Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites. By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). By the time you've finished perusing the volume, you'll have a new understanding of the graphically rich, fully accessible sites that CSS design facilitates. In sections on design, layout, imagery, typography, effects, and themes, Dave and Molly take you through every phase of the design process--from striking a sensible balance between text and graphics to creating eye-popping special effects (no scripting required).
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Dave Shea is the creator and cultivator of the highly influential CSS Zen Garden Web site (www.csszengarden.com). As well as being a member of the Web Standards Project, Dave is the owner and director of Bright Creative, and he writes about all things Web for his daily weblog, mezzoblue.com. With over 6 years of experience working on the Web, Dave is a leader of the new generation of Web designers that believe in responsible Web design.
An author, instructor, and Web designer, Molly E. Holzschlag has written over 27 books related to Web design and development. She's been coined "one of the greatest digerati" and deemed one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web. There is little doubt that in the world of Web design and development, Molly is one of the most fun and vibrant Web characters around. As a steering committee member for the Web Standards Project (WaSP), Molly works along with a group of other dedicated Web developers and designers to promote W3C recommendations. For more about Molly, check out www.molly.com.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
167 of 175 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you've already picked up the basics of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and want to see what is *really* possible, check out The Zen of CSS Design by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag (New Riders). This is a unique book...
Chapter List: View Source; Design; Layout; Imagery; Typography; Special Effects; Reconstruction; Closing Thoughts; Index
This book covers the topic of CSS in an unusual fashion. Dave Shea came up with the idea for a web site called csszengarden.com. The basic premise is to have a standard HTML file, complete with class and id tags that can not be changed. The goal is to then use a CSS style sheet to apply unique styles and graphics to the page, resulting in some stunning visual displays of web design. But the basic thing to remember is that the page content doesn't change, just the CSS design file that's applied to it.
Shea and Holzschlag take some of the more unique designs that have been submitted and use them to explain various CSS concepts and techniques that can be used to push your design efforts beyond the ordinary. The techniques are very well documented, as well as giving explanations on what will and will not work in the major browsers due to differences in CSS rendering. Since so much of the design is driven by choices in graphics and typeface, you'll also be exposed to quite a bit in the way of design concepts, how to choose and render text, different graphic formats, and so on. While none of the information would be considered a complete reference work on any given subject, you do have enough information to apply the technique and continue on from there if necessary.
In addition to being a book to teach technique, it also does a wonderful job in providing inspiration.... Read more ›
Chapter List: View Source; Design; Layout; Imagery; Typography; Special Effects; Reconstruction; Closing Thoughts; Index
This book covers the topic of CSS in an unusual fashion. Dave Shea came up with the idea for a web site called csszengarden.com. The basic premise is to have a standard HTML file, complete with class and id tags that can not be changed. The goal is to then use a CSS style sheet to apply unique styles and graphics to the page, resulting in some stunning visual displays of web design. But the basic thing to remember is that the page content doesn't change, just the CSS design file that's applied to it.
Shea and Holzschlag take some of the more unique designs that have been submitted and use them to explain various CSS concepts and techniques that can be used to push your design efforts beyond the ordinary. The techniques are very well documented, as well as giving explanations on what will and will not work in the major browsers due to differences in CSS rendering. Since so much of the design is driven by choices in graphics and typeface, you'll also be exposed to quite a bit in the way of design concepts, how to choose and render text, different graphic formats, and so on. While none of the information would be considered a complete reference work on any given subject, you do have enough information to apply the technique and continue on from there if necessary.
In addition to being a book to teach technique, it also does a wonderful job in providing inspiration.... Read more ›
55 of 56 people found the following review helpful
By W. Boon
Format:Paperback
This book should probably be called A Portfolio of CSS Design. It contains lots of nice pages showing examples of some lovely CSS design. However, it doesn't present enough constructive information to really help you. Tell me exactly how the page put to together rather than some obscure problem which the average CSS user is unlikely to encounter. I don't know who this book is aimed at. There's not enough in it for it to be a tutorial book and while it's nice to look at, is this any better than viewing the actual web pages on the Internet?
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is important to understand: this is not a book that will teach you the fundamentals of CSS. Repeat, NOT a primer on CSS. Rather, it is a book aimed at users who want to write or improve the aesthetics of their website by incorporating CSS. For that reason, it is fairly solid. Most of the premises are fairly basic and straightforward, covering the usual elements of type, layout, images, grids, etc. It is a decent resource for ideas and perhaps some alternative ways to approach building or rebuilding your site (using CSS presumably). Advanced designers would probably want to look elsewhere for ideas, theories and techniques.
If you want to understand what CSS is really about, in terms of writing it (to make your site as pretty as the examples in this book) you should turn elsewhere, like Eric A. Meyer's book on the subject. And you can easily check out the publisher's website and probably see everything you need to that is in this book.
If you want to understand what CSS is really about, in terms of writing it (to make your site as pretty as the examples in this book) you should turn elsewhere, like Eric A. Meyer's book on the subject. And you can easily check out the publisher's website and probably see everything you need to that is in this book.
