Saint_Michael

In today's book, I will be reviewing White Space Is Not our Enemy: A Beginner's Guide to Communicating Visually through Graphic, Web and Multimedia Design by Kim Golombisky & Rebecca Hagen. If you thought what I though, unlikely, I was thinking it was a book about work white space in your designs, well you be wrong as this book is more of a informal discussion of web design in general. Meaning, that it covers the most important aspects of design such as fonts, color, images, layout, story boarding to name a few. Of course, the whole time the book is specifically talking about the proper and improper usage of white space so that is most definitely a buzz world to look out for as you read this book. While this book is gear more towards the UX crowd, I think this book, which is light in nature, is valuable to programmers, graphic designers, font and color specialists and so on. The book isn't technical by any means but does provides processes a person would go through when trying to figure out their design. Obviously, the topics that the previous sentence refers to the chapters on color, fonts, and story boarding. However, as you read the book it provides a subtle process for everything a person goes through, its just those three chapters that stick out the most. As for the chapter that I will be focusing on in this review will be Chapter 4, which is titled Layout Sins. In this chapter the authors talks about 13 common mistakes when it comes to the layout process, for me some of them are pretty common and others not so much. For instance, sin number 2 talks about re-sizing the image to fit your layout and the problem is that it often distorts the image itself and thus lose its quality. I can say from experience getting an image to work properly in a layout is a annoying task, especially if the image isn't large enough to fit the layout. As for a sin that isn't too common, for me at least is Sin #8: Trapped Negative Space. The idea from what the authors are talking and from my understanding it has to deal with making sure that the white is balanced through out the website and if it isn't, then it will stick out like a sore thumb. To read more about this sine more specifically, go here http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/negative-space-in-webpage-layouts-a-guide/ The best thing about this chapter is out the end in which they ask you to go through the 13 sins with your designs and see if any of them show up, and odds are after reading that chapter they will stand out more. Which means, that this list should be an important part of your design process and odds are I bet that list would be even larger, but odds are I think the authors wanted to stick to these the most. To end my review, it is a good book for light reading and helps you think a bit more or rather think about things that have never come up and while it isn't technical in nature, I bet if you combine it with your other books, UX or other wise, odds are it will strengthen the process you go through from paper to server.

In this review, I will be talking about a book that is specific to graphic designers, called Logo Design Love. Author David Airey book specifically targets one aspect of graphic design and that is logos, and the goal of this book is not to talk about iconic logos or what ones are bad or good, but rather the design process. It isn't so much a step-by-step guide, but more of the process one takes either from inspiration from what he or she sees to fulfilling client requests. in the first part of book he talks about the point of logos and brands, the story they are telling and what makes a great logo. In the second part of the book is where you get your hands dirty, but the interesting part is the work a person has to do before they even begin the concept of design and I reflect back to the five W's; Who, What, Where, When, and Why. However he takes it a step further by talking about How and the need especially when it comes to redesigning an old logo from a well established company to a logo for an emerging company. Then, when a person feels they have everything they need to get an idea what the Logo should say, then they begin the design process itself; from concept drawings to color theory, to graphic design software. As for part three of this book, he provides useful information and tips to become more proficient and focus in Logo design and while this book is working on two years, the information that it provides would be invaluable to graphic designers and area for some to focus on to strengthen their skills.

If you a designer or developer of the web regardless of experience and skill, odds are quite a few might be missing a key asset into their development process. Sure the pros know what to do and the beginners have an idea. However, what if I told you that there is more too it then sketching out your prototype and providing great content. "Oh come now SM I know everything I need to know to produce great websites, what could I possibly be missing?" A whole lot then you might think, and so this is were the following book will help you get started or fill in the crack and make you a stronger developer in not only design but the User Experience. Undercover User Experience Design by Cennydd Bowles and James Box, experts in the UX field, have written a great starters guide to a good portion of the UX aspect of websites, web applications, and mobile applications. Rather then being a step-by-step guide on what to do, they explore all the concepts and ideas one has to think about when building something for the internet or for the office. they talk about the design process, who you most likely deal with during the process, various tools to get you going, statistical and analysis information to think about and more. While this is a small book at 183 pages, but the odds are that after reading this book you will be surprised there is a lot more to it then the coding process. Consider it a starters guide because everything they have to talk about there are hundreds of more books out there on specific topics or more in-depth guides on how to become a more efficient developer and designer. As for my favorite section, it would have to be "Chapter 6: Working With..." Because this chapter gives a brief but interesting perspective of the type of people you would be or are working with when developing websites, software and applications. What I like best about the chapter is the fact that everyone of those people who can be categorized in those groups has a different way of thinking and doing things and so the best experience you will be getting if you are able to take a bit of everything from them. That way, as you transition from each part of the process you will be prepared and being able to change your mindset when dealing with Developers, Visual Designers, SEO, Marketing people, to name a few. Of course, this book offers some useful tips and other books to read when you complete, so it is definitely a book worth having as it provides your available information to make you and your crew better designers/developers.

