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The Principles of Beautiful Web Design

Current rating: 4.7 (540 votes)

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Review:

I’m quite jealous of Jason Beaird. Not only because he has design skills that exceed my own, but also because he's the author of an impressive-looking new book, which this site is based upon.

I was immediately attracted to the many qualities of this website. From its chilled blue colour scheme to the big friendly two column layout, it oozes quality. Even the unusual hand-drawn typeface works without detriment to the design.

However the real “wow” factor becomes evident when you move your mouse over the navigation links, or click them. The unique visual prompts have been thoughtfully designed and portray a friendly, hands-on approach which I imagine fits the aura of the book like a tailor-made glove. Personally I would have removed the hover effect and left it to click only, but that's something and nothing.

A peek under the bonnet doesn’t disappoint. Clean code and decent semantic structure runs throughout, and I couldn't see a shred of inline JavaScript cluttering the body markup, which is great. The site validates to XHTML Strict, although sadly the CSS just misses the mark.

Overall thought a great, albeit small website that communicates effectively with its target audience.

Reviewed by Steve Tucker

The Zen of CSS DesignThe Zen of CSS Design
Proving once and for all that standards-compliant design does not equal dull design, this inspiring tome uses examples from the landmark CSS Zen Garden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites.
Buy at amazon for only $26.39

There are 7 guest comments so far.

commentat 03:51 on 16 March 2007, R.Bhavesh wrote:

Yeah, a beautiful one. A different concept. But i wonder whether, it's worth mentioning here?

commentat 11:25 on 16 March 2007, Ty wrote:

Hi sorry if you submitted an earlier comment, the comments got dumped when the review was re-submitted.

There were some great comments about the site including one from the sites author Jason Beaird. Checking to see if the page can be restored to include those earlier comments.

I love the site, and was in complete agreement with Steve on this pick. A good portion of the book is available as a free download over at Sitepoint.com. Click the link from the book site to get there.

commentat 10:31 on 19 March 2007, Daniel wrote:

Really a good Job! Nice site, easy on the eye and straight to the point - the concept is the clou! "...Made you look: Red Stimulates..." :-)

commentat 22:04 on 20 March 2007, Maria wrote:

The cool thing about this "mini-site" is that Jason had to crank it out pretty quickly. I think it speaks a lot about his skill. See what I'm talking about here: http://www.jasongraphix.com/archive/2007/02/i_wrote_a_book

commentat 23:37 on 20 March 2007, Jason Beaird wrote:

Thanks for the positive feedback everybody. My goal was just to create a fun marketing site with a design that demonstrated some topics from the book. Although I didn't have much time, I'm happy with how it turned out and was excited to see it pop up on Stylegala! PS - The CSS validates just fine. :)

commentat 18:59 on 22 March 2007, Paul wrote:

Jason,

This mini-site is innovative and appropriate. It was cleverly done! I like how the site is not overdone with javascript animations, and how simply the pertinent info is presented.

I am a huge fan of SitePoint. I downloaded a sample of your book and I am very impressed at how chalk full of examples the book is. Instead of theoretical speak about design, the examples from the "wild" help drive home your ideas.

commentat 09:37 on 26 March 2007, Kevinn wrote:

Nice touch on the header and nav elements, enforcing the book as you browse the site.


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