Customer Reviews

Taking Your Talent to the Web: A Guide for the Transitioning Designer

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book opened my eyes to issues such as accesibilty, css and xhtml, I now have a site that is fast to load and easy to update. I found this book to be an easy read,[ I am neither a graphic designer nor a trained web designer] I really like Zeldman's writng style and will use some of his points in my classes web design for photographers. The mix of code and ideas was great and for once I just read the book rather than being tempted into turning on my computer and starting work.

A thorough, comprehensive and usable book for people trying to migrate from traditional media into the (sometimes) scary world of new media.

Jeffrey Zeldman's unique voice permeates the entire book, holds your hand, and gently guides you through the ups & downs of working with the web. His examples are concise and to the point, his writing style (as always) humorous and friendly, and, most importantly, you get the feeling that he truly loves this medium, and would like nothing more than being able to help another person discover just what the fuss is all about.

Should be on the shelf of every designer - no matter what your level of experience is.

I have met Jeffrey Zeldman at WebBuilder 2002 in Las Vegas and he gave me a copy of this book. Although the audience of the book is "traditional" designers and my background is more of a technical one, I still found it extremely useful.

Zeldman writes in a very light tone, which makes reading the book very easy and enjoyable.

I'm not a traditional designer and I'm not new to web design, so I likely wouldn't have ever purchased or read this book if I had not come into the possession of a complimentary copy.

But I do regularly check in with Zeldman's trio of important sites - A List Apart [alistapart.com], The Web Standards Project [webstandards.org], and of course his personal blog, Jeffrey Zeldman Presents... [zeldman.com] and have exchanged emails with the man - so my interest was more in how the author approached and presented the information, rather than the subject of the book itself.

I'm sure he would appreciate the "separation of style from content" approach I took to evaluating his book, which is something he stresses several times in this, as in myriad other of his writings on the web.

The book was enjoyable and I got more out of it than I thought I would (as it is aimed at those new to the field). Refreshing comparisons between the nature of print design and web design, as opposed to beginning with technical discussions of HTML syntax, and the friendly writing style make it stand out in a sea of good, but overly technical, reference books. It is also fun to read, and I often found myself surprised with how many pages I ended up going through in any given sitting.

The positives of the book were the honest discussion about how a designer really doesn't need to know JavaScript, just enough to know how to gank and adapt it to one's own needs; the acknowledgement of technical vs. artistic approaches to the medium; and the inevitable development of a methodology and client interaction inherent in being a web professional.

On the negative side, I would disagree with Zeldman's assertion that CSS is purely supposed to be the responsibility of the designer, not the "HTML technicians."

Additionally, I felt the code samples a bit inconsistent, tough to read interspersed as they were in the text in an orange variable-width font, and felt myself fighting the urge to "clean them up." I could chalk this up to my own personal preferences about coding style - 4 space indentation and uniform lowercasing of HTML and CSS - but I'm sure that, as founder and member of the WaSP, Zeldman himself looks back on his nearly 2 year old code and cringes at times. To his credit, he does have a mini-site dedicated to errata and bugs: http://zeldman.com/talent/

I wonder how can a writer be so penetratingly expressive! Jeffery Zeldman has primarily written this book for people who have been in the print/graphic design industry and want to take their talent to the field of web (as the name also implies), where interactivity is the name of the game. Let me tell you this book is a prefect classic and is a must-have item for people who would like to get web skills under their belt in addition to any existing print, graphic or broadcast design experience or even for present day web designers looking for word of wisdom on across-the-board aspects of web-design industry. You will not only find crisp information but will also get sound advice that even today's experienced web designers might need. Even after reading the things over and over again, the magical expression of Zeldman draws you yet again to read those words of wisdom. I'm stuck to this book since I got it in my hands and just wish I had this book two years back which would have been a great help and inspiration. Anyway, Zeldman has been a beacon all along; courtesy Adobe.com. A straight 5-Stars!!

Although there is a lot of valuable advice in this book, I found the fluffy writing tiresome, and I didn't need many pages of another drawn out history of the development of the internet since its inception by the government. You can find better presented, and more equally valuable advice (including more technical details) in other excellent books, especially Robin William's Web Design Workshop and Non-Designer's Web Book.

Great book, well written everthing you need to know without the fluff. The URLs listed are a great resource as well....

I rarely voice my opinion, let alone write reviews, but I feel that I have to voice how satisfied I am with this book (in my own selfish interest of having more books like it be written). This is by far the single best/most important book in my web design collection. It is honest and simply packed with useful information. I bought the book based on a recommendation (several actually) and I still feel that the title of the book is the only bad thing about it. I feel the title is misleading, and I never would have even entertained buying it if not for the recommendations. That said, I will read this books again, and will keep it close to my computer for continuous reference. More please Mr. Zeldman.

I've been burned before buying books authored by well-known web personalities. Not this time. This book was much MORE than I expected. I'm a professional web designer and I couldn't put this book down. The tone is engaging and Zeldman's humor is refreshing. Zeldman has a wonderfully open vision of the web and his advice is spot on. Whether you are a transitioning designer or a developer/back-end person, this book will save you time and help you communicate better with your team and your clients. Bless Zeldman for all his efforts for open standards and consistent web standards. He makes the case better than anyone.

I teach an interactive design course at the University of the Arts, and I listed this book as a recommended text in the syllabus. It is an all encompassing, clear, concise view of the past, present, and future of the web. On top of that, Zeldman's writing is very witty, never boring!