After Part 1 and Part 2 of this series covered Design Fundamentals and Web Design, respectively, it’s time to focus on the actual implementation of a Web Site or Application.
Web Development
The way I see it, being able to implement your own vision or interface is a very enjoyable and freeing experience. This is why every Web Designer should learn how to code, even if just superficially. With this in mind, our third and final installment brings you these six books:
- Designing with Web Standards
- Zeldman’s book is practically a household name these days, and rightly so. This was one of the first books on the market that made a compelling case for the use of Web Standards, in the only language the decision-making people understand: saving money. While the first part of the book discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using Web Standards, in the second part Zeldman teaches budding Web Designers how to best implement this and that feature using standards-compliant code. A truly awesome Web Standards primer.
- Web Standards Solutions
- This book is a great reference guide for markup and style solutions. Its chapters discuss actual use-case scenarios and how to best implement them using standards-compliant markup and style. The book is not in any way shallow, digging through solutions step by step and effectively accomplishing its goal of teaching you the long lost secrets of XHTML and CSS. This cover is for the second edition, which will be out in a few months. Get this one. If you can wait, that is.
- Bulletproof Web Design
- This is one of my favourite books in this list, and it is highly recommended. Unlike “Web Standards Solutions”, which was listed above (and is written by the same author), this book focuses on achieving Web nirvana by ensuring your beautiful designs don’t burst and break under any use scenario. You’ll explore and deconstruct several bulletproof solutions, such as handling text, floating containers, absence of CSS or image support, among others. Highly recommended.
- CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
- You already know about CSS, and why you should be using it, so it’s about time you mastered it. This book covers a lot of ground, spanning from basic concepts such as cascading, positioning and floating all the way to advanced techniques like image replacement, awesome form and list styling, navigation menus, as well as debugging and filtering practices. The book rounds off with two in-depth case studies written by Simon Collison and Cameron Moll, two of the world’s most renowned Web Designers.
- Javascript: The Good Parts
- Javascript is an awesome language, you could say. However, it also has a whole lot of bad in it. In this book, Javascript expert Douglas Crockford teaches you about the truly excellent features which make Javascript a beautiful programming language, while avoiding those which will only bring about a world of hurt. Focusing on the “good” subset of the language, Javascript: The Good Parts will teach you how to produce beautifully functional, elegant and maintainable code. It’s about time you learned Javascript. The good way.
- PHP Cookbook
- You might think I focus too heavily on client-side coding, and it is indeed my favourite aspect of Web Development. However, I couldn’t let this one slip by unnoticed. PHP Cookbook is a tremendous resource, packed with solutions to common (and not so common) problems you might face while programming PHP. It’s “recipes” cover both beginner and highly advanced techniques so, if you’re using PHP at any level, this book is a must-have.
That finishes our series of three posts! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these book recommendations as much as I did writing them. Oh, and as always, feel free to use the comments box if you think I left out a major book (or two)!
Yey, I’m adding Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards to my whishlist! Nice list, Bruno :)