Web Graphics for Non-Designers [Paperback]

Adrian Roselli (Author), Dave Gibbons (Author), Isaac Forman (Author), Nick Boyce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2002

Have you ever wished that you could make your web pages look fantastic and professional, as well as having great functionality? Well, look no further. In this book we take you through the basics of web design, looking at using color effectively on sites, visual elements that work, and how to use text effectively, before going on to show how to put these elements together to make a well designed, brilliantly laid out web page.

We also compare and contrast graphics formats, look at how to optimize your graphics for best site performance, and review the best tools currently available for producing graphics for the Web, and which to choose to suit your needs best.

In this book we cover:

- Effective use of color, visual elements, and text
- Professional web page design and layout
- The ins and outs of bitmaps and vector graphics, including using Flash, SVG and SMIL
- Optimizing web graphics, for better site performance
- Includes tutorials on Photoshop/Image Ready, Paint Shop Pro, and Fireworks MX

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book is for any web professional who wants to get up to speed with web design quickly and effectively. No previous design experience is necessary, but knowledge of HTML is assumed, and some knowledge of CSS and a graphics package is recommended.

About the Author

NICK BOYCE

Nick is an art school dropout who became interested in interactive design through his involvement with photography and digital media. He has been using Photoshop since version 2, and spent a lot of time using Macromedia Director before getting involved in web design.

After working at an educational production unit developing CD-ROMs and videos, Nick went on to become a lecturer in Interactive Multimedia, and started maintaining a mailing list to keep his students informed of the most interesting design on the Web.

In 1999 he decided to build a site that assembled the information from the mailing list into a database. The result was Anarchitect.net, which has become a popular destination for designers and still maintains a mailing list. Anarchitect also functions as a space for collaborative artwork, with several projects running per year both online and offline.

Nick has been a Director at Triplezero, a web design consultancy based in Adelaide, South Australia since 1998. His goal is to buy a helicopter by the age of 25. At the time of publishing he is 24.

ISAAC FORMAN

Isaac Forman is a Director of Triplezero in Adelaide, South Australia.

Discovering what to do, and how not to do it, has come from a variety of opportunities including a brief stunt in educational multimedia. Since the founding of Triplezero in 1998, he has provided professional Internet design and strategy service to local and international clients.

In addition, Isaac is a founder of, and prolific contributor to, the international web developer community – evolt.org.

A certified "fum-master", he whiles away much of his spare time fighting with his cat, and playing with his kitten. Distractions include digital photography, sport, and a giant tennis ball – possibly the greatest purchase in his retail history.

Isaac lives to eat, travel, and destroy opponents at Racing Scrabble.

He has eaten a spider.

DAVE GIBBONS

Dave Gibbons is a writer and web designer from Beaverton, Oregon, US. He recently worked for five years as a writer, Web/Intranet Designer and programmer, and usability tester at Intel.

When not losing sleep over proper web design, Dave writes humor ("humour" in the rest of the English-speaking world), novels, and screenplays.

ADRIAN ROSELLI

Adrian Roselli is a founder and partner at Algonquin Studios, located in Buffalo, New York, and also holds the moderately confusing title Vice President of Interactive Media.

Adrian has almost 10 years of experience in graphic design, web design, and multimedia development, as well as extensive experience in interface design and usability. He has been developing for the World Wide Web since its inception, when he should have been falling asleep in a video-editing suite. Adrian is also a board member of the American Advertising Federation affiliate in Buffalo (Brainstorm). One of the founders of evolt.org, Adrian has even found time to send scathing site critiques to some of the regulars on the evolt.org mailing list, which is where he spends much of his free time.

Adrian is known as "aardvark" in the wild jungles of the Internet, although if you ask him how he got that nickname, he'll just change the subject and try to steal your sandwich.

