Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design

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Overview

As the Web evolves to incorporate new standards and the latest browsers offer new possibilities for creative design, the art of creating Web sites is also changing. Few Web designers are experiences programmers, and as a result, working with semantic markup and CSS can create roadblocks to achieving truly beautiful designs using all the resources available. Add to this the pressures of presenting exceptional design to clients and employers, without compromising efficient workflow, and the challenge ...

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More About This Book

Overview

As the Web evolves to incorporate new standards and the latest browsers offer new possibilities for creative design, the art of creating Web sites is also changing. Few Web designers are experiences programmers, and as a result, working with semantic markup and CSS can create roadblocks to achieving truly beautiful designs using all the resources available. Add to this the pressures of presenting exceptional design to clients and employers, without compromising efficient workflow, and the challenge deepens for those working in a fast-paced environment. As someone who understands these complexities firsthand, author and designer Andy Clarke offers visual designers a progressive approach to creating artistic, usable, and accessible sites using transcendent CSS.

In this groundbreaking book, you’ll discover how to implement highly original designs through visual demonstrations of the creative possibilities using markup and CSS. You’ll learn to use a new design workflow, build prototypes that work well for designers and all team members, use grids effectively, visualize markup, and discover every phase of the transcendent design process, from working with the latest browsers to incorporating CSS3 to collaborating with team members effectively.

Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design:

Uses a visual approach to help you learn coding techniques

Includes numerous examples of world-class Web sites, photography, and other inspirations that give designers ideas for visualizing their code

Offers early previews of technical advances in new Web browsers and of the emerging CSS3 specification

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Editorial Reviews

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The Barnes & Noble Review
CSS permits web designers to gain near-total visual control over their sites. But it doesn't guarantee that you will. Most web designers aren't born coders, and in any case, code isn't enough. Transcending CSS takes you the rest of the way.

With guidance from the legendary Molly Holzschlag, Andy Clarke shows how to make sure CSS details never compromise your artistic vision. A wonderful chapter on "visualizing code" deepens your understanding of the relationship between great designs and their underlying CSS markup. You'll learn how to create visual sitemaps using the authors' innovative "markup guides"; build wireframes; and streamline site design workflow, from start to finish.

In a final chapter, Clarke and Holzschlag point you toward entirely new ways to express your personal inspiration as a web designer -- transcending not just CSS but HTML, XHTML, weird browsers, and even the cramped vision of your clients. Bill Camarda, from the December 2006 Read Only

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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780321410979
  • Publisher: New Riders
  • Publication date: 11/29/2006
  • Series: Voices That Matter Series
  • Pages: 371
  • Product dimensions: 8.90 (w) x 10.88 (h) x 0.69 (d)

Meet the Author

Andy Clarke is an internationally known speaker, designer, and consultant focusing on creative, accessible Web development. Andy is passionate about design and passionate about Web standards, bridging the gap between design and code. He regularly trains designers and developers in the creative applications of Web standards. Andy has written articles for A List Apart Magazine and contributed to the CSS Zen Garden. Outside of his studio, Andy is a member of the Web Standards Project.

Author, instructor, and Web designer Molly E. Holzschlag has written over 30 books on 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. Molly is also Group Lead of Web Standards Project and frequent lecturer on Web design and development around the world.

