Customer Reviews

Professional Web Design: Techniques and Templates (with CD-ROM) (Charles River Media Internet & Web Design)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the classroom, when I teach web design, unless the courseware comes with templates the students spend the time creating pages from scratch. While this is worthwhile for novices, there are times when you need templates for some web projects.

In this book the authors has given you over 200 HTML templates, which are on the cd-rom, to work with. By following along with the book you'll end up creating over 50 pages. You find yourself working with frames, forms, tables, graphics and CSS.

The book should have had the design outputs in color to allow you to be able to see what the outcome would like. I did like the 3 case studies included, which take you from a basic web page to a very advanced design layout.

The cd-rom included trial version of Photoshop, FireWorks, Flash and HomeSite all of which have newer versions out and should be updated for the next edition. I found the JavaScript Cook to be a very handy and useful tool for creating scripts without an in depth knowledge of the coding techniques.

The other handy utility included in the HTML/CSS Developer's resource guide, which makes the creation of CSS easier. With all the helpful tool and tricks the book is certainly a welcome addition to my HTML/Web Design library. Overall a very good value for the money.

As the title says, this is a book on the design of web pages. It is focused on producing designs that reflect many of the modern trends in web design thought. There was a time a few years back when the web sites of all the major companies used Macromedia Flash to animate, that is create movement, on their home pages. For instance, the authors report, quite accurately I think, that such animation has not proven suitable for the majority of web sites. Like Microsoft's "clippy" paper clip "help" thing that used to appear at the bottom of Word/Esce./Etc. a lot of people really don't like moving things.

These authors really like mortised sites. This design philosophy uses tables within tables within tables to provide the view the authors are trying to create. The designs they give in their fifty included templates are of the mortised type. The trouble with mortised sites is that you have to receive all of the information for the site before the browser can begin drawing the tables on the screen. With todays fast processors, this is not usually a problem. But they can get dreadfully slow if you are accessing them over a slow line, especially if they include a lot of graphical images.

The back of the book says this is for Beginner to Intermediate. This does not mean the Front Page level beginner. You'd best have some idea about HTML before you start this one. I'd say it's an intermediate level book, which is reflected in the wording on the back page.

All the designs are heavily mortised, require a LOT of nested tables, and are mainly geared toward content-heavy sites with extensive menus. (For those of us who think that paying hundreds of dollars of Photoshop is ridiculous when Paint Shop Pro does the same for 1/6 the cost, be warned the templates are Photoshop-centric.)

As someone already said, these are visually stunning examples, but very tables-intensive which can be time-consuming to edit/code and may be problematic for impaired site visitors who rely on web-reading technology. For the dozen or so examples (and their variations), decide for yourself if inspiration is worth the cost.

I have an intermediate knowledge of HTML, some CSS, and javascript. I know a little bit about photo editing (with Paint Shop Pro 7). I was looking for a webpage design book that wouldn't overwhelm me with hoards of technical code, or tons of eye candy and graphic designs I couldn't do without having to take a 12 month course in Photoshop. This book was JUST what I was looking for!

It starts by briefly discussing changes in web design over the years as well as refreshing your memory of table and css code that's used throughout the book and in the 50 designs included in the cd. Then, it goes on to explain what mortising is, without boring you with endless babble, and why you should apply it in your designs. At this point, the author has made his case and then proceeds with teaching you how to do it.

There's plenty of examples, source code, as well as tips on how to use certain aspects of Photoshop to do everything in the book. (Perfect for me since I had never used PS).

50 designs + source code/files + referrence books + trial software = icing on the cake!

Worth every penny! Get this now!

Calling this book "professional" in any sense of the word is ridiculous. It is, number one, outdated, with a lot of material on structuring a web page using tables, which has been deprecated for years. I mean, there are people who still do it, but why would anyone teach it? It is outdated and makes for poor websites with a lot of unnecessary overhead.

The templates are neither useful in the structural sense nor are they artistically adequate. I would not publish a webpage using any of them -- the design skill level is simply below the level I consider acceptable.

I spent a bunch of money on this thing and was excited when it arrived. After browsing it for ten or fifteen minutes, I threw it on the floor in disgust. A complete waste of money. You can really learn web design much better by simply searching for tutorials on the internet, and you can get better templates online for free. Or once you learn how to use HTML and CSS correctly (which this book will not teach you) you can make your own structural templates better than the ones in the book.