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Glasshaus (November 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904151159
• ISBN-13: 978-1904151159
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,790,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dave Gibbons passionately roams in three different global playgrounds: The first park is THE AWAKEN GROUP (THEAWAKENGROUP.COM), a consulting firm specializing in creativity, culture and innovation; the second park is a movement of churches not bound by geography that he calls "home" (NEWSONG.NET), throughout Southeast Asia, China, India, Korea, Mexico City, London, and North America. And lastly there is a crazy bunch of people in an organization called XEALOT that focuses on transforming marginalized communities through strategic leadership development and ideation ventures. Dave has written a book on culture and leadership based on an eastern parable called The Monkey and the Fish.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Concise, Comprehensive, Compact - I liked it., January 16, 2003

By 

John Dunagan (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Web Graphics for Non-Designers (Paperback)

Just what it says: Web graphics, for people without a lick of graphic talent or design sense - like me.

This book goes over just about every common method of making a web page look better than just text. From basic color science and typography to Flash authoring, "Web Graphics for Non-Designers" covers it - thoroughly, and in concise language that does not talk down to those who have been to design school.

I especially enjoyed the chapters on color science and general web-page layout. In each of those chapters, I learned something I didn't know before. If I had to pick a least favorite chapter, I'd say Flash, just because Flash scares me right now.

If you aren't generally creative to begin with, this book will only indirectly help you decide what content to put on your web; it will, however, help you better organize and present what you're planning to put on your web already.

Although this book gives prodigious and beautiful examples of web pages throughout the (English-speaking) world, very few books help you with the creativity and imagination that you need to decide what to come up with in the first place. Since that's the problem I suffer from as a web developer, I pay particular attention to books that claim to help with web creativity but don't deliver. Web Graphics is not such a book, I'm happy to say. But the pictures are pretty, and I could try to emulate them quite easily with this book if I wanted.

I lucked out with this purchase, and it will hold a prominent (small) space on my shelf - and at that, one that I reach for fairly often, and don't loan out. If I need to brush up on a skill, or figure out how to position something without breaking the rest of my layout, I'm fairly confident I'll be able to get the answer out of this book, and at less thickness than the standard King James Bible, that's a good book to have.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars does what it says on the box, March 7, 2003

By 

chanoch - See all my reviews

This review is from: Web Graphics for Non-Designers (Paperback)

To start off, the book is easy to read - something which I increasingly need with a very busy lifestyle. It was especially important as design isn't a core skill for me but It is becoming increasingly important for my job. All of the subjects covered were very interesting, although the font chapter was heavy going (i am not sure that fonts will ever be exciting to me) - it didnt provide unnecessary information.

The quality of the printing is not always top quality in chapters 2 - 4 (some of the images are poor - the designers at work found that hard to forgive) but that didnt get in the way of the message.

What have I got out of the book?
I particularly found color theory fascinating.
I now have the vocabulary to find out more on the subjects in the later chapters
I can better critique my own designs, understand what the designers at work are trying to do, and can used designs I like to inspire my own, as I can now take them apart to the constituant parts.
I have already started to benefit from the understanding of what makes good design.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to web graphics., June 11, 2005

By 

C. Good (North-Central Montana, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Web Graphics for Non-Designers (Paperback)

_Web Graphics for Non-Designers_ is definitely a book for beginners. Most experienced web designers and graphic artists will probably find very little new information. However, for someone who has just started to set up web pages and has not had any formal training in graphics or layout, the book is very valuable.

It touches on a number of basic things needed for a good web page and web site, including images, tables, borders, different types of layout, text vs. images, and ways to control file sizes and download times.

It also goes into more depth about presentation, covering issues such as color theory, uses of color, how color displays on different monitors, fonts, typefaces, print vs. screen typefaces, and text layout.

There is also quite a bit of information on image files, such the uses of GIF and JPEG files, formats such as PNG, and other formats such as Flash animation and scalable vector graphics. A brief description of the major web graphics packages is included as well.

Finally, the book talks about some of the things that make a website FUNCTIONAL (and not just a fancy picture), such as simplicity, usability, flexibility, and consistency.

I found this to be a very helpful book for someone (myself) who has just started trying to design and set up websites. I actually feel pretty lucky that I stumbled across this book, as it was almost exactly what I needed to help me figure out what I wanted to do with my sites.

However, I do give this book four stars instead of five because there were some places where it seemed like the authors jumped around a little bit, the section on graphics programs was hard to follow without having actually used those programs before, and I really wish they would have had more information about typefaces and uses of color.

Overall, a very well-written and useful book. I was so impressed I have already bought glasshaus's book on cascading style sheets (CSS).