In my final of three Joomla book reviews, Joomla <explained> is coming the boys and girls of the Joomla organization themselves, that's right, they came out with their own beginners guide to this book and so now I really messed everyone up if you read my other two reviews on Beginner Joomla books. Then you are either pulling your hair out or ready to hunt me down and beat me for wasting all your money, but there is where your wrong my friends. Why are you wrong, simple this is the second book that has come out by the boys and girls of Joomla and this time it covers Joomla 1.6 instead of 1.5 so there. So whats the premise, its simple, you follow the book and you design the example Joomla website that is built for the book and low and behold your a Joomla expert. Well, not really an expert but you will get a better understanding of Joomla, but sadly though just like the other two books I mentioned, this one is also outdated, but the messed up part is that Joomla 1.6 did not last long as they went straight to Joomla 1.7. However, if you decided that 1.5 wasn't worth the upgrade and your decided that it is time for an upgrade, unless of course you got hacked. Then this book is a great jumping off point for you. Unless, you decide that 1.7 was too much of a pain and your going to stick to 1.6 for awhile (not really). While this book doesn't go into much detail on the changes themselves, and at this point does it really matter? This book is your basic guide that covers everything you need to get started in sixteen glorious chapters (Yeah I know Jen has 33). The book isn't technical in nature so it is an easy read for you non-techies out there and it won't make your head explode and so it should be a fun experience to learn about Joomla if you were to purchase this book. At this point I realize that I review three books that covered the same thing and I will say this you could go with any one of them at this point and the kicker being that this book is even more current then the other two so clearly it is up to you on what book to purchase if any at all. That being said, this book is just as good as the other two and so it is a matter of preference.

The next book I like to talk about is called Joomla 24-Hour Trainer written by Jen Kramer, who is also the author to Joomla Start to Finish and just like her first book this one also provide a how to guide to getting started with Joomla from downloading, to installing to maintaining a Joomla based website. However, there is an added bonus it comes with a DVD with videos tutorials that go along with the step-by-step process this trainer book goes through. Another thing I like to point out that this book also covers Joomla 1.5 and like I mention in my previous review, and also mention in this book, Joomla 1.5 is still the more popular version out there as Joomla websites are slowly converting to 1.7. So what is different about this book then her first one? Well, for one its double the chapters at 33, while her first book is capped at 15. Which means this book goes into a lot more detail and covers a lot more then in her first book. So what should a Joomla user to do? Well, my thoughts are this, while both books cover the same material and the trainer being the more updated version, I would recommend getting both books just because the compliment each other and well not everyone is keen on videos. Still, this book is still a great starting point just because it goes through the process step by step and by the end of the book you will have designed the website that is built around this book. That of course, is the other reason why you would want to get the first book as your are building your own website while in this book your building a website that you won't use. Now I am not saying there is nothing wrong with that just because a lot of books do this kind of stuff, but for some strange reason I am not keen on that kind of learning. Regardless of my thoughts though, this book is still filled with useful information and it will help you prepare for your Joomla needs and odds are when I start working into Joomla websites more often, they will provide a way to make life easier as well as yours when you build in Joomla.

The next book I will be reviewing is one of two this author has written, and here is the kicker I actually know this author as she was the former head of the Master's program I am in and a former teacher at the school, was a co-leader in the Adobe and Joomla User groups as well, runs a descent size Joomla designing business among many other things as well. Now on to the book. Joomla Start to Finish - How to Plan, Execute, and Maintain Your Website is your beginners guide to running your very own Joomla website. To start, what is Joomla? Joomla is a CMS or Content Management System and to date is one of the most popular CMS's out there. So what does book have to offer? Well to make your life easier it starts off with how to install and configure Joomla on to you web host, descriptions of the various Joomla modules, adding content, Joomla templates, maintenance, tips and tricks, and more. While this isn't the Joomla Bible, it is still a invaluable source of information and while this book is already outdated as of Joomla 1.7.3, Joomla 1.5 is still pretty common enough in terms of Joomla templates, extensions, and modules. So, you could use this book to get you going and once you feel comfortable enough with understanding how Joomla works, you can go to the next step of upgrading from 1.5 to 1.7.3 and begin to work out all the new features 1.7 has to offer and believe me there are plenty. Like I said, this book is a great place to start, but when your ready to move on, there are plenty of books that get more advanced with Joomla.

