Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Not what you might expect, May 7, 2023
After being introduced to the CSS Zen Garden through a web dev magazine, I was riveted by the concept as well as the practices involved. As soon as I read that there was to be a "companion book", it immediately shot to the top of my list of must-haves.
This book is the perfect complement to the CSS Zen Garden web site in every regard. The goals of the book follow those of the site to the letter. It discusses a set of philosophies in visual design as well as web programming. Within the pages lie sources of inspiration for designers stuck in a rut or coders desperate for a workaround or solution. The language of the content is non-technical, conversational, and even friendly.
The book has no illusions of being perfect; the shortcomings of the content (as well as the site) are referenced constantly.
CSS experts will probably not find anything new here in the way of hacks and tools. Likewise, graphic designers will not discover any previously unknown rules or schemes. What this book does provide that is new is a way of thinking.
In 7 years of professional web design, I've picked up my share of bad habits. Deadlines and budget constraints force me to wear both the designer and programmer hats, as well as perform some pretty bad design tricks to get the job done. This book is ideal for someone in my position. It gets me back on track towards better, standards-based programming. It also shows me how to properly mesh design and code.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Meandering but Inspirational, May 3, 2023
As someone completely self-taught in all things web-development, I've enjoyed immensely reading Shea's book. It skips over most of the stuff you can pick up on forums and mailing lists and really jumps into the less celebrated topics of typography, colour balance, contrast, and layout.It's not a CSS book at all. In fact, I find it to be more of a general design-tips guide, although there are occasional discussions on browser support for various different tricks and methods. Don't count on this as a reference until you've read it all through once. The information is organised by entry, rather than It's also very practical. No diatribes, here, on the ills of this or that practice. (Semantics evangelists, I'm looking at you) A beautiful layout is presented, and then various techniques are shown for achieving such a result, at the design stage, at the graphical stage, at the technical stage, and at the presentation (CSS) stage. If you're looking to learn CSS, hit up Eric Meyer's books or just hang out on the webdeveloper.com forums. But if you already know lots of it and want some inspiration and advanced tips, pick up this book.
3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Great book!, Apr 18, 2023
I very much liked how the book skipped the basics of CSS and went into how it was used to affect the design of the example pages. It became a bit dry at about the halfway point for me but still worthy of a 5-star rating.
7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
A worthwhile read, Apr 7, 2023
This is much more than an ordinary book. I hate reading programming or web books, yet I loved this book.
I am a web developer with a programming background, more interested in usability than looks. I had traditionally used CSS for fonts and that's all. Recently I started exploring the true power of CSS and becoming more interested in color and imagery.
Then I stumbled on the CSS Zen Garden book and web site. Together, they opened my eyes to web design as an art. It taught me principles of light, color, fonts, and layout with CSS. It helped me realize that I can have awesome web sites! I have gone on to learn Photoshop and explore my own eye for good design. Armed with new knowledge, I look forward to working on my own design for the Zen Garden.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
The state of the art CSS book, Apr 1, 2023
As someone who came to CSS only a year ago, I fully endorse the enthusiastic response this book has received from the other reviewers here. It is not a beginner's book (though at times it is a surprising mixture of the advanced and the elementary) but a superb overview for someone who has a thorough grounding in the basics (best served by Teague's 'DHTML and CSS' and Briggs' 'Cascading Style Sheets'). This is right up there with the superlative 'Eric Meyer on CSS' - which obviously influenced it in many ways, and was just like having a complete expert at your elbow while working through his tutorials - and the wonderfully clear and concise 'Web Standards Solutions' by Cederholm (which all all CSS designers should own).
But overall this is the best yet, not least because it is so beautifully produced and inspirational, concerned always with the aesthetics of design rather than pure technicalities, but handling both in an extremely well controlled and ordered way.
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