Web Standards Creativity: Innovations in Web Design with XHTML, CSS, and DOM Scripting (Paperback)

~ Andy Budd (Author), (Author), Ian Lloyd (Author), Cameron Adams (Author), Rob Weychert (Author), Ethan Marcotte (Author), (Author), Jeff Croft (Author), Mark Boulton (Author), (Author), Derek Featherstone (Author)
Key Phrases: dragged module, tristique non, interdum risus, Internet Explorer, Dirty Pretty Things, New York Magazine (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

• Be inspired by 10 web design lessons from 10 of the worlds best web designers
• Get creative with cutting-edge XHTML, CSS, and DOM scripting techniques
• Learn breathtaking design skills while remaining standards-compliant

Here at friends of ED, we know that as a web designer or developer, your work involves more than just working to pay the bills. We know that each day, you strive to push the boundaries of your medium, unleashing your creativity in new ways to make your websites more engaging and attractive to behold, while still maintaining cross-browser support, standards compliance, and accessibility. That's why we got together ten of the world's most talented web designers to share their secrets with you. Web Standards Creativity is jam-packed with fresh, innovative design ideas. The topics range from essential CSS typography and grid design, effective styling for CMS-driven sites, and astonishing PNG transparency techniques, to DOM scripting magic for creating layouts that change depending on browser resolution and user preference, and better print layouts for web pages. We're sure you will find something here to inspire you! This full-color book's examples are not just stunning to look at, but also fully standards-compliant, up-to-date, and tested in current browsers including Internet Explorer 7. Playing by the rules doesn't have to mean drab or dull websites—Web Standards can be fun!

About the Author

Andy Budd is one of the founding partners at User Experience Design Consultancy, Clearleft. As an interaction design and usability specialist, Andy is a regular speaker at international conferences like Web Directions, An Event Apart, and SXSW. Andy curates dConstruct, one of the UK’s most popular design conferences. He’s also responsible for UX London, the UK’s first dedicated usability, information architecture, and user experience design event.

Andy was an early champion of web standards in the UK and has developed an intimate understanding of the CSS specification and cross-browser support. As an active member of the community, Andy has helped judge several international design awards and currently sits on the advisory board for .Net magazine. Andy is also the driving force behind Silverbackapp, a low-cost usability testing tool for the Mac. Andy is an avid Twitter user and occasionally blogs at andybudd.com.

Never happier than when he’s diving in some remote tropical atoll, Andy is a qualified PADI dive instructor and retired shark wrangler.

Andy is an internationally sought-after speaker, designer and consultant. He is creative director of Stuff and Nonsense (www.malarkey.co.uk), a design agency focusing on creative, accessible web. Andy is passionate about design and passionate about Web Standards, often bridging the gap between design and code. He regularly trains designers and developers in the creative applications of Web Standards. He writes about aspects of design and popular culture on his personal web site, And All That Malarkey (www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk.) Soon to be released is his first book, \"Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design.\"

Ian runs Accessify.com, a site dedicated to promoting web accessibility and providing tools for web developers. His personal site ‘Blog Standard Stuff‘, ironically, has nothing to do with standards for blogs (it's a play on words), although there is an occasional standards-related gem to be found there. Ian works full-time for Nationwide Building Society where he tries his hardest to influence standards-based design (\"to varying degrees!\"). He is a member of the Web Standards Project, contributing to the Accessibility Task Force. Web standards and accessibility aside, he enjoys writing about his trips abroad and recently took a ‘year out' from work and all things web (but then ended up writing more in his year off than he ever has). He finds most of his time being taken up by a demanding old lady (relax, it\'s only his old Volkswagen camper van). Ian recently wrote his first book for SitePoint entitled ‘Build Your First Web Site the Right Way with HTML and CSS‘ (in which he teaches web standards-based design to the complete beginner).

Cameron has a degree in law and one in science; naturally he chose a career in Web development. When pressed, he labels himself a \"Web Technologist\" because he likes to have a hand in graphic design, JavaScript, CSS, Perl (yes, Perl), and anything else that takes his fancy that morning. While running his own business (www.themaninblue.com) he\'s consulted and worked for government departments, nonprofit organisations, large corporations and tiny startups. As well as helping his list of clients, Cameron has taught numerous workshops around the country and spoken at conferences worldwide, such as @Media and Web Essentials. He has also written a book &emdash; The JavaScript Anthology &emdash; which is one of the most complete question and answer resources on modern JavaScript techniques.

Rob is a graphic designer, artist, writer, and thinker known for an almost neurotically meticulous attention to detail. Since the late 1990s, Rob has designed print and interactive solutions for clients in such disparate industries as entertainment, travel, healthcare, education, publishing, e-commerce, and more. When he is not absorbed in design, Rob spends most of his time scrutinizing music and film, writing haiku, screen printing, taking photos, and cruising the streets of his hometown Philadelphia on his BMX. He also writes about these topics and all things design on his personal web site, RobWeychert.com.

