Sam Brown

Web designers who can't code, need to read this book

#419 3rd March 2010 at 4am Notes 4 Comments

Upon returning from my month long vacation down-under I arrived home to see that the ‘should designers be able to code’ debate had reared its head once again, there has been plenty said about that already and it is certainly an interesting discussion.

HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions – A Web Standardistas’ Approach →

HTML and CSS Web Standards Solutions - A Web Standardistas' Approach

This book by Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson is the book to read if you are wanting to learn how to write standards-compliant XHTML and CSS the right way. I have been fortunate enough to meet both Chris & Nic on several occasions, have had lengthy discussions with them about how web standards should be taught and also managed to sneak into their workshop at Build Conference. These guys are teaching the right stuff the right way.

Occasionally I am approached by designers looking for someone to write the markup and CSS for their designs and it is always easy to tell who knows how to design for the web and who does not. This is the book I will be recommending from now on, it covers all the fundamentals of web standards today in one neat package that I would thoroughly recommend to anyone looking to learn. Check out the Web Standardistas.

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Comments

Mark McCorkell 3 March 2010, 10:39 #1

There was indeed quite a riot that was raging in the bloggersphere when you were on your travels. I’ve seen this book talked about quite a lot so it must be worth checking out. I can front-end code reasonably well now (I think), but one of my “todo” items in Things is to buy more books. Is this book for the beginner coder? Or what sort of way coder ability would it be aimed at? Regardless, I would say it is inspirational reading.

Damien Buckley 3 March 2010, 18:15 #2

You came all the way down here and didn’t stop by for a beer. Sheesh…

Sam Brown 4 March 2010, 01:25 #3

@Mark It is inspirational reading, this book is definitely aimed at beginner level – if you are proficient at writing standards compliant HTML and CSS then this book would only serve as a refresher course. I’d pop into your local book store or flick through some of the chapters on Amazon to find out more.

Dean 4 March 2010, 04:55 #4

I always like seeing book recommendations. I’ve never read a book on HTML or CSS (or even design in general), having relied on reading blogs/articles, reading other peoples code, and experimentation to teach me what I know now, as I only build websites as a hobby.

That said, I feel like I’m at a point with my learning now where I could do with reading a few books, pitched at an intermediate to advanced level of HTML and CSS, or given my complete ineptitude with the graphical side of things, maybe something on graphic design theory or even just using Photoshop to design websites. Got any recommendations for some like myself?

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Hi, I'm a UI designer developer based in Edinburgh Scotland working as lead web designer at foursquare in NY.

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