over 2 hours of instruction, you'll discover:

•Proven techniques for creating inspiring designs that use semantic markup and CSS
•The latest advances in Web design, including the emerging CSS3 specification
•Inspiration from leading designers who embrace Web standards in their own work
•Advanced instruction on topics including relative and absolute positioning, attribute selectors and pseudo elements, the multiple column and media query modules in CSS3, and many more
•Mechanisms for binding your style to HTML documents using microformats and CSS selectors

This is a DVD-ROM.

Product Details

• DVD-ROM
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 edition (July 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321572653
• ISBN-13: 978-0321572653
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > CSS

More About the Author

Andy Clarke has been called a lot of things since he started working on the web at Stuff and Nonsense ten years ago. His ego likes words like ambassador for CSS, industry prophet and inspiring, but actually he is most proud that Jeffrey Zeldman once called him a bastard

Andy is a member of the Web Standards Project and a former invited expert to the W3C's CSS Working Group. He took ten months out of his life to write the best-selling book Transcending CSS: The Fine Art Of Web Design, but Andy's passion is amazing web design. He loves making designs for the web, writing about design and teaching it at workshops and conferences all over the world.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I expected so much less..., January 31, 2010

By 

J. Strickland "Professional Performer of Sighs" (Cambridge, MA, usa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inspired CSS: Styling for a Beautiful Web, DVD (DVD-ROM)

The old adage about judging a book by it's cover... I have been proven wrong here. I thought Andy Clarke was all about image, Stuff and Nonsense. After all, what kind of idiot still smokes in this day and age, and then puts a pic of themselves doing so on/in a book? [...] In all fairness, perhaps this pic isn't on a book -- it was simply the first pic I personally ever saw of this designer). I expected the usual arrogant head-in-the-sky advertising idiot with ideas that completely don't jive with reality.

However, I hit a wall with some of my CSS education, and was desperate, so I gave it a go, and purchased the For a Beautiful Web Microformats dvd, as it was relevant to a project. Hmm... this is looking good, making sense, and it helped me do better work for my client. So, I tried another, Designing with CSS (also For a Beautiful Web), and it was pretty good. Then, I thought, well, let's see what "Inspired CSS" is about. And that had the good stuff. I could have skipped Designing with CSS entirely.

It's about the information provided in this one -- that's where I'm won over. I'm not particularly happy with the designs presented themselves, but some of the example works of others, and the discussion of those in relation to the particular topic, those were the real moments of inspiration.

I think this dvd should be required viewing for any web designer who wants to do truly authoritative work. It's all about the attention to details, and this succinctly outlines the info to control those details for maximum effect.

3.0 out of 5 stars Not dirty enough :), November 6, 2011

By 

Riccardo Audano (Chiavari, Italy) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inspired CSS: Styling for a Beautiful Web, DVD (DVD-ROM)

I really appreciate Andy Clarke's energy and talent, and absolutely like his expression style, not to mention his pleasant English accent..he's one of the few people around who manages to be really good both at visual design and technical manipulation..and about this title.. well, the example designs are appropriate, original, ispiring.. the css code well written... so what is that I don't like about it? Well it's just Andy, being more of an artist/designer than a technical person chooses to illustrate and reviews the various designs and related techniques from the top down instead of building and explaining them bottom up.. This is a very cool and elegant way of doing presentations but unfortunately not the most effective: my personal (very extensive..) experience both as a teacher and a student has taught me that the best way to learn something is to "see it in action", "see it while you' re building something with it", from the ground up. It's certainly not as clean and clear cut as presenting an already finished or half finished result, and hacking away at the keyboard, copying and pasting, and generally messing around with the code and getting your hands dirty with it might feel boring and pointless, especially to the "artistically minded" folks like Andy Clarke.. but it's actually the best way to help people learn.. Andy Clarke can really do it when he wants to.. for examples he gives one of the best explanations about the various (and confusingly named) types of positioning strategies in CSS... but unfortunately most of the videos do not reach this level of detail and step by step construction...

I still recommend this title, because there are even too many book and tutorial out there authored by tech people without the sheerest talent or inspiration for design..and so few by people with creativity and "design sense".. but please, Andy, for your next title do try to get your hands dirty, way dirtier or do it together with someone who' s not afraid of doing so :)

4.0 out of 5 stars All About Inspiriation, November 24, 2008

By 

L. LePere - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inspired CSS: Styling for a Beautiful Web, DVD (DVD-ROM)

This DVD is really all about inspiration. The Clarke encourages intermediate and advanced web designers to push the envelope with what is possible--and even with what is barely possible--with CSS in 2008.

The message repeated over and over is that you CAN create truly beautiful, and even daring, visual design with strict, structurally meaningful markup and CSS. But there is a caveat which he clearly articulates right up front. Let go of the idea that all browsers should see the same design. So, quite a lot of the techniques that are featured will not be seen by the majority of users if you use them in your website today. Still it is very exciting to see what we are beginning to be able to do as browsers are finally implementing all the features of CSS2 and even with a few CSS3 features that some browsers have already implemented such as multiple background images.

The presentation also covers Microformats which can describe content (for example, contact information) at a very detailed level. These can be applied as classes in HTML markup and can be used by some browser extensions for added functionality almost like XML markup. And they also provide lots of handy, but still semantically meaningful, hooks for adding CSS.

Although this is clearly identified as a resource that's not for beginners, it includes one of the best explanations of CSS positioning that I've encountered.

There is quite a lot of discussion of accessibility and much attention is paid to making sure that designs work with screen readers. However, there is no discussion at all of the effect of increasing text size on designs, an accessibility issue that seems to me to be widely ignored in website design.

Clarke uses a fictitious website to demonstrate the techniques. Fortunately, since the pace of the presentation is pretty quick, all of the examples and the complete, fictitious website are on the DVD for download and study. Still, this isn't a reference type resource. The DVD format makes it a bit fiddly to find a specific thing for review. Also I was disappointed that there was no list of links to allow me to learn more about microformat specifications that have already been developed and to visit the numerous websites that he refers to as examples.