Product Overview

The Art & Science Of CSS

“The who’s who of the Web share their CSS design secrets!”

This book will show you how to:

• Break out of the square box cliche
• Make your backgrounds sparkle
• Design headings that stand out
• Create amazing navigation menus
• And do it all with cross browser-compatible markup
• The answers to these questions and more are in this book.

	Order the Printed Book and PDF	$49.90 (normally $59.95)
	Order the Printed Book Only	$39.95
	Order the PDF Only	$29.95

Overview

Jonathan Snook, Steve Smith, Jina Bolton, Cameron Adams, and David Johnson, five of the biggest names in CSS design have joined forces to bring you The Art & Science Of CSS.

Beautifully presented in full color, this book will teach you how to apply innovative CSS-based techniques to create visually stunning headings, forms, menus, navigation, backgrounds, and much more...

Using The Art & Science Of CSS, you’ll see just how easy it is to unleash your creative talents and design inspirational web sites with CSS.

All designs in this book are visually appealing and inspiring. The CSS code used to create each of the components is included and guaranteed to be simple, efficient and cross-browser compatible.

The book’s full-color layout and large format (8" x 10") make this one of the most usable and enjoyable CSS books available.

Who are the Authors?

What will you learn?

Among its many treasures, this book will show you how to:

• Format calendars, menus and table of contents using CSS
• Create horizontal, vertical and tab-based navigation systems using CSS
• Create rounded corners using CSS
• Design stylish Website headings
• Put together funky & artistic Website backgrounds
• Use CSS to render blockquotes, dates and lists in a visually appealing manner

All designs in this book are visually appealing and inspiring. The code CSS code used to create each of the components is provided and is guaranteed to be simple, efficient and cross-browser compatible.

What’s inside?

This book contains seven chapters that engage with the fundamental elements of the web page—headings, images, backgrounds, navigation—as well as applied styles such as those used in forms, rounded corners for content boxes, and tables. CSS is inherent in the approaches we’ll use in the exercises presented here. These exercises will encourage you to address the questions of art and science in all the design choices you make, as a means to  considerations of usability are always paramount—both in terms of users of mainstream browsers and those employing assistive technology.

Chapter 1: Headings

• Convey the content and identity of your site.
• Create attention grabbing headers.
• Gain unlimited creativity whilst maintaining accessibility.

Simultaneously conveying the content and the identity of your site, headings are truly the attention-grabbers of your web page. With only a handful of fonts being available across all browsers, CSS can help you style headings that stand out from the crowd. In this chapter, Cameron Adams will show you how to use image and Flash replacement to gain unlimited creativity in designing headings, while retaining the page’s accessibility across all browsers.

Chapter 2: Images

• Stunning ways to display images.
• Create photo albums and in-content images.
• Advanced image handling techniques.

Images are the windows to your web page’s soul. Jina Bolton will teach you stunning ways to display your images as she walks you through a number of attractive examples. You’ll learn to create a photo album, as well as to successfully place introductory and in-content images within your pages. The techniques of applying borders, padding, typography, and colors to best present your work are covered in detail in this chapter. You’ll also discover effective ways to style those all-important captions.

Chapter 3: Backgrounds

• Modernise your use of backgrounds.
• Learn all about background properties.
• Preview new background capabilities in CSS 3.

You’ve probably already found that CSS has significantly affected the way you use web page backgrounds. Here, David Johnson will explain the properties you’ll use on a daily basis to transfer your design visions into light-weight markup and CSS. You’ll then work through a case study for a fictional project, in which you’ll create a great-looking design that’s well supported by all modern browsers. Finally, we’ll look to the future to predict the new background capabilities that CSS 3 will bring!

Chapter 4: Navigation

• Learn the secrets to successful navigation.
• Apply advanced navigation styles.
• Make your navigation beautiful and usable.

Navigation is crucial to your users’ experience of your web site. Steve Smith will reveal the secrets of successful navigation through a case study involving a fictional design client. You’ll build both basic and advanced applications of the main navigation styles in use today, including horizontal, vertical, and tabbed navigation menus, and discover how you can use CSS styling to make your navigation both beautiful and usable.

Chapter 5: Forms

• Create truly accessible forms.
• Design forms that enhance your sites impact.

Forms are the quiet achievers of the web page. In this chapter, Cameron Adams will help you ensure that your forms are available to all users—even those employing assistive technology. You’ll learn how to create an attractive form that will allow for the correct and effective labeling, grouping, layout, and styling of your form elements. Forms needn’t be just a tedious necessity—as you’ll learn in this chapter, they can be presented in a way that enhances your site’s overall impact.

Chapter 6: Rounded Corners

• Break away from the square box cliché.

Those sharp corners on HTML content boxes have been the bane of many a web designer’s life for years. But CSS has changed all that, as Steve Smith explains. Flexibility is the key—horizontal, vertical, or even a combination of both forms—to creating rounded corners for your boxes with some straightforward styling. The achievement of rounded corners does hold traps for the unwary, including unsympathetic browsers, but you’ll find that taking the few small precautions detailed here will help you to avoid them.

Chapter 7: Tables

• Give table design a new lease on life with CSS.
• Design attractive cross browser compatible tables.
• Explore to impact of CSS 3 on tables.

Tables have gained a new lease of life in the CSS era—while they’ve finally been freed from misuse as a layout element, they retain enormous potential as presenters of data. Jonathan Snook will demonstrate how you can use CSS to create exciting, colourful tables, which will work successfully across browsers. You’ll also be invited to envision the future, in which the advent of the wide use of CSS 3 will create even more scope for creative tables.

View the Table of Contents

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is ideal for anyone who wants to gain the practical skills involved in using CSS to make attractive web sites, especially if you’re not the type who likes to learn by memorizing a formal specification and then trying to work out which browsers implemented it completely (does anyone enjoy reading specifications?). The only knowledge you’ll need to have is some familiarity with HTML. This book will give designers the skills they need to implement their ideas, and provides developers with creative inspiration through practical examples.

No-risk Money-back Guarantee

Of course we’re so confident that you’ll treasure this book for years to come that we’re happy, as always, for you to try it risk-free for 30 days. If you purchase a copy of The Art & Science Of CSS and you think it fails to be everything you wanted, we would like you to have your money back.

Simply contact us and we will see to it that you receive a prompt and courteous refund of the full purchase price minus shipping and handling.

What could be fairer than this?

How To Order This Book

The fastest way to get your hands on the most recent version of The Art & Science Of CSS is by ordering it direct through us, the publisher, for $39.95.

Exclusive from sitepoint.com, for only $9.95 extra you can purchase The Art & Science Of CSS in a downloadable PDF format to accompany your physical book purchase. Now you can read the entire book while you're waiting for your printed copy to arrive, and you can take the entire book with you on your laptop when you are away from the office!

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