As far as the design aspect -- well, pure design has such a heavy artistic element to it, it is difficult to teach. But just looking at the hundreds of not-particularly-attractive templates in this book, you can be assured that you aren't going to learn anything startling or "professional" about web design.

An absolute waste of money. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

I'm a graphic designer. For years I've explored multimedia and web design on my own, but wasn't sure my approach was right. This book not only confirmed what I did know, but explained the stuff I didn't. The templates alone are worth the price. Yes, I believe every designer worth their salt, print or web, should own PhotoShop and knowing HTML is helpful. But I must disagree with the reviewer who said this book isn't for WYSIWYG/Dreamweaver users. Understanding *why and how* HTML, CSS and nested tables function from a coding standpoint only makes working with Dreamweaver easier. This book is a MUST for anyone wanting to design web pages--for a living or otherwise. THANK YOU CLINT ECCHER for writing the book I'll never have time to write.

The title is misleading; it is not a professional approach to web page design because it relies on tables for page style. Using tables for design was deprecated by W3C when they developed CSS. A professional, "web standards" page uses CSS for layout and design. Tables are used to make TABLES.

This style of design makes it VERY difficult to change or modify a web page later. This is not something professional designers are willing to accept. Tables are easy to learn and this style of web page design is suitable for someone (with some knowledge of HTML) who wants to make their own site.

It will help you make a good looking site, save you money and get you up and running faster than you could otherwise. But there is a price to pay for that. It will give you grief if you decide to make significant design changes or want to hire someone to change it for you (they will charge you an arm and a leg to do it).

If you might want to design sites for extra money later on, you must make a serious effort to learn CSS. This is not an easy task but has significant rewards.

Over ten years ago, W3C realized that HTML had serious limitations and they developed CSS to solve the problem. CSS divides web page design into two parts. HTML deals with the content (the writing, images and stuff like that). CSS deals with design and style (what the stuff looks like, where it goes on the page, color and things like that).

The two are VERY different and when you use TABLES as a substitute for CSS, you are creating major problems for those who follow in your footsteps (including you). I hope this makes things clear and helps you decide if this book is for you.

One last thing. There are a huge number of resources, free, on the web to help learn CSS web page design. Just do a search for 'web page css: (design - tutorials - templates). Do a search and learn a little about CSS design to see what you want to do before you decide to buy this. Good luck. Designing web sites is fun, if you have gobs of patience and a very low frustration level.

No book is ever perfect but some books are sure close and this happens to be one of them. This book teaches mortising which is break up sites in smaller chunks for faster downloads. I really appreciate the part about slicing that went a step further to say which slices to be saved in Gif or Jpeg and the rational. Mr. Eccher please be a little more lucid with some of your explanations and it would be nice to show alternatives, for example masking.

Yes this book focuses on photoshop but if you know how paint shop pro some of the design techiques should be lucrative.

I am a developer and can make a web page do anything I want it to do. But my design skills (prior to reading this book) were for the most part, 2 columns black text on white background. maybe a picture here or there. I could not design a site to save my life. This book has changed all that. After reading it, excited with my new found knowledge, I went to the web designers at my company (probably some of the best anywhere) and told them everything I learned. Thier reaction was "duh... We know that..."

Even without the templates, this book will open a new world to non designers. The templates are just icing on the cake. If you are a developer, that can make a web page sing, but have the design skills of a slug, then this book is for you. It will give you the design skills that you need to do anything you want!

I'm an ASP/SQLServer web developer who is short on graphic design skills and overall design approaches. I have been searching for a good book or instructional material on how to make professional looking sites. Since I'm just learning Photoshop and my skills are more on the 'developer' site of the spectrum, it has been difficult to find a 'how-to' book to take my skills into that area without starting from scratch and the basics. After purchasing many other books and being disappointed at their level or depth, I bought this GREAT book on Sunday and had most of a site (based on one of it's excellent templates!) up by Monday after reading it almost cover to cover. The book takes you step by step along the way and the fantastic thing is that you can follow the techniques used to build the templates to see it work 'in action'! I can't say enough about this book. Don't waste your money and time with anything else...if you are like me, this book will finally put the quest for a good website design book to an end once and for all. I feel like I now know the secrets of fine web design and can now approach my projects with great confidence...