The Non-Designer Web Book - Softcover

Williams, Robin; Tollett, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 020168859X ISBN 13: 9780201688597

Publisher: Peachpit Press, 1997

Synopsis

The Non-Designer's Web Book is geared to the person who has no background in design or the World Wide Web, but who still wants to participate in this communication explosion.

Aspiring Web designers learn why Web design is different from print design and how to take advantage of it, where to get or how to make Web graphics easily, and how to get their finished Web site up on the World Wide Web. With its user-friendly writing, appealing page design, eye-catching graphics, extensive examples and illustrations, and full-color throughout, The Non-Designer's Web Book provides beginners with everything they need to create their own beautiful and well-designed Web sites.

About this title

Review

While The Non-Designer's Web Book won't answer all your technical questions about the inner workings of the Web, it explains most of what a beginning designer needs to know: what the Web is, how it gets to your computer, how to use it, and most of all how to design for it.

Any artist can tell you that you have to know how a medium works to get the most impact working in it. A basic understanding of how the Web works enables the good designer to create sites with the most effect. This book thoroughly discusses the different kinds of graphics used on the Web, when to use one over another, how to make the most of text styles, and how to design navigation systems.

The comparisons are the best stuff here--good design vs. bad design, why designing Web pages and printed pages is different, and why a site looks terrific on one monitor but terrible on another one. Two chapters on properly preparing graphics and setting typography for Web site use describe how to avoid obvious mistakes that would make your work look amateurish.

Not limited to design, Non-Designer shows you how to get a site up and running, register the domain name, and add it to search engines. After the design is finished and implemented, the site has to be uploaded and updated, and that's explained too.

If there is one fault with this book, it's the lack of information on specific authoring tools. The barest overview of the current crop of tools appears in chapter 3, "Just What Are Web Pages, Anyway?" but a discussion of why you should choose one package over another is absent.

Don't let that stop you from buying this book, though. Plenty of magazines regularly have Web authoring tool "shootouts." What the magazines don't tell you, and what Non-Designer excels at, is how to make well-designed pages. If you're going to build Web sites, for either personal or professional use, but you have no clue where to begin, start with this book. It's easy to read, it's devoid of confusing jargon, and it's full of do's and don'ts to help you avoid common snags. --Mike Caputo

About the Author

Robin Williams is a fourth-generation Californian on both sides, born in Berkeley and raised in the Bay Area. She lived in Sonoma County for 15 years, then in 1993, she packed up her kids, the dog, and two cats and moved to New Mexico.

John Tollett's graphics background includes working as a designer, art director, and illustrator titles at advertising agencies and as a freelancer. "The majority of this experience was gained in Dallas, but the lure of adobe houses and snow-covered mountains brought me to Santa Fe. Here, I've continued designing, art directing, and illustrating, and of course started using a Macintosh. Now there's one factor present that wasn't there before: Now it's fun. Now I can experiment. I can change my mind. I can play.

I read once that all creativity is a form of play. I didn't believe it at the time. Being creative was work. But now, as I look out the window at the fresh snow on the mountains, I wonder: Should I go skiing or should I boot up the Mac?"

Edition details

• Publisher: Peachpit Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 020168859X
• ISBN 13: 9780201688597
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288