Overview
This is a behind-the-scenes look at how some of today's best Web sites were created. Ten popular and critically praised Web sites are looked at piece by piece to analyze why they work so well.- Includes in-depth detail on how the pages are coded, graphics are created, tables and forms are constructed, scripts are implemented, and other design aspects are integrated
- Presented in elegant yet functional full-color and 8 x 10 format
- Features expert tips from the best-selling author of Designing Web Graphics
Editorials
Library Journal
Weinman is a one-woman graphics factory turning out essential web-design guides. Coloring Web Graphics is a simply beautiful description of browser/platform safe colors. Anyone who has carefully designed a web site only to view what looks like a bizarre parody on a friend's machine will welcome this work. The CD is full of color palettes and clip art. Deconstructing is a total case study approach to understanding web design. This hands-on, backwards look at existing web sites includes examinations of the site code in html, Java, JavaScript, ShockWave, and even PhotoShop that produced the sites. Designing Web Graphics is a total approach to building a successful web site, from advice on buying hardware to animation techniques. Especially clear discussions of graphics formats (e.g., jpegs vs. gifs) and navigational graphics are augmented in this second edition with updated information on frames, interactivity, and more. In early summer, look for Preparing Web Graphics (ISBN 1-56205-686-7. $39.99) and Creative HTML Design (ISBN 1-56205-704-9. $39.99).Ray Duncan
Deconstructing Web Graphics
Lynda Weinman's previous book, Designing Web Graphics, was an interesting and practical (if fairly low-level) tutorial for non-nerds. It was notable for its emphasis on performance and the concept of "browser-safe" palettes. Deconstructing Web Graphics, subtitled "Web Design Case Studies and Tutorials," has a completely different agenda, and focuses rather narrowly on the structure of eleven Web sites that Weinman found particularly appealing.
The book's title is misleading in that the Web sites under discussion are not "deconstructed" in any analytical or critical sense of the word. Weinman simply interviewed the authors and artists that worked on the sites, then described their methods and tools in an entirely admiring and sympathetic fashion. The selection of Web sites seemed parochial and sometimes inexplicable to me. At least a couple of the sites were authored by her friends or students, one was only a prototype with no real content, and several were downright ugly.
I learned a few useful tricks from this book, but overall I found it unattractive and technically shallow. The design is visually jarring and hyper-ornamented with colored text, boxes, and various bullets and gizmos. There are also way too many typos. The example HTML is reprinted as a run-on stream in narrow columns with no blank lines or indenting. The fragments of C code and CGI scripts get the same treatment and are virtually unreadable, not that the average purchaser of this book would know what to make of them anyway. There are considerably better books on Web site design out there for this amount of money.--Dr. Dobb's Electronic Review of Computer Books