 |
|
 |
| |
|
|
         |
|
Designing the WebWeb purists once insisted that the Web is not a place for design. By "design", they usually meant that the Web was not a place for the fine graphic designs of good magazines, posters and other media. In 1997, that sort of good design is pouring onto the Web. And that sort of design, everywhere from Fine magazine to the Australian wines site, indeed does just the job which designs on paper, fabric and other traditional media have long done. By creating beautiful or challenging images, positioning text and using white space well, such sites get their message across. The best-designed sites go a step further than good-looking pages. Users move about them easily, encounter just the right amount of Web "technology", and use the site's tools to get whatever responses they want - if any. These other sites provide the best guidance to design on the Web.
Leading by example Web Page Design For Designers: Joe Gillespie does not merely write about how to create a good-looking, fast-loading, easily navigable site; he also shows you, through his site's own standard-setting design. Gillespie rose to prominence as architect of the UK Daily Telegraph newspaper's much-admired site, so he understands print on the Web better than almost anyone around. No other Web site so reproduces and expands on the experience of reading a series of brilliant articles in an expensive glossy magazine. Each of his topics - from the profound limitations of Web design, through typography and graphics to "razzamatazz" - gets a definitive treatment. Best of all, Gillespie provides the entire site as a downloadable file which you can install on your hard drive for off-line reading.
Read 'em and weepWeb Pages That Suck: Under the motto "Learn Good Design By Looking At Bad Design", academic Vincent Flanders teaches some of the same lessons as Gillespie. But he uses exactly the opposite technique, linking his lessons to weird, ugly, botched sites all over the Web. His page on "Tpyos", for instance, highlights a certain software giant's glowing explanation of a product called Microsoft Pubilsher. You'll also find out why the wrong background colours can get you killed - important knowledge for the novice page creator. And you'll never forget his domain name ...
A Five-Minute GuideWeb Design Tips: A brief but informative guide to the basics, wrapped up in a beautiful package.
One man's viewGeorge Williams' "Design Cross-Training": A fascinating vision of the future of Web design.
The Webmaster's Britannica ...Webreference: Half-encylopedia, half-magazine and all-class, this sprawling site aims to provide the best possible guide to website creation. Much of the time it succeeds, with high-quality articles on subjects like web page animation and the relative merits of different search engines, and sub-sites such as the JavaScript Tip of the Week. Its collection of links has no peer.
... the Webmaster's Complete English Usage ...Sun Guide to Web Style: Sun human-computer interaction expert Rick Levine sets out the basics of Web site structure, explaining why you should define your audience, why your buttons should look like buttons, why you should only use the right 216 colors in your Web images, and much else besides. (The Yale CAIM Web Style Manual does a similar job.)
... and the Webmaster's BibleDavid Siegel's High Five: To many Web designers, this is that battered old favorite that never makes it back to the shelf. And like my kids' favorite, it has a new animal on every page - or at least every link. High Five critiques the best-designed sites on the Web, laying bare the secrets of their art and structure. The collection ranges from flash commercialism (Porsche, Joe Boxer) through fun (Doonesbury, Gabby Cabby) to unrestrained artiness (Fine, typopositive). A new one goes up every Wednesday, which means that every week you get new inspiration.
High Five also links to Siegel's other sites, none of which should be missed. Web design owes more to Siegel than to anyone else. His single-pixel image trick, described on his Web Wonk and Killersites pages, first showed Web designers how to accurately position elements in a browser window; his essay on The Balkanisation of the Web remains a milestone in site philosophy.
|
  
|
