Customer Reviews

Web Design Essentials (2nd Edition) (Adobe Design Essentials)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I recently purchased the Adobe web package that includes GoLive, Photoshop, Illustrator, and LiveMotion. I happened across this book and though by the title, "Web Design Essentials", that it would be a good introduction to how these four software titles integrate. However, I think a better title for this book would be "Tips & Tricks for Very Experienced Users of Photoshop, Illustrator, etc..." The book is directed at Web Design professionals that perhaps don't understand everything about the software they are using every day. The reason is, I believe, put very well in the introduction in this book that I will transcribe here:

"Now that we've told you what this book has to offer, it's also important to share what it doesn't. This book won't teach you: how to design - what makes a good layout, how to compose color, and so on - and it's not a tutorial for the various applications we cover. Rather, [this book] will teach you how to use Adobe's tools to implement your creative vision..."

So the book doesn't help you to get familar with the software at all. It assumes that you are very well familar with these products already and are looking to optimize your work style. And to be truthful, it doesn't even do *that* very well in my opinion. The book is full of a bunch of disjoined lessons on various topics that are covered in Adobe's help files or in the User Guides that came with the software. It seems that if you are not familiar with industry terms (what is a 'comp' anyway?) then this book might provide a good glossary for you, but the lessons, well, I can't see them helping TOO much.

So, in closing, if you are looking for a book that shows you how the four software titles are connected, if you are looking for a book that will take you through the web site creation project using specifically Adobe software titles, then this is not the book for you.

To the author (if you all read this): I believe that you will find a wider audience if you created a sample web site (download Macromedia's Dreamweaver and check out the tutorial, it's amazing!) from start to finish using all the common, and perhaps a few not so common, elements present in mainstream websites today. In this manner, you'll show your readers how to use the software and from chapter to chapter, lesson to lesson, it will make SENSE. Disjoined non-related lesson after lesson won't help people learn the software. I realize you didn't aim this book at newbies such as myself, but unfortunately there was no review for me to see before I bought the book. I gave the book two stars instead of one because while I found the content to be not applicable to me, the book itself is quite beautiful, although oddly sized.

Here is a list of the major topics and most of the chapters that follow them:

1. Creating Web Graphics
Tiling a Background
Selecting and Replacing Colors
Using Select Color Range
Dithering Part of an Image
Expanding on the Web-safe Palette
Managing Page Elements with Layer Styles
Mapping Made Easy
Previewing Rasterized Graphics
Creating Artwork with Transparency
Background Transparency in Web Grpahics
Drawing a Navigational System
Creating Flexible Drop Shadows

2. Managing Type
Formatting Type for Comps
Previewing HTML Text in Comps
Designing Images with Type
Transforming Type Using Vectors
Preserving Type in Bitmaps
Enhancing Type wtih Layer Effects
Spedifying Fonts for Web Sites
Understanding System Fonts

3. Web Page Layout
Slicing Images for HTML Tables
Optimizing Slices
Making Image Maps
Creating Image maps in GoLive
Designing Forms
Creating Framed Web Pages
etc...

4. Active Elements
Animating GIFs
Creating Complex Animations
Importing Artwork for Animation
Creating Animation Styles
Animating with DHTML

Animating Rollovers
etc.

5. Management Techniques
Using Actions to Automate Tasks
Using Droplets to Automate Tasks
Using Layer Sets to Mange Files
Using PDF's to Proof Comps

6. Reference
Understanding Color Palettes
Creating a Master Palette
Understanding Blending Modes
Understanding Channels
etc..

Web Design Essentials introduces readers to some of the more advanced features of Adobe's Photoshop, Illustrator, and GoLive programs, and brings together the talents and advice of a number of seasoned contributors.

Readers will receive an advanced education in planning Websites through the use of flowcharting, optimizing graphics images for the Web, designing Web navigational graphics and interfaces, creating animated GIF images and DHTML animations, producing sensational rollovers, and learning a number of enhanced table, frames, and cascading style sheet effects.

