The Smashing Book – A Review
A couple of months back now, I received my copy of The Smashing Book from the brilliant guys over at Smashing Magazine.
It’s a 311 page soft back, that covers a wide variety of aspects crucial in everyday web design, in the following sections:
– User Interface Design in Modern Web Applications
– The Art and Science of CSS-Layouts
– Typography: Rules, Guidelines and Common Mistakes
– Usability Principals for Modern Websites
– The Ultimate Guide to Fantastic Colour Usage
– Optimisation for Websites
– Design to Sell – Increasing Conversion Rates
– How to turn a Site into a Remarkable Brand
It is by no means a ‘cover-all’, what book is? What it does well, is extend the great resource that Smashing Magazine has become online. Bringing together a professional team of authors and opinion canvased from Smashing Magazine readers, to produce a ‘community book’. Not by the community, but for the community.
User Interface Design in Modern Web Applications
As the title suggests, this opening section is all about the conventions of modern interface design on the web. It covers the basics, and goes on to further discuss modern conventions, current trends and throws in a few examples for good measure. This is all summed up in a conclusion that shouts about the virtues of continued development and improvement of your UI.
The Art and Science of CSS-Layouts
In my opinion, any good designer needs to know their tools, and CSS just happens to be one of those tools. Not a particularly in-depth section, but one that covers the broad basics of layouts, with a sprinkling of advanced methods and IE issues. It finishes with the age old question… Which layout is right for your website? This is a nice finish to the section that offers the uses for each of the different type of CSS layout to the reader, thus leaving the final decision up to the them without showing bias for a particular solution.
Typography: Rules, Guidelines and Common Mistakes
Begins by offering a nice overview of Typography, and goes on to discuss the basics, such as legibility, leading, kerning etc. Typographical terms are covered nicely, but before long the focus switches to ‘em’s, CSS font-stacks and styling. A delightful inclusion is that of font replacement techniques, covering sIFR, Cufón and @font-face. It continues on, and discusses how to choose the correct typeface, attention to detail and finishes with a flurry about special characters.
Usability Principals for Modern Websites
Another very strong section, which opens with the question ‘How do users think?’. In my opinion a very important question, answered really well. After all, the view of a designer is sometimes very different from an end user, no matter how hard we try. The section opens up into examples of modern conventions, do’s and dont’s along with tips on organisation.
The Ultimate Guide to Fantastic Colour Usage in Web Design, Usability and Experience
A long section title, but probably (for me) the best section in the whole book. Jumps straight into colour theory, and is followed up by example after example of palettes, shown alongside the sites in which they are used. Before long, we’re plunged into how colour effects usability, engagement and experience, before finishing up with a lovely conclusion on ‘inspiration’.
Performance Optimisation for Websites
A very useful section that covers a good range of optimisation techniques, from image and code compression, sprites and doctypes, to content delivery services and setup of servers to gain the best performance of code delivery.
Design to Sell, Increasing Conversion Rates
For me, a little bit of a surprise to see see this section in the contents, but after a read, it makes sense. It is about how to design with the aim of selling a product or service. From sales approaches and best practice to shipping costs, this section is a nice insightful start to what is needed to competently sell online.
How to Turn a Site Into a Remarkable Brand
The final section is mostly a collection of examples. Examples of where a site or blog has been transformed into an online ‘brand’. Topics covered are uniqueness of design, quality of content, use of community and originality.
The final two sections are entitled ‘Learning from Experts: Interviews and Insights‘ and ‘Behind the Curtains: The Smashing Magazine Story‘. The first is a Q&A section with renowned designers and developers, offering excellent tips and intriguing insight. The second, as the title suggests, is all about the growth of Smashing Magazine over the past few years. A quite interesting read.
Overall the Smashing Book is a well thought out publication, with a good range of sections covering many aspects of modern web design. It’s one that will definitely be in my stack for some time to come, and is well worth the asking price.
Your can grab a copy of Smashing Book here.