Saturday, January 28, 2006
CSS Zen Garden fini!
The book is done.
My impressions?
The Zen of CSS Design is definitely a book you'll want on yourself. A good Designer should have an awareness of areas like typography, layout, and white space. The Zen of CSS reinforces these concepts well.
High Points:
Dingbats! - I forgot those little graphics were called that. I was always searching for "bullets", it's no wonder I could never find anything good.
Web Standards - I hang my head in shame. I've been very lax in using alt tags for screen readers etc. I hope this will inspire me to be more stringent with web design standards.
IE = The Devil! - I still use IE as my standard browser, but it's surprising how many CSS design elements will not work in it. I'm not ready to make the switch to Firefox just yet, but I am going to test my design in Firefox first!
Low Points:
Usability - The book sometimes gets bogged down in usability issues going through the same concepts over and over.
Rush to the Finish - The book ends with a break down of a few Zen Garden site designs. I would have liked to have seen more examples on such things as how to add drop shadow edges, rounded corners etc.
Overall I'm happy with the book. Next on my list - Eric Meyer on CSS.
My impressions?
The Zen of CSS Design is definitely a book you'll want on yourself. A good Designer should have an awareness of areas like typography, layout, and white space. The Zen of CSS reinforces these concepts well.
High Points:
Dingbats! - I forgot those little graphics were called that. I was always searching for "bullets", it's no wonder I could never find anything good.
Web Standards - I hang my head in shame. I've been very lax in using alt tags for screen readers etc. I hope this will inspire me to be more stringent with web design standards.
IE = The Devil! - I still use IE as my standard browser, but it's surprising how many CSS design elements will not work in it. I'm not ready to make the switch to Firefox just yet, but I am going to test my design in Firefox first!
Low Points:
Usability - The book sometimes gets bogged down in usability issues going through the same concepts over and over.
Rush to the Finish - The book ends with a break down of a few Zen Garden site designs. I would have liked to have seen more examples on such things as how to add drop shadow edges, rounded corners etc.
Overall I'm happy with the book. Next on my list - Eric Meyer on CSS.
Labels: CSS
Saturday, January 21, 2006
CSS Zen Garden
My copy of Zen of CSS Design just arrived. I've been looking forward to this book for awhile. There is a little bit of controversy around this book, as some people thought they were getting a book about how to write CSS. In reality the book is more focused on how to make your site beautiful with CSS. That's what I want it for.
I'll let you know if it delivers.
I'll let you know if it delivers.
Labels: CSS
Monday, January 16, 2006
Designing for the Web
Just finished reading a pretty good article over at the Digital Web Magazine.
The article includes a simple look at design basics such as screen resolution and web safe colors. The browser real estate section alone is worth a bookmark. Don't you hate it when you design a site around 800x600 only to find that it scrolls in Internet Explorer? The article explains that a typical Internet Explorer 6 user has only 779x400 screen space available.
Not rocket science, but it's nice to have it all in one place.
The article includes a simple look at design basics such as screen resolution and web safe colors. The browser real estate section alone is worth a bookmark. Don't you hate it when you design a site around 800x600 only to find that it scrolls in Internet Explorer? The article explains that a typical Internet Explorer 6 user has only 779x400 screen space available.
Not rocket science, but it's nice to have it all in one place.
