 See larger picture | Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design (Voices That Matter)
by
Andy Clarke and Molly E. Holzschlag
- New Riders PressList Price: $49.99
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Product Description 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
Featured Customer Reviews  Very dissapointing start, but improves at the end,
November 29, 2008
The first 160 pages are repetitive, circular consultant-speak heavily padded with gorgeously reproduced pictures that have nothing to do with web design (unless you perhaps find them inspirational.) I almost didn't keep reading, but I'm glad I did. When it finally gets into some CSS deconstructions and design techniques I found it more interesting and picked up some nice technical tips.
 Must have. Period.,
November 03, 2008A book that will help good Web designers become better,
October 08, 2008 Warning: Transcending CSS is not for beginners. It might not even be for intermediate CSS users. It is for advanced users who have made several ho-hum, run-of-the-mill websites with CSS and are looking for ways to put some oomph in their designs. There is code in this book - XHTML markup and CSS syntax are given for all of the examples explained in the book - but it will be useless to readers who don't already know how to create table-less XHTML and CSS websites. This is not an instructional book; it is an inspirational book. The first paragraph makes the objectives clear:
"Transcendent CSS is more than a plea to use the latest, coolest CSS. It's a quest to use the lessons you're learning in CSS as a means to becoming the finest artist and designer you can be. Transcendent CSS asks you to embrace the new rather than the old and to stimulate new ways to find inspiration, create more agile and appropriate workflows for Web design, and encourage yourself to constantly learn more about both the design and the technical issues with which you work."
As one might expect of a book concerned with art rather than technique, it is visually stunning. It is filled with pictures, every one in color, which probably explains the higher-than-average price. Many are screenshots of websites, but even more depict hundreds of examples of color and design from the real world. This book is likely to appeal to designers and non-designers alike, if only because it is so visually appealing.
The first two chapters of the book are largely concerned with things one might expect to find in a web design book: markup, layout, prototyping, best practices, process, and workflow. Chapter three, "Inspiration," is entirely different, as it directs the reader to seek inspiration in all sorts of places outside of the World Wide Web and urges the designer to think less about technology and more about art. Chapter four returns to a more traditional results-based approach, but this time with an eye toward the future: CSS3 and advanced layouts are demonstrated. It is important for Web designers to keep the future in mind, but it can be frustrating to see examples of slick techniques with so little browser support that implementation is impractical.
Transcending CSS is a book for competent designers who want to make more beautiful websites without sacrificing flexibility, extensibility or standards-compliance.
 Web Design Primer, Not a How-To Manual,
May 24, 2008
Physically, the book is about two inches wider than a standard programming book. The paper is heavy and coated with full color all over the place. This is nice, but the author goes too far. Some pages include pictures of websites, but many other pages are filled with seemingly random photographs and montage works. In fact, pages 239-242 are fully dedicated to a scrapbook sample. Page 243 includes some text, but 244 is another wasted page. The images are sedate, and these picture pages seem to take up a quarter of the book. White space abounds. Consequently, as others have noted, the book is light on useful information.
I understand the attraction of grids. CSS divs and table cells both lend themselves to grid layouts. I know it is in vogue to emulate the multi-column layouts found in a newspaper page. I've read plenty about usability and how people actually surf. Unfortunately, the author's fixation with these conventions leads to dull page design. The most interesting, useful technique in the whole book involves the intelligent use of relative and absolute positioning to displace background images so that they break up the outlines of the blocks.
On the down side, the author advocates the use of browser-specific style sheets and the use of CSS3 style rules. Current browsers still have problems with some CSS 2.1 rules. The CSS3 rules will be great when browsers support them, but they won't help you write pages that work on multiple browsers and platforms. And that's the real issue with this book. It contains information that is useful to beginners, but it's not really a beginner book. This book won't have you writing CSS and XHTML in a few hours. The strange mixture of beginning and advanced materials mixture may confuse beginners while offering little that is new or useful to more experienced designers. Add in the sheer volume of wasted space and I have only one recommendation: Borrow the book from the library.Inspires better design, markup, and syling,
April 20, 2008 This book is a real gem! I read it often just for inspiration. The author is passionate about design, markup, and styling and it rubs off on me. Transcending CSS fills a niche somewhere between the technical manuals and design books. It has had a clear impact on my work.
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