The educational presentation of this book is phenomenal. Readers are treated to high quality graphic image illustrations, clear and easy-to-read text, high-resolution screen shots, and excellent layout that bring out in rich detail the special effects that Photoshop and other professional-grade programs are capable of producing.

This book is ideally suited for Web savvy professionals and those persons already capable of handling Photoshop. The work in this book is stunning and represents the best in the industry. Readers who come to grips with the programs featured in the book should be able to match them after some practice!

A logical flow with tips and techniques from preparing graphics to animations and image maps, this book provides a user-friendly yet thorough introduction to website design. The book is laid out in something of a lesson format similar to the Adobe Classroom in a Book series, and is a perfect reference to those "how do I..?" questions. Many Web experts provide the techniques, which are labeled as easy/intermediate/advanced. For the beginner, Web Design Essentials is not a huge, intimidating manual, yet it shows techniques that produce high-quality websites. For expert codeheads, this book is simply the icing on the cake. In all, an essential book to improve a web designer's technique.

Maria Giudice and Anita Dennis' Professional Studio Techniques Web Design Essentials provides expert advice on advanced web design features; from slicing images for HTML tables to using JavaScript rollover and GIF graphics formats. All the basics are here for advanced web functions.

This book rates five stars in several categories: Very pleasing layout design. Content is straightforward, easy to read. And, probably most important,content is very helpful.Kudos to these three women: Giudice,Dennis and Franceschini.

This book is a good resource type book for me. I have done web design before. The book has a pretty good Hex/RGB Conversion Chart in the back. It has a nice glossary. It even has a good chart on understanding style sheet attributes. It is not one of my favorites mainly because it was not the kind of book i was looking for. It's good for those who are just beginning and have some knowledge of how to use Photoshop, illustrator, golive, and Livemotion. If you have never touched these programs this is not the book to get. If you have you might find out some things you didn't know. It's a great book for the right price. i would not spend a lot of money on it, I'm cheap like that. However i am keeping mine for the Hex/RGB chart and maybe some later references.

I am a print and web designer and I found that this book was really helpful. I liked how the chapters were divided in a logical progression, and how the tips within each chapter were ordered from simplest to most difficult. The tips on LiveMotion were a bit challenging for me, however...I think there could have been some finessing of that section. Nonetheless, the book is lovely to peruse with its colorful and diverse styles of artwork. The layout was clean and I was able to follow along with the tips pretty easily. I agree with the previous reviewers that this book might not be for a beginner, but as an intermediate to power-user, I think the tips, and the book as a whole, were quite worthwhile.

As anyone in the Internet industry knows, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Image Ready and Adobe Illustrator form part of the essential tools that anyone who is serious about a web site design has to know how to use. Complementing these are others such as Macromedia's Dreamweaver and Flash, and a handful of Open Source tools.

This book focuses on VERY practical tips on how to fully exploit Photoshop's Photoshop, Image Ready and Illustrator to do some very common tasks which are required from a Web designer on a regular basis. These are complemented by Adobe's Go Live and Live Motion, which -in all honesty, in my opinion- have been displaced by Macromedia's Dreamweaver and Flash, in their respective fields (makes you wonder how would a merge between Adobe and Macromedia look like!)

Anyway, back to the point: the book (although not too clearly stated) is mostly useful for the beginner-to-intermediate audience, as the accomplished designer will find most tips hereby included something he/she already knows.

The book is extremely well laid out and broken into sections, which makes it easy to follow, and it clearly signals levels of difficulty of the different tasks explained. Sections which (for the reasons already mentioned) I did not find as useful, were related to active images, which is not the area where Adobe stands out most. Other than that, I'd say it's a must have.

I don't know if I'd say rush out and buy the book, but it will be helpful in giving you inspiration for your own website designs.

Thanks for sending the book among others that I ordered along with it in good condition, and sooner than I had expected. Its a simple and straightforward book that orients itself around the Adobe package. Good value for money a worth while buy.