The ZEN of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web (Voices That Matter) (Paperback)

I only tend to create websites in my spare time at the moment, but am looking to do a bit of freelance work in my spare time. Unfortunately, until now, my creative skills have been a bit limited! I wasn't bothered about things such as accessibility, and most of my websites were built with tables as they were more convenient and consistent across browsers.

But recently, I've been getting into the whole "web standards" thing, so I needed some inspiration. I found the CSS Zen Garden website and from that, decided to try out the book.

First thing to point out (as many have already done) is that this book won't teach you CSS in any detail. It already assumes you know the basics. This book is focussed on the actual design process - coming up with creative new ways to style web pages, and some of the many "tricks of the trade" that web designers have used in creating style sheets for the Zen Garden website.

The designs selected for the book are all outstanding, and for each one, a different topic is covered - layouts, transparent imagery, Fahrner Image Replacement (FIR), the Box Model hack for browser consistency, etc... It contains a huge amount of technical information on designing excellent looking websites using CSS.

In the margins of the book, it also gives handy notes and URLs for websites to look for further information.

For website creators like me who have been focussed on the more technical aspects (such as writing PHP/ASP scripts) rather than making good-looking, easy to use, accessible sites that conform to web standards, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

The book does not go into too much detail on some of the aspects, and often gives a web url to go for more information. This allows the authors to keep to the core content (the design aspect), but does mean that you often have to go and look elsewhere to get the full details. This does detract from some of the usefulness of having a hardcopy of the book, as you have to spend time in front of the computer looking up the urls.

Most webmasters would benefit from reading this book, but I'd also recommend getting a reference guide to refer to once you've started implementing websites using CSS.

I say this as a (sometime) ASP/ASP.NET/PHP developer, who up until this point, "doesn't do design". I saw it as an inconvenience in the creation of otherwise technically brilliant (modesty eh!) web applications. Yet the whole css zen garden concept could actually make the life of web developers a lot easier.

Developers could eschew design altogether while creating web pages/forms that offer true flexibility for real designers. But the beauty of this book is that it actually gives hints, tips, and pointers, that in the absence of a designer in teams of programmers, could help make web developers into half decent designers.

This is more of an interest book that will hopefully change the attitude of the new breed of unwilling web designers that the .NET framework has created. It may also help designers that aren't currently working with new media to bring their talents to the web in a way that doesn't involve using Macromedia Flash.

It's not perfect but it will open your eyes.