Ethan has been designing and developing online for nearly a decade, and is still amazed and excited at how much there is to learn. He is the co-founder and design lead of Vertua Studios (www.vertua.com), a standards-savvy design studio that builds elegant, usable Web sites. Ethan has emerged as a well-respected voice on the subject of standards-based Web design. He has been a featured speaker at Web Design World and the South by Southwest Interactive conference, and runs the popular (if infrequently-updated) sidesh0w.com weblog. His clients have included such names as New York Magazine, Harvard University, Disney, and State Street Bank. When he grows up, Ethan wants to be an unstoppable robot ninja (www.unstoppablerobotninja.com). Beep.

Music, design, typography, web standards, South Florida beaches. What could these things possibly have in common? Dan Rubin, that's what…er, who. From vocal coaching and performing to graphic design and (almost literally) everything in between, Dan does his best to spread his talent as thin and as far as he possibly can while still leaving time for a good cup of tea and the occasional nap. His passion for all things creative and artistic isn't a solely selfish endeavor either&emdash;you don't have to hang around too long before you'll find him waxing educational about a cappella jazz and barbershop harmony, interface design, usability, web standards, and which typeface was on the bus ad that just whizzed by at 60mph. Dan has been known to write the occasional entry on his blog, superfluousbanter.org (you might even find a podcast or two if you poke around enough), and his professional work can be found at his agency's site, webgraph.com.

Jeff is a web and graphic designer focused on web standards-based development living and working Lawrence, KS. As the senior designer at World Online, Jeff works on such award-winning standards-based sites as Lawrence.com and ljworld.com. Jeff also runs a popular blog and personal site at jeffcroft.com, where he writes about many topics, including modern web and graphic design. In addition to his work with World Online, Jeff has also worked at two major Universities in an effort to bring web standards to the education sector, and completed many freelance and contract jobs for varying clients. When he's not hunched over a computer, Jeff enjoys photography, music, film, television, and a good night out on the town.

Mark is a typographic designer from Cardiff, UK. He's worked in Sydney, London, and Manchester as an Art Director for design agencies for clients such as BBC, T-Mobile, and British Airways. For the past three years, Mark has been working as a Senior Designer for the BBC designing web sites and web applications. He is an active member of the International Society of Typographic Designers and writes a design journal at www.markboulton.co.uk.

In October 2006 Simon started Erskine Design—based in Nottingham, UK—that grew to become an eight-strong team of creative web designers and developers who are afraid of nothing. Some people say they're one of the best agencies out there, and their clients include major magazines, government stuff, software companies—and polar explorers.

Moons ago, he was a successful visual artist, and founded an independent arts org and annual arts festival, putting his degree to some use at least. Then he caught the interwebs bug.

As lead web developer at Agenzia from 2002 to 2006, he worked on numerous web projects for major record labels (such as Poptones, Universal) and bands (including The Libertines, Dirty Pretty Things, Beta Band), visual artists and illustrators (Jon Burgerman, Paddy Hartley, Lucy Orta, NOW Festival), businesses, community, and voluntary sector orgs, passionately ensuring everything was accessible and complied with current web standards.

He does a bit of public speaking here and there, and will generally do anything for a biscuit and cup of tea, but prefers hard cash.

He has lived in many cities, including London and Reykjavik, but has now settled back in his beloved Nottingham, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. He also drives a 31 year old car, and has a stupid cat called Bearface.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: friends of ED (March 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590598032
• ISBN-13: 978-1590598030
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 8.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #196,680 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece, April 27, 2007

By	Nathan Smith (SonSpring.com) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Every now and then, there a book comes along that really makes you stop and take notice. We review plenty of tech books on this site, and each one is a tome of knowledge in its own right. Web Standards Solutions though, is a work of art unto itself. Each page is full-color, with entire pages varying in color theme from the next. It feels as though you're thumbing through a high-end design catalog. I'd rank it right up there with The Zen of CSS Design.

Not only will this book serve to grace your coffee table, and make visitors "ooh and aah" over your fancy role as a web designer, it is also chalk full of helpful code and graphics tips. As with any multi-author book, each chapter has its own distinctiveness. Rather than attempt to down-play this, as with tech books, the chapters reflect the personalities of the author, both in tone and design. Here's a run-down of each chapter's topic...

Chapter 1 by Simon Collison
In this chapter, Colly covers the design process behind two of his acclaimed designs. He shows how to have solid markup, but at the same time create a distressed looking website in keeping with a band's musical style. The sites that are discussed are: The Libertines and Dirty Pretty Things.

