Handcrafted CSS is by one of the web design industries’ most established authors, Dan Cederholm. He is the man behind Bulletproof Web Design, Web Standards Solutions, Simple Bits and most recently Dribbble.
Dan is well known for his clean markup, embracing advanced CSS and his love of ampersands so I was really looking forward to this book.
Handcrafted CSS is for the CSS designer who wants to go the extra mile.
Who is it for?
This book would be more for intermediate/advanced designers, which is great as there are so many ‘beginner’ books out there it was nice to read a book that just got stuck in.
It’s for designers who care about the little things – the clean markup, the grid, the 1 pixels and the ampersands.
What’s in it?
- Simple tricks for dealing with everyday CSS obstacles
- Bulletproof CSS3 techniques
- The fluid grid
- Floats (and clearing them)
- Frameworks (and crafting your own)
- Small details that can make a great design
- Stuff about ampersands
Verdict
I really enjoyed this book. I was able to learn from it, advance current techniques and be inspired by it.
It’s easy to relate to everything outlined in the book. Some things were a reminder while others I had never thought of before. Truly inspired to go away and start crafting something special.
Not only is the content good, even how the book is laid out is gorgeous with well spaced pages, nice formatting and an embossed front cover.
Highly recommended.
Pull quotes
…the larger the target, the quicker and easier it is to get there.
but the important thing to remember here is that this method degrades beautifully…The design is intact. It’s functional and readable.
…the rounded corners in Mozilla- and WebKit- based browsers are visual rewards rather than necessary requirements.
The problem with the fixed-width approach to interface design is that it’s asking the user to adapt to the design rather than the reverse.
February 2nd, 2010
David Shawe says:
Got this book from my sister for xmas along with a few others from other people.
Yet to start this badboy. Agreed the embossed front cover is worth getting this book for alone. (=
February 3rd, 2010
Lee says:
It sure is nice to see the publishers paying attention to detail like the cover. Enjoy it David!
February 3rd, 2010
Jim Munro says:
I just checked this one out today. I’m not sure how I missed it.
I agree the embossed cover is a nice detail, made it hard to resist buying it at the store vs. Amazon.
Did you get the DVD? If so, any reason to pay the extra money for it?
February 3rd, 2010
Lee says:
Didn’t go for the DVD edition Jim – likewise never sure if it’s worth the money
February 5th, 2010
Steve Bates says:
I’ve been wanting to get my hands on Dan’s book, especially after having gotten Zeldman (& Marcotte’s) Designing With Web Standards 3rd edition.
February 5th, 2010
Mark McCorkell says:
I should invest in books a lot more. The last book I bought was “Los Logos” and that was to look at the pretty logos in my spare time for inspiration.
I’m one of them people that find it hard to learn from reading books, which does go against the grain a bit. If I got the one with the DVD it might work for me though so I could actually see what the book is telling me to do.
If anyone has got the DVD version let me know if it’s any good.