Rating: 
Summary: Highly Recommended Book for your Bookshelf
Review: I have an intermediate knowledge of HTML, some CSS, and javascript. I know a little bit about photo editing (with Paint Shop Pro 7). I was looking for a webpage design book that wouldn't overwhelm me with hoards of technical code, or tons of eye candy and graphic designs I couldn't do without having to take a 12 month course in Photoshop. This book was JUST what I was looking for!It starts by briefly discussing changes in web design over the years as well as refreshing your memory of table and css code that's used throughout the book and in the 50 designs included in the cd. Then, it goes on to explain what mortising is, without boring you with endless babble, and why you should apply it in your designs. At this point, the author has made his case and then proceeds with teaching you how to do it. There's plenty of examples, source code, as well as tips on how to use certain aspects of Photoshop to do everything in the book. (Perfect for me since I had never used PS). 50 designs + source code/files + referrence books + trial software = icing on the cake! Worth every penny! Get this now!
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Web Design Book
Review: I have found this book to be very valuable. I constantly refer back to this book for ideas and smart tips. The templates are beautiful and up-to-date, as well as extremely customizeable. I've been inspired by the neat layouts, and have learned concepts that have helped me more easily create my own organized sites. The book is very thorough. Thank you Clint Eccher.
Rating:
Summary: I now see web design in a whole new light
Review: I would agree that the designs are extremely strong; however, it's the explanations that the book goes into that I'm thankful for. I now feel like I understand how it all works "under the hood" in terms of building more useful web sites. For the past year or two, I felt my skills were inadequate because I relied on Go Live. Now, though, I feel like I can build similar designs, myself, without the aid of software. Yes, it would have been nice if the designs stretched to 1024 resolution; however, the several designs I worked with are not difficult to modify so that they also fit such resolution. It's the perfect opportunity for me to apply the skills this book offers.
Rating:
Summary: It's the book I would have written
Review: I'm a graphic designer. For years I've explored multimedia and web design on my own, but wasn't sure my approach was right. This book not only confirmed what I did know, but explained the stuff I didn't. The templates alone are worth the price. Yes, I believe every designer worth their salt, print or web, should own PhotoShop and knowing HTML is helpful. But I must disagree with the reviewer who said this book isn't for WYSIWYG/Dreamweaver users. Understanding *why and how* HTML, CSS and nested tables function from a coding standpoint only makes working with Dreamweaver easier. This book is a MUST for anyone wanting to design web pages--for a living or otherwise. THANK YOU CLINT ECCHER for writing the book I'll never have time to write.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, my quest is over!!
Review: I'm an ASP/SQLServer web developer who is short on graphic design skills and overall design approaches. I have been searching for a good book or instructional material on how to make professional looking sites. Since I'm just learning Photoshop and my skills are more on the 'developer' site of the spectrum, it has been difficult to find a 'how-to' book to take my skills into that area without starting from scratch and the basics. After purchasing many other books and being disappointed at their level or depth, I bought this GREAT book on Sunday and had most of a site (based on one of it's excellent templates!) up by Monday after reading it almost cover to cover. The book takes you step by step along the way and the fantastic thing is that you can follow the techniques used to build the templates to see it work 'in action'! I can't say enough about this book. Don't waste your money and time with anything else...if you are like me, this book will finally put the quest for a good website design book to an end once and for all. I feel like I now know the secrets of fine web design and can now approach my projects with great confidence...
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for design concepts.
Review: In the classroom, when I teach web design, unless the courseware comes with templates the students spend the time creating pages from scratch. While this is worthwhile for novices, there are times when you need templates for some web projects. In this book the authors has given you over 200 HTML templates, which are on the cd-rom, to work with. By following along with the book you'll end up creating over 50 pages. You find yourself working with frames, forms, tables, graphics and CSS. The book should have had the design outputs in color to allow you to be able to see what the outcome would like. I did like the 3 case studies included, which take you from a basic web page to a very advanced design layout. The cd-rom included trial version of Photoshop, FireWorks, Flash and HomeSite all of which have newer versions out and should be updated for the next edition. I found the JavaScript Cook to be a very handy and useful tool for creating scripts without an in depth knowledge of the coding techniques. The other handy utility included in the HTML/CSS Developer's resource guide, which makes the creation of CSS easier. With all the helpful tool and tricks the book is certainly a welcome addition to my HTML/Web Design library. Overall a very good value for the money.
Rating:
Summary: This book deserves seven stars !
Review: No book is ever perfect but some books are sure close and this happens to be one of them. This book teaches mortising which is break up sites in smaller chunks for faster downloads. I really appreciate the part about slicing that went a step further to say which slices to be saved in Gif or Jpeg and the rational. Mr. Eccher please be a little more lucid with some of your explanations and it would be nice to show alternatives, for example masking.
Yes this book focuses on photoshop but if you know how paint shop pro some of the design techiques should be lucrative.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting ideas, but....
Review: On the bright side, this book is one of the few that addresses both the issues of design (i.e.,the visuals that make up a great site) and development (the programming behind the scenes that makes the site function effectively). On the not-so-bright side, I had some real issues with Mr. Eccher's particular design aesthetic, which eschews techniques like frames (he says to avoid them, which struck me as a bit simplistic) in favor of heavily mortised graphics and "fixed resolution" sites that are built with one monitor resolution in mind. Each of the 50 sample sites included on the CD is crafted to look terrific in 800 x 600--which means they look downright strange in higher resolutions. In all fairness, Mr. Eccher does point this out as a "con" to his technique in one of the first chapters, but it's a big issue that's glossed over fairly quickly, especially since current stats show that 35% of us see the web at a higher resolution than 800 x 600. There are ways to build attractive and functional sites that work in more than one monitor resolution. The book, however, will not teach you how to do that. PS: I gave the book an extra star for the included designs (which are visually wonderful, despite how they're built) and for being the first web book I've seen that had the guts to advise readers not to worry about the 216 color "websafe" pallette.
Rating:
Summary: An expansive, accessible resource for novice web designers
Review: Professional Web Design: Techniques And Templates by award-winning website designer Clint Eccher (owner of A5design, a website design company commissioned by Fortune 500 companies, national non-profit organizations, and the small business community) is an expansive, accessible resource for novice web designers that has a great deal of value to offer even the experienced reader. Individual chapters include the basics for beginning website creators, how to use HTML to create a legible website with sharp and appropriate graphics, case studies, a variety of web designing "tips and tricks", fifty superb, license-free templates to get one started, and much more. The accompanying CD-ROM contains the template source files, two free software packages, and third-party software demos. Overall, Professional Web Design is recommended as a "how to" guide certain to be of use to web designers of all experience levels, from beginners creating a personal home page to professionals putting together a business-ready look for the online market.
Rating:
Summary: Great! Visual Designs, Bad, Bad Coding Practices
Review: The designs in this book are visually terrific! However, as a web developer, my advice to you is: The best way to use the book is to use the visual ideas, simplify them and ignore the author's table design and coding practices. They are not STANDARDS COMPLAINT and do not represent "best practices" that have been developed in web design and development. Nesting tables, as this author does, for example, is what everyone USED to do before building sites with valid Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and HTML became the industry standard. Why is this important? Building non-standard/complaint websites costs the client a LOT of money in wasted development time, makes changing or updating sites much more difficult, and creates sites that are hard or impossible for people with disabilities to use. This author builds fast loading pages, but the pages would be even faster if the author used current practices. Use his excellent visuals, but learn to do excellent page coding and development, as well.
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