Web Design All-in-One For Dummies

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3 responses to “Web Design All-in-One For Dummies”

1. 

   vannahblue

   January 14, 2014

   13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

   
   Great Reference Book For Designers, February 16, 2013

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   vannahblue –

   This review is from: Web Design All-in-One For Dummies (Kindle Edition)

   This book is a must have for a web designer’s reference library. It takes you through the entire process of website development from the planning stages to the publishing stages. It is also divided in a way that you can read the book from start to finish, or you can look up specific areas of interest and go right to it. There are plenty of examples, pictures, links, and lessons available that help to grasp the message. The author is not only extremely knowledgable about web design, but also gives great advice for dealing with current/future clients as well.

   All of this being said, I feel I should point out some of the things I thought the book was lacking. First of all it is a great introduction to web design for beginners, but it is not a step by step guide you can follow and have a site built by the end of the book. It is more of a list of tools and knowledge that you will gain to make your own creative site at a later time. Second, while the book is geared towards using Adobe Deamweaver and Photoshop to make your website, it does not teach you how to use the actual software. It occasionally gives tips on how to use certain functions of the Adobe programs, but not much more. Finally, I really wish the author would have tied all of her examples together at the end and shown a completed website’s coding and the physical appearance. It would have been nice to see how everything looks all put together, instead of little bits across the chapters.

   If you are brand spanking new to the world of design, this book will be a valuable asset in the future of your work. It will not teach you all of the basic knowledge required to use the things learned in the book though. I would say this is really more for intermediate to advanced designers. As a current web/graphic design student I am pleased with this purchase and look forward to using it as a reference in the future. If you have no prior experience I would recommend buying additional books teaching you how to use the software of your choice (Adobe is the leader in the industry but there are other options as well).

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2. 

   RGB_R

   January 14, 2014

   6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

   
   Great Book – Very comprehensive & resourceful, August 22, 2013

   By 

   RGB_R –

   This review is from: Web Design All-in-One For Dummies (Paperback)

   This is a great book. While I am not looking to enter into the web design business and am just looking to build a site for myself, I have learned tons from it.

   The early part of the book starts off with a discussion of the business aspects of web design & development side by side with the actual design aspects. On the business side you will see discussed such things like having a statement of purpose (IMO very important), doing informal marketing research, hiring free-lancers or copywriters, getting royalty-free vs. rights-managed stock images, publicity, visitors to your websites, shopping carts and so on. For all of this Jenkins provides good information and a host of links to sites where you can do follow-up if you want to. On the design side you will see discussed wireframes, sitemaps, image formats, color optimization, mockups, image slicing and so on.

   As the book moves forwards, it develops more into a discussion of the basic code that you use to build a website, viz. HTML & CSS. Other issues such as responsive design and mobile are also discussed here.

   The books ends with discussions of more technical coding aspects (to me anyway) such as JavaScript, jQuery, testing, code cleanup, roll-over effects, etc. and how to go about actually getting a website set up (DNS registration, ftp, etc.). Note one thing – while the new tags that come with HTML5 (e.g. <article>, <section>, <header>, etc.) are discussed, they are not discussed in depth.

   I found the book to be very readable. It really is for dummies. The book is also very comprehensive. Jenkins really knows her stuff. She has her finger exhaustively in every aspect of the web design process. Added to all of that she gives a lot of good resources for follow up.

   If I had to recommend any changes it would be the following:
   (1) On the internet (even this morning on a youtube video) I have found people confusing wireframes for mockups and vice versa. They are not the same. They are quite different. While Jenkins distinguishes between the two, she discusses them in depth in separate chapters. Maybe they should be discussed side by side in the same chapter.
   (2) I think at certain points, the pictures could have been bigger. For example the sitemap picture or the mockup. By nature people will tend to analyse these sorts of figures down to the writing on them.
   (3) Perhaps more should have been said about Typography and HTML5 since it seems to have become such a big deal these days. Other than these minor nits the book is excellent.

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3. 

   Juan Diego

   January 14, 2014

   4 of 5 people found the following review helpful

   
   Good book but too focused on Dreamweaver, May 28, 2013

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   Juan Diego –

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   This review is from: Web Design All-in-One For Dummies (Kindle Edition)

   The book is a good tool for beginners, such as myself. However, it supports a very important portion of its explanations on Adobe Dreamweaver. For first time learners such as myself, who don’t happen to own that Software, this becomes a nuisance, since you fail to receive the complete explanation or concept, and instead get the “it comes automatic in Dreamweaver” alternative.

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