|
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Beginners - consider this book. Expecting more? Beware., 2 Aug 2001
By A Customer
There are two parts to this book, an introduction to building web pages (80 pages) and a Showcase (100 pages) of web page designs. This is the same format as other books in the series (www.colour and www.type). The Showcase section is well chosen and well laid out. If you want inspiration for your own designs then this offers good value. What lets the book down is the introductory section. I do not think that the author (described as a writer and freelance journalist) has spent much time doing web design. The introduction is too broad and general and contains 'padding' such as 'A bit of history' and 'HTML and its derivatives'. There are annoying errors - according to the author, web authoring software is dominated by two players - Microsoft with Frontpage and Adobe with PageMill and GoLive. Wake up Jerry! There are loads more options - what about Dreamweaver or HomeSite? And there is no discussion of how the software affects page design - for example, much layout starts on Photoshop. Most seriously, for this author, layout seems to mean simply how the page looks. On web pages, layout influences use and interaction, but little is made of this in the book. The commentary with the Showcase misses a real oportunity to discuss good layout. And most comments on the showcased sites are simply lazy - for example "Both ... sites use sophisticated layouts with strong images and plenty of added-value downloads to good effect" You can pick up all the introductory stuff in free tutorials found on the web, or in better books than this. Your buying decision should be based on this - if you want images of 100 - 150 nice web sites to look through, buy this book. Otherwise, look elsewhere.
|
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home