Chapter 2 by Dan Rubin
This chapter is also about a band website, Lifehouse. Dan explains the CMS limitations he was up against, and how he creatively used CSS to wrangle the underlying XHTML under presentational control. He covers everything from his initial sketches > to Photoshop > to the final product.

Chatper 3 by Ethan Marcotte
Departing from the band topics, Ethan goes in-depth on the planning, design and code process that went into remaking New York Magazine. He covers some adept code-forking that was necessary to get IE5 to behave on Windows as well as Mac. Thankfully, IE5 has since been dropped from the A Grade list.

Chapter 4 by Andy Clarke
The king of malarkey cuts loose in this chapter, and walks you through creating a lighthearted, fictional site called WorrySome. He digs into the modern method of using CSS attribute selectors to target highly specific areas of your markup. He also makes mention of Dean Edwards IE7 script, which forces Internet Explorer 5 + 6 to respond to these more advanced techniques.

Chapter 5 by Jeff Croft
Jeff covers everything PNG, showing how to make use of this great, loss-less format. One thing that has slowed PNG adoption, though it is superior to both GIF and JPG, is that Internet Explorer doesn't do PNG alpha channels very well. He shows helpful tricks to get these bad browsers working correctly, and explains how they were used on the 49 ABC News site.

Chapter 6 by Mark Boulton
This chapter is all about designing on a grid. A hold-over from the days of print design, this organizational technique lends itself well to web design. The grid involves logical layouts of content, as well as attention to typographical detail. If one chapter is not enough, Mark has also self-published a book on grid layouts, entitled Five Simple Steps - Designing for the Web.

Chapter 7 by Rob Weychert
Robs chapter picks up where Mark's left off, and delves further into the rich history of typography. He creates a classical looking site (using modern methods of course). It's an homage to the famous dark poet Edgar Allan Poe. You can see the results of his case study here - [...]

Chapter 8 by Ian Lloyd
One of the leading voices in web accessibility, Ian Lloyd shows you how to use JavaScript to make things more accessible. Impossible, you say? Not so. He goes through the code necessary to format a page on the fly in preparation for printing. This makes content more accessible as a physical, paper copy.

Chapter 9 by Cameron Adams
Better known as The Man in Blue, Cameron is inarguably one of the most authoritative JavaScript experts alive. If you haven't seen his new Blobular SVG demo, it will blow your mind. In this chapter, he shows how to make a modular, user-driven Newsvine style layout, complete with drag and drop.

Chapter 10 by Derek Featherstone
Derek is yet another leading expert and international speaker on web accessibility. In this last chapter of the book, he shows how to create advanced JavaScript animation effects, while at the same time keeping the content accessible to assistive technologies like screen readers.
Summary

So there you have it, one of the most comprehensive compilations of real-world web design solutions and techniques. I cannot emphasize enough how nice of a book it is because of it's full-color print. When Molly Holzschlag agrees to be the tech editor, and Andy Budd writes the forward, you just know it's gotta be good. All ten authors have knocked it outta of the park with this one.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Color blind beware!, March 9, 2008

By	SandyK (USA) - See all my reviews

Out of three CSS/XHTML books that I bought, this one was the most disappointing of all. Disappointing because it's designed not so much for practical use, it's really for placing on the coffee table to show off your web guru status.

I simply wasn't inspired by the ad hoc generic ideas, presented as edgy "grunge" a la mode. If you're a web designer needing creativity ideas of this type (page 30 is a kicker), you really need to hit art school again. What's explained, you'll pick up in high school Drawing 101; hanging out at coding forums; or just googling for help.

Worse upon worse, reading the book will give you a headache. I simply couldn't read it through without vertigo. The book design staff believed in high contrast color schemes, that if you're color blind, you wouldn't have to worry about reading code, you simply won't see it (or wished to ban Opt-Art)! Lime green backgrounds with pale orange type (pages 71 and 75, for example), just doesn't cut it.

If you need a CSS/XHTML coffee table book, this will suffice. But if you need real inspiration and design ideas, save your money and eyesight, and find some other book (or search online for examples -- heck, the snippet code isn't much more than what's in the book, even).

What a waste of money.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as it should be, June 25, 2007

By	Costa Michele - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a bunch of use-cases developed by PRO technicians in Web standards (but Andy Budd, the author of the essential CSS MASTERY, have only written the introduction).
While some of the topics are of great interest, i can't help to feel a bad habit when reading them: the book does not follow a straight line to deploy the info, it's more like a collage rather than a well structured painting.
I also find the layout not such usable (a little paradox for a book that also talk about Web usability): reading the electronic version of the book the continuous change of background start boring me (and tiring my eyes) after 20 pages (i suppose the paper version must be better).
That said it's not a bad book, but neither a masterpiece.