198 of 243 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Bought the book, looked good and was hoping to find more information about CSS. The book is mostly about design. It has beautifull pictures of different designs for one website. If you're looking for inspiration on how to design your site, this book could help you. If you're looking how to use CSS, buy another book.
The book doesn't clearly show you how to make the sites, the lessons of this book are not useless but could be told in a book of 30 pages instead of 296.
If you really want to know how to use CSS buy Eric Meyer's books.
The book doesn't clearly show you how to make the sites, the lessons of this book are not useless but could be told in a book of 30 pages instead of 296.
If you really want to know how to use CSS buy Eric Meyer's books.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By Kate
Format:Paperback
This book is about extraordinary web page design. Thirty-six designs are featured from the web site Zen Garden: The Beauty of CSS Design [...], which was created by one of the authors, David Shea. The Zen Garden web site is really a great concept. Start with a simple, well-formed HTML document, coded for maximum flexibility in applying a style sheet, and then invite designers to submit a CSS document with image files to "style" that basic HTML web page. The challenge is to explore the possibilities and push the limits.
The book focuses on fundamental design concepts such as typography, color and layout. This is not a typical step-by-step book, which often has really ugly visual examples of what the code will do. Shea and Holzschlag look at CSS-formatted pages through a different lens. Each showcased project is introduced with an explanation of the design principles examined, followed by a breakdown of the elements and how they were formatted with CSS. Snippets of code are included, and you can go to the web site and download both the HTML and the CSS for that particular page if you want to follow along.
At first glance this is a visually rich book, but the screen shots are unfortunately small (they were created at 72 dpi after all) and some of the details are noticeably pixilated. Some include an expanded view of the web page, something you'll never see through the browser window, but helpful for seeing how it all fits together. Another thing I found useful was the view of all of the images used on the webpage, spread apart so I can get a good look at them. I may be stating the obvious, but what makes these designs so exceptional is the use of images. And to really appreciate the designs you need to look at them in the intended presentation-on screen.... Read more ›
The book focuses on fundamental design concepts such as typography, color and layout. This is not a typical step-by-step book, which often has really ugly visual examples of what the code will do. Shea and Holzschlag look at CSS-formatted pages through a different lens. Each showcased project is introduced with an explanation of the design principles examined, followed by a breakdown of the elements and how they were formatted with CSS. Snippets of code are included, and you can go to the web site and download both the HTML and the CSS for that particular page if you want to follow along.
At first glance this is a visually rich book, but the screen shots are unfortunately small (they were created at 72 dpi after all) and some of the details are noticeably pixilated. Some include an expanded view of the web page, something you'll never see through the browser window, but helpful for seeing how it all fits together. Another thing I found useful was the view of all of the images used on the webpage, spread apart so I can get a good look at them. I may be stating the obvious, but what makes these designs so exceptional is the use of images. And to really appreciate the designs you need to look at them in the intended presentation-on screen.... Read more ›
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good for learning web graphic design
I enrolled in a basic website design class and the instructor mentioned the Zen Garden website. I was impressed enough by the web site to order the book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Daphne F
5.0 out of 5 stars
CSS book
Great for the person that is looking to use style sheets with their XHTML Web pages. Very useful and easy to read and understand.
Published 20 months ago by SHARRON SHARP
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspiring and informative book for genuinely usable web sites!
After years of using and abusing tables galore, I finally gave in and started learning CSS. Section508 compliance is absolutely vital on most of my sites, and even more so now that... Read more
Published on November 25, 2010 by .
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great CSS insight for novices, ameatures, and intermediates.
Hi, I'm a sophomore who bought this book to help me with my MYP/IB Personal Project (which was to create a website), and it was a GREAT resource! Read more
Published on February 1, 2010 by Dennis Yeung
5.0 out of 5 stars
Zen of CSS desdign
Well written and illustrated concepts and ideas for using CSS in a 'clean' coding environment. Loaded with ways to avoid overly cumbersome and ineffective coding.
Published on November 18, 2009 by Susan C. Marsala
2.0 out of 5 stars
The same information is available on the web
The basis behind this book is excellent. It takes CSS to another level.
However, you can find all of the information that is here in print on the Internet or... Read more
However, you can find all of the information that is here in print on the Internet or... Read more
Published on November 1, 2009 by Chris Moyer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding Book!
As a dabbler in HTML for the last ten years, I have heard about CSS and it's many benefits, but had no hands-on experience with it. Read more
Published on September 19, 2009 by Mark L. Howell
5.0 out of 5 stars
great book
Excellent assortment of examples on just how CSS can manipulate HTML. Not only does it teach Css basics and advanced markup, it explores just how versatile CSS really is. Read more
Published on August 28, 2009 by Willis Lasell
4.0 out of 5 stars
What Every Designer Should Own
Truly one of the most amazing books I've read when it comes to web design. The Zen of CSS Design is a great book for all levels of knowledge for ideas, but it is recommended you... Read more
Published on June 10, 2009 by J. Martin
4.0 out of 5 stars
The layers of design
The Zen of CSS Design is a book about the application of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) over a structure of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). Read more
Published on November 22, 2008 by Brad Bice
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