I will say this, I think the author, Ph.D Susan Weinschenk is going easy on us the readers and in short web designers/developers as well, but the question is how does this relate to the web design/develop world? Well that is where it gets very interesting think of this book as 100 ways your life as a web designer/developer gets very difficult and requires a lot of planning and in a sense a descent size crew in developing websites and applications. That is of course if your starting from scratch in your designs and doesn't include anything already created to make life easier for you. Of course, it does help due to the fact that what has been designed already does cover a lot of what this books discusses, but like I said if your going to do something from scratch and your looking for a ultimate user experience for your websites or applications then this book is where you need to begin. For an example, #11 talks about a interesting fact about people and that is this, "Nine percent of men and one-half percent of women are color-blind" and to make this stat more interesting I did some calculations. I will note that numbers are not accurate whatsoever but a close approximation based on those numbers. I will use the world population and then go further use the numbers based on the numbers of males and females. An estimated 309,856,552 men are color-blind and and an estimated 16,932,549.3 women are colorblind and give it some sort of perspective, All of the US and and a small portion of Canada would be color blind. I would also like to point out there are billions of colors but if I remember my science correctly it deals with primary colors such as red, green, and blue. So how does #11 apply to design and development? Easy, accessibility, when designing a website or developing an application it is a fair chance that some of your users will be color blind and so how do you deal with slight problem? For one think grey-scale when developing a website because that is what a person will see when they are color blind, nothing but shades of grey. So you have to figure out how to cater to this small group but still be able to add color to your website. Best way based on my experience is Dark on light or light on dark layouts, use icons to help get the message across or even better yet provide a color blind option for a user to switch to. As you see just from reading that one "chapter" about know people I have become aware of what to think about when I am designing and this is especially important when UX comes into play. Just think 99 more things to think about when you read this book and yes it is something you need to think about because if you want to target a large audience this small group is part of it.

In this review I would talk about an interesting book in which can be best summed up in making your life as a developer and designer much easier. This book is called Simple and Usable: web, mobile, and interaction design. Now i like to point out that this book is not sure fire techniques to instantly make your life better but more of a where to begin and how to progress in making your life simpler. Another thing is this, this book is literally one of thousands that covers topics of organization, project management, web development and of course User Experience or UX. So this book covers a lot of different topics at once in one page summaries which I because you don't have to think about it. In which another book I have and enjoy called Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability is a great companion book to have and read. Another way you can look at this book is at the UX level, because it really gets down and dirty on to think about your users and how to plan your projects and designers around your user base and I will say this. User experience has become very huge in the last decade and for someone like me who has been in the web design business for almost 15 years, I have become more aware about the user experience thanks to the learning i have receive from my time in college. However, I would like to think if your just starting to design and you are worrying about the code then you have barely broken the ice in the web design/development world. Because there are so many different levels of progression a person has to go in order to build a website that it makes your life very difficult until you have a plan and that is where this book will give you a good start on where to begin. Of course, if your training in the UX side of things then ideally this book is good as a source of inspiration and something to read if your stuck or looking for that little push of improvement. So check this book out and who knows it might encourage you to become a better designer and developer and maybe a better person.

The Book I would like to talk to you all today for all you web designers and web developers today is called The Book of CSS3 - A Developer's Guide to the Future of Web Design by Peter Gasston and would briefly like to talk to you all about what this book consists of and that of course is all the exciting and somewhat new and somewhat old features CSS3 has to offer. This book consists of 17 chapters of awesomeness to say the least because Gasston gives a pretty descent break of the syntax of the CSS3 and how they should be set up. On top of that, there are quite a few updates as well especially to the Background, font, and text properties, which I feel are the most important sections in this book. Of course, with all what CSS has to offer and what designers and developers are using now, everything is important. Besides the break down of the syntax of the features, Gasston also talks about which browsers currently accept the features, and surprisingly not all of them do, but i will note that this book did come out in May and so some features might have been updated since then. Earlier, I had mention that some of the CSS3 properties are somewhat new and somewhat old, I meant that in two ways. The first being that some of the stuff this book covers has been well established on the internet, such as gradients, font face, box shadow and text effects like Letterpress. the somewhat new I would say that some of the techniques required the use of JavaScript or engine specific code like Webkit, got the CSS3 treatment again Box Shadow, 2D and 3D, transitions to name a few. Better yet, designers and developers are slowly making that transition as CSS3 is doing a lot that Flash and JQuery have been doing for years in order to produce the same results. So, this does two things for you, it makes your website load faster and the learning process quicker. But I digress, when it comes to this book it is a handy started to get you going but to keep yourself current, go on the web and see what people have done and see what else has been added to the CSS3 specturm

With CSS3 well established in the web design community, Jquery based menu's are being converted to CSS3 and thus lowering the amount of code needed to produce slick looking menu's. A prime example is this series are slick looking menu's in which you can download and use for your HTML5/CSS3 websites.http://tympanus.net/codrops/2011/10/24/creative-css3-animation-menus/

Woot I am first, so seven years huh? So I thought the most famous spammer in the world would get his two cents in before the rest of the crowd does.I remember the day when it first open...wait I wasn't there for that, but a few months later I was BWHAHAHAHHA.