|
.gif){kind=logo}
|
 |
|
|
|||
   |       |
||||||
 |
|
|||||||||||
| |||||||||||
|
|
Customers who bought this book also bought:
Explore Similar Items:
20 in Books, and 2 in DVD
Customers interested in this title may also be interested in: Sponsored Links ( What's this? ) Feedback
Product Details
Usually ships within 2 to 3 weeks Our Customers' Advice See what customers recommend in addition to, or instead of, the product on this page. Recommend an item!
See more customer buying advice
Editorial Reviews Amazon.com Wow, this is a fun book. If you spend a lot of time on Web design and suffer occasional burnout, Fresh Styles is the inspiration booster shot you need to get you back to the keyboard to whip up something new. Perhaps you'd like to try "gothic organic" or "pixelated punk"? Author Curt Cloninger, who's written for the Web developer forum Alistapart.com, defines 10 "underground" Web styles using case studies of several Web sites, and discovers what makes them not just cutting edge but marketable, too. These site designs not only mimic print design, but embrace the medium of the Web with all its flaws (browser incompatibilities, sluggish download times, varying viewer operating systems, and screen resolutions).
All 10 of the design styles discussed in this book sprang from a dissatisfaction with the status quo, a love of the Web as a medium, and a passion for evocative, communicative design. With such fun chapters as "1950s Hello Kitty Style" and "Paper Bag Style," hundreds of screenshots, and techniques for achieving these looks, Fresh Styles isn't just an inspiring kick in the pants but a cookbook/resource as well. Not everything here conforms to usability wisdom; for example, pages may not bookmark because they're in designer-defined pop-up windows or the entire site is one big Flash file. But the author encourages readers to go beyond the universally practical: "Go ahead and fiddle while Rome burns." There are ideas here you may never have thought of using. The 8-bit gifs in the "SuperTiny SimCity Style" are the opposite of most designers' layered Photoshop creations. A link points to the perfect Web tutorial on how to get them right. For the "Lo-Fi Grunge Style," think Raygun, complete with TV scan-line effects and "that smudged, misprinted look." A sidebar shows how to mimic a noisy TV signal by placing scan-line patterns on their own Photoshop layer. Grooviness is what this book is all about: groovy narrative, groovy illustrations, and a groovy layout by Carlos Segura. It's got a good vibe that makes you think that the future of the Web may not be so bleak after all. --Angelynn Grant From Book News, Inc. Filled with vivid color illustrations, this guide for Web designers describes in detail some of the latest visual ideas from the experimental design subculture. Each of ten chapters explores a distinct design type, such as 1950s Hello Kitty style, pixilated punk rock style, and the minimalist aesthetics of HTML purists. Web addresses for sites representative of each style are found at the ends of the chapters.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Book Description In a light and friendly voice, the author introduces the reader to new ways of styling websites. With specific examples for each of ten categories, he provides a wealth of techniques for the designer who wishes to apply these approaches in their own work. The styles are broken down into ten categories, which are:
Super Tiny SimCity School Further explorations in the book help designers determine which style choices would be most appropriate when changing the look of their own sites.
Spotlight Reviews (What's this?) Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
For those of you who are "veteran web designers," I cannot see how, like the individual from Portland, Maine, Fresh Styles wouldn't make for a good "leaping point." I've seen Van Gogh's and Matisse's artwork a hundred times, and yet it still moves me. And that's what this book is about. Fresh Styles awakens a passion for "evocative, communicative design." Not many people I know can create something out of nothing. We all need ideas, examples, illustrations, models, etc to stir up our own imaginations. Cloninger has done this for us by describing ten web design styles that are, in my opinion, unique and ... well, inspiring.
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
Great visuals, great text. A whole lot of screenshots of cool websites saved my time on surfing. But rather than just looking at hip designs and trying to figure them myself, half of the text in Fresh Styles guided me through each design, with highly readable explanations, so I know how to take advantage of them in the correct manner. The other half of the text are just the author's snipes at web usability theorists. He shouldn't have worried that much about being different to other web theorists, because usability is not a religion, I can buy both Jakob Nielsen's book and Curt Cloninger's book. No problem. Curt Cloninger Buy the book. Read the book. But apply as necessary.
