Robin Williams Web Design Workshop (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Author), Dave Rohr (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Because "there's more to Web design than Photoshop and HTML," Robin Williams Web Design Workshop covers everything for the working Web designer including "how to survive dealing with clients."

Although Dreamweaver, GoLive, Photoshop, and other applications are mentioned (Flash even gets its own chapter), the book covers the gamut of Web design and technology issues rather than focusing on an individual application.

Each chapter is divided into sections, often no more than a couple of pages long. The chapter on backgrounds, the area of a Web page that seems to attract the worst design crimes, shows you how to avoid "the heartbreak of bad background design" in no less than eight sections.

In many books this subject would be lucky to get eight paragraphs; Robin Williams Web Design Workshop uses a clear two-column layout and plenty of real-life example screen shots to get the message across. Some pages consist only of captioned screen shots providing a great source of visual ideas.

There's a good balance between purely design-related issues and the technical stuff. Subjects like search engines, embedded fonts, DHTML, and forms are given a thorough overview, highlighting the main issues, and links to sources of more in-depth information are often to be found at the end of the chapter.

If you like to learn by example and see yourself more as a designer than a programmer, but want a working knowledge of current Web technologies from a book that you can read away from your computer, this is it. --Ken McMahon, amazon.co.uk

Product Description

With Robin Williams' guiding hand, non-professionals, artists, and designers alike have learned the principles behind elegant design. Now that much of this same audience is working on the Web, Robin has focused her attention on the specific needs of this medium with Robin Williams Web Design Workshop. John Tollett and Dave Rohr pitch in with their illustration and graphics experience to create a handsome and engaging instructional book. The ideas in this book tackle all aspects of Web design theory, including all the ways that color, fonts, clip art, photographs and so on contribute to creating a visual impression. Then the book takes the user through site planning and layout, navigability, and functionality, all in Robin Williams' clear and accessible style.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press (August 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201748673
• ISBN-13: 978-0201748673
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #154,137 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, August 12, 2001

By A Customer

I'm an intermediate web designer. I have technical knowledge but not a lot of original design sense. This book, in conjunction with Robin Williams Design Workshop, has provided me with a lot of inspiration and insight. Now I KNOW how to make sophisticated, classy web pages. Some of the stuff I knew, a lot of it not in the depth covered in this book; but some of it was really new and eye-opening. I can't help but believe that most web designers, whatever their level, would benefit from this book.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you build web pages... you NEED this book. . ., March 7, 2002

By	Fred Showker "DTG Magazine" (The Design Bookshelf) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've conducted many web design seminars and workshops around the country since 1994. I've written dozens of articles on the topic for WebDesign-Review.com -- and when I recommend a book on web design, this is THE ONE!
. . . The important feature of this book is not the lavish graphics or the superb text on how to apply good design sense to creating web pages. The most important information here is found in the chapters where Robin addresses the pre-production steps and dealing with clients.
. . . All the flashy stuff -- the graphics, the dynamics and cosmetics don't amount to a hill of beans unless the designer has fulfilled the basic obligations of presenting the client's information so that the client is happy, and readers will embrace the message.
. . . Robin presents clear, concise and even entertaining techniques for developing a copy platform (a term little used in today's flashy web design circles) an outline, and a good client working relationship.
. . . Enjoy the lavish illustrations -- learn from the crafty techniques for everything from optimized images to slicing and dicing. But above all study the chapters on WHY you design the way you do rather than how.
. . . This is a rousing Editor's Choice in the Designers' Bookshelf for March 2002 and once you have it in your hands you'll see why.
Fred Showker

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worn this one out, January 4, 2005

By	Ellen Marie Murphy "winterlace" (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Several years ago I met with the main designer at company that created the web pages for several pharmaceutical distributors in Canada. At the time, I was well versed in creating web pages using several of the professional programs including Dreamweaver, as well as writing code. The designer, however, said that they did all of their designing in Photoshop and then used a slicing technique in ImageReady before editing the site in Dreamweaver. I hate to admit it, but I had never heard of creating web pages that way, so I went home and began looking through all of my web designing books to see if I could find a description of the technique. Yes, I found it in this book.

I don't want to give the impression that this book is all about Photoshop, it clearly isn't. But, at least for me, the Photoshop information has been extremely useful! Though I do not design the majority of my sites using Photoshop, there are some that I could not have created as easily with out it. I have not used other applications that supposedly are similar to Photoshop/ImageReady, so I can't say if they can or can not do the things that Photoshop/ImageReady can.

Nevertheless, since the time I opened this book and took a real look, I have used this book more than any other web books on my shelf. Sometimes it is to simply look at the pictures to spark a new idea, sometimes it is to review a specific designing technique.

Honestly I do not think Robin can write a bad book.