Hi,

I'm looking for a book which is easy-to-understand, provides useful information and some nice pics about designing websites, because I would like to improve my skills. I am quite sufficient in both Fireworks MX 2004 and Photoshop 7.0, and I have access to both Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 and Frontpage. Can someone please reccommend a good book which covers the basics of designing a GOOD website, I'm not looking for a n00b book, I'd just like some inspiration. I'm also looking for a book to improve my web graphics designing skills, and have found designing web graphics.4 which looks quite good, and I was wondering if any of you had read it? I also know I would probably benifit from learning some Flash... Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance,

J_K9

remember your website should be easy to read

so you use all those fancy programs for web development, I just use a plain text editor, gimp, and my imagination. works pretty good but sometimes I can't create what I have in my head.

I can't wait till svg becomes usable on the web
as soon as mozilla, konq, and safari, and maybe opera support it I'll be using it

CSS 3 should be pretty cool too can't wait tell a browser supports it

If your just looking for inspiration, best thing to do is just search the web for awful looking websites and then look at cool websites. I find myself looking at other contract web designers sites to get an idea or inspiration of what I can and can't do, well, shouldn't do.

I'd only spend money on books if you don't know how to do a particular thing, like if you wanted to learn Flash, then pick up a book. But if you already know the basics with most of the tools, then all the inspiration is out there for you already on the web.

And my personal suggestions, drop Frontpage, its the worst tool you can use. Learn to code by hand without Dreamweavers help as well, even though its probably the best out there that closely matches pure html and web site code, nothing beats your own code all written from scratch or at least edited manually.

Though, if you want a book, I always like browsing thru the "Websites that Suck!" book at the store, learning by looking at bad design always makes your own sites a little better..

Also another thing I personally don't like, is Flash sites. It's not always cross compatible, is slower for dialup or low bandwidth connections and just overall overated. Sure its cool, but there's more to sites than if you got the latest moving parts or buttons on your site. Your site can look just as pretty without the moving/flashy parts and design..

Cool, thanks to everyone! I only have one fear of coding by hand: I never know if it's going to end up looking what I want it to look like! You never know if your image is going to be a little further down than you want it, or if you have made an accidental bug in your code, etc... In terms of WYSIWYG editors I much prefer Dreamweaver. I used to use Frontpage, but the code was really messy so I switched to Dreamweaver and I really like it! The only problem is that I'd like to learn some more advanced features (e.g marquees) and I'd like to take my graphics development to another level. That is why I was looking for a book on web graphics. Also, thanks trickykid for the tip about looking at bad sites...it really will help me improve my own! It's just that I look at some professional websites and think to myslef: "Wow, I really wish I could make those cool graphics and could've thought of such a cool layout". Y'know?

J_K9

postion: absolute
works great
the fear I have of those programs is they might be off a pixel, if you make it by hand it will always be pixel perfect(the way you want it anyways)

vim works pretty good as a text editor
I use it all the time while on unix computers

Edit: Trickykid those books don't show you the horror that is flashy animations do they?
one time I saw a site, drove me insane, but I forgot what is was. all I remember were the eye killing orange and purple animations.

Ughh.. too many moving parts and neon colors is really bad design in my opinion.. If I want to see such things, I'll just go to Las Vegas..

So how did you guys learn to code fully by hand? I mean, I know quite a lot of basic html, but my knowledge stops at about ordered and unordered lists! lol. So, back to what I was saying, did you learn from a book, online tuts, or by friends? Any feedback will be appreciated, because I really want to start making websites look the way I want them to. (Also, sorry for restating this for the billionth time, but does anyone know of any good website graphics design books? I will also look at professional sites, but learning the tricks of the trade is always useful...).

J_K9

www.htmlgoodies.com is a pretty good site. thats the site i used to learn html and write web sites using a text editor as well. i honestly think dreamweaver and adobe go live are worth the money if you really want to get into web design. but i mainly focus on php scripts so i only use html to display the output of my php applications. plus those two programs are pretty expensive.

I just used other sites and or online references when I wanted to do something and didn't know how..

The newest version of Front Page is pretty decent, as well as Dreamweaver. If someone is going to become a designer as a career then I'd recommend learning HTML, XHTML and CSS by hand but if someone is doing it just for a hobby then I'd skip coding by hand and using a WYSIWYG program like Dreamweaver 2004.

Idon't remember where I found my tutorials but w3schools is a great reference
also after you learn html go on to css then javascript, then whatever you choose

Did you check out the LinuxQuestions.org Book Review section to see if the book you are looking for is there?

Hmmm....msound: GREAT site! Thank you very much as it also had some tips on web graphics design and just by browsing through the site I have learnt how to make my pages load more quickly....nice!

I have been to W3Schools before and also found it very useful, but on return there I see they have added some new tuturials. I'm really going to try getting into this site during the holidays! I checked out the book review section but I couldn't find any web graphics books, so I might just end up buying the one above, but I did find some on HTML:
Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML 4 in 21 Days, Professional Ref
Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML & XHTML in 21 Days, 4th Edition
Beginning Web Programming with HTML, XHTML and CSS

I'm guessing the above are all code books right? There isn't a very good description on the in the "Review" section IMHO except for the last one...

[EDIT]

I know they say one step at a time, but what should I learn once I've learnt HTML? XHTML, CSS or javascript?

TIA,
J_K9

I've been tinkering with nvu for a few days now. it looks a bit like dreamweaver and I found it quite easy to create a simple web page, although I don't know much about HTML and web design (yet). to quote Ferdinand Porsche in this context: "Design is not fashion" . and another famous car designer (forgot his name): "design is funcion".