All Customer Reviews Average Customer Review:  Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
This is possibly the best web design idea book I have seen b/c it shows the reader plenty of examples and styles and gives basic tips on how to achieve that style. The most important thing the book does is it opens the reader to styles that he/she probably wasn't even aware of. I totally disagree with the reviewer below that gave this book 1 star...the style names are a playful way of presenting some of these websites. And when you go through the examples, the sites in each category definitely do have similarities...so categorizing the sites is not faux pas by any means.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
But for a lot of them, "fun" turns to "frustrating" mind-bogglingly quickly. Several of the sites are electronic works of art that have incomprehensible interfaces and infuriating functionality. I realize the emphasis of this book is sort of the anti-Neilsen, but there is, and has to be, a line of practicality in web design that just shouldn't be crossed. A beautiful website is not something that someone can hang on a wall, it's something a user is supposed to use. Neilsen gets too draconian in one direction, and Cloninger goes too far in the other. Reality is somewhere in between. Several of the sites detailed, however, don't suffer from these problems. The "Mondrian" and "HMLMinimalist" sections are almost Neilsen-ite in their simplicity. The problem lies in some of the recommendations that Cloninger makes on how to execute such a site - the code he puts forth is often a bit sketchy and not always standards-compatible (use a new standards-complaint browser, you get a mess. Use and old browser, you get a mess). Overall, the book is somewhat useful, somewhat not. As inspirational material, it's grand. The sites are beautiful and complex. As a "how-to" manual, the advice given is often less-than-good. Couple this book with "Don't Make Me Think" and the ORA book on CSS and you will have a much better chance of developing a workable, elegant site.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
This book made me feel like I was in design class. A basic page and its "template" was defined, and then there were more examples that if you squint and shook your head, then you could see it fits that template. I don't think it's so black and white. If so, then they aren't that fresh, are they? If someone is stuck for design ideas, I'm not sure this book would necessarily help since it's giving more templates. We're trying to move away from looking like everyone else, right? But some ideas for colors did come from this book, so that's good. I enjoyed the idea of boiling down a lot of web designs into a few basic themes, templates, etc. but think that doing so might make it that much harder to break out of the box and be fresh. Or, if you're like me, once you know the rules, you can break them more easily. I also liked the little bit of a history lesson that came with this design class. It's quite amazing what some people did with their websites back in the day, and quite amazing how not so far they have come. Perhaps this book would be better for the true designer and not so much for the developer wanting to be a designer.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
one problem designers often run into (including myelf), is that once we come up with a good style, we tend to use and re-use it a lot. we get too comfortable with it. this book allows you to explore other techniques and break out of your shell. sure, I wouldn't follow it word for word. some things have always annoyed me, such as cross browser/platform capabilities, window sizes, loading time, functionality and so on. this book doesn't think much of it. but this doesn't mean we can't use elements of the styles described and reflect the general essence of it in our own works. I challenge you to at least try each style. just make a layout and navigation scheme, with no content. just to get a feel of the style. don't think about browsers, window sizes and whatnot. then place these layouts in your portfolio and see what your potential employers think of it. it is quite challenging, but the result is amazingly refreshing. this book is a must-have for every webdesigner to break out of their rut.
Customers who bought titles by Curt Cloninger also bought titles by these authors: Auctions and zShops sellers and our other stores recommend: So You'd Like To...
Listmania!
Look for similar books by subject: Browse for books in:
|
Turn your past books purchases into $$$
Learn more about selling at Amazon.com today!
Amazon.com Home | Directory of All Stores
Our International Sites: Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | Japan | France | China
Contact Us |
Help |
Shopping Cart |
Your Account |
Sell Items |
1-Click Settings
a passion for evocative, communicative design, December 20, 2001
Eye candy for creatively-dehydrated web graphic artists, November 18, 2001
Hit or miss, October 5, 2001