By Jamie Freeman. Grade: A

More and more people are setting up their own websites for personal or professional purposes. This convenient, easy-to-use guide offers solid, jargon-free advice on the basics of website design. Learn exactly how to plan a site, with an introduction to information architecture, tools, scripting basics, file and image formats, choosing and buying a domain name, and testing procedures. Key design aspects, such as colors, typefaces, and rollovers are also explained, along with tips on marketing, quick loading, and fun extras like Flash animation. Want a website? Build a website, with help from 500 Simple Website Hints, Tips, and Techniques.

This book is great right from the get-go. You open it up to find glossy, full-color pages. And in these pages are some great website tips along with some great examples of design. This book works really well as a visual reference. And should be able to help anyone. Both newbie and experienced.

The thing about web design is, it’s not exactly textbook. You have to get your feet wet somehow and then you have to go out there and solve problems. The other thing is you don’t have a whole lot of answers. That’s where the design community comes in. You ask a bunch of questions of people who are just like you that have been down that road before and can help.

You can relate to this book the same way. This books talks Web Designer to Web Designer. Giving you information and and answers to questions you are probably already asking. Turning on a bright light bulb of ideas that you can quickly and correctly incorporate into your projects. And introducing you to modern and hip designs at the same time.

For a while I was using this book as design inspiration. This book is chock full of examples of great design. You could get the book just on that premise alone. Take the opportunity to look at the showcased layouts and get a feel for how they work. See if you can detect a block shadow or even some text-shadow. Is there a top, middle, and bottom in the design? Or is it in an a-typical format?

The tips in this book are absolutely great. They are brief and understandable. You will learn new techniques such as creating a block shadow from an image or making a cool looking button. You will also learn about ordered lists versus bulleted lists, creating and using wireframes, and some other specifics that will help your projects run smoothly.

The one thing about this book is that it was written in 2008. And yes, even that can be a little outdated. With the arrival of CSS3 and HTML5 there may be some tips and techniques you can skip but it wouldn’t hurt knowing how to do something particular in yet another way. That knowledge would definitely help when you create more elaborate and complicated layouts.

This book will definitely help get your creative juices going. But it will also help you understand different aspects of web design better and may open the door for more heavier reading. Correcting some misconceptions, learning new methods and being able to study designs is the perfect recipe for success in the web design world. I think anyone who would like to learn some new techniques will enjoy this book.