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Table of Contents


Discovery     3
Introducing Transcendent CSS     5
Which tools do you need to get started?     5
Why do you need Transcendent CSS?     6
Expanding the creative possibilities     10
Accessibility is design, not a feature     12
Moving toward Transcendent CSS     16
The Principles of Transcendent CSS     23
Not all browsers see the same design     25
Use all available CSS selectors     25
Use CSS3 where possible to look to the future     30
Use JavaScript and the DOM to plug the holes in CSS     30
Avoid using hacks and filters     31
Use semantic naming conventions and microformats     33
Share your ideas, and collaborate with others     41
What Makes Transcendent CSS Possible Now?     47
Unexpected uses for CSS     49
Graded browser support     51
Discovery, process, inspiration, and transcendence     53
Designing from the Content Out     55
The content-out approach     57
A typycal, nonoptimized CSS layout     59
Optimize the content order with or without styles     60
Semantics Is Meaning     65
CSS Naked Day     65
Translating meaning into markup: The Markup Is Right     66
What does the content tell you?     76
Moving meaningfully along     76
Marking Up the World     79
All the world's a list; every item must play its part     79
Lists as far as the eye can see     82
Send me an hCard from San Francisco     86
Learning to keep your eyes wide open     88
Working from the "contents"     88
Time to Process What You Have Learned     97
Process     99
Searching for a Perfect Workflow     101
Looking for a better way     101
Following a content-based process     103
Gathering Your Content     107
Working with Wireframes     109
Where traditional wireframes fail     111
Traditional wireframes and interaction     113
Improving the Approach with the Grey Box Method     117
Using symbols to add greater detail     119
Creating Static Designs     121
Moving faster through the design workflow     121
Adding markup guides to static designs     122
Using Interactive Prototypes     125
Interactive prototypes make it real      125
Creating reusable code     127
Model behavior for wireframes and prototypes     127
WYSIWYG: What you see, or short-sighted?     128
Following Best Practices for Interactive Prototyping     131
Choosing a development browser     131
Using browser extensions     131
Keeping your [left angle bracket]div[right angle bracket] elements to a minimum     134
Ensuring your markup stays valid     134
Choosing positioning over floats     134
Organizing your CSS     136
Practicing the Process     141
Writing content-out markup     142
Implementing the static design with CSS     158
Building your layout     158
Working from the body     159
Basic color styles     166
Building brand and adding the logo     167
Styling the navigation and the footer     169
Understanding elements of typographical style     176
Putting It All Together     179
Inspiration     181
Introducing Grid-Based Design     183
The designer and the grid     185
The divine proportion and the rule of thirds     187
Fully flexible layouts      197
Rational grid design     198
Grids in Contemporary Web Design     201
Subtraction     201
Airbag Industries     204
Jeff Croft     206
Veerle's Blog     208
Looking for Grids Outside the Web     211
Learning from the daily paper     21
Using eight- and six-column designs     213
Using alternative newspaper layouts     221
Bringing New Grids to Web Design     225
Leading with the grid     226
Exposing dirty little secrets     229
Engaging, in news manipulation     229
Keeping you in the picture     230
Finding Inspiration in Unexpected Places     233
Doing a homepage makeover     233
Introducing mood boards     236
Keeping a design scrapbook     238
Looking at magazines for interface inspiration     243
Getting typography inspiration     243
Reexamining Flash design     247
Working with images and photos     248
Fine Art Activities     255
Designing is more than creating attractive visuals     255
Taking the focus off technology     256
Enhancing the mood      259
Looking for a different perspective     261
Scrapbooking with a goal in mind     265
The Fine Art of Web Design     267
Transcendence     271
Transcendent CSS     273
Absolute positioning     274
Relative positioning     274
Creative floating     287
Making a sidebar     298
Combining techniques     301
CSS3 (Third Time Lucky)     313
The sum of its parts     313
Getting involved in making new standards     315
Back to the future     316
Designing with the CSS3 Selectors Module     316
Improving readability with zebra strides     317
Designing with the Backgrounds and Borders Module     320
Designing with multiple background images     325
Designing multicolumn layouts     335
Designing with the Multi-column Layout Module     341
Advanced Layout     345
Back to the grid     346
Designing with the Advanced Layout Module     351
Concluding Remarks     359
Credits     360
Index     362
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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 10, 2007

    Real web design, real fun

    Andy Clarke's 'Transcending CSS' is the first book on CSS that successfully marries the artistic and technical skills that are the heart of modern web design. The book should appeal to those who are primarily trained in the design disciplines--the author includes a thorough treatment of grid-based design and the use of mood boards, scrapbooks, and other creative tools. 'Transcending CSS' will also be of great benefit to the seasoned CSS hand, as he challenges us to reexamine old habits and workflows, to embrace change, and to plan for advanced web standards. Apart from a core group of 'standardistas', the field of web design is still a divided camp--graphic designers who cling to WYSIWYG editors and claim they 'can't do HTML', and coders who (though technically adept with markup and programming languages) lack the most basic knowledge of the principles of visual design, color, typography, and the like. Andy's book goes a long way towards fostering the development of a truly professional discipline of web design, one wherein its practioners are well versed in aesthetic theory, confident in their creativity, and technically capable of creating functional, accessible, and durable web content. This book is also an engaging read, as Andy's wit and energy shines through his writing. (Andy's presentations are immensely popular on the design conference circuit.) 'Transcending CSS' is a must-have for your web design bookshelf, as indispensable as Dan Cederholm's 'Bulletproof Web Design' and 'Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook' and Eric Meyer's 'Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide.'

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 12, 2010

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