Sebastopol, CA--Confronted with the increasing complexity and sophistication of today's web pages, would-be designers may feel that they have arrived too late to make their mark in the world of web design. Best-selling web design author Jennifer Niederst assures budding designers that this is not the case in her new book, Learning Web Design, A Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond (O'Reilly, US $34.95).
"Although it may seem that the whole world has a personal web page, or that your colleagues are all light years ahead of you in web experience, I can assure you that you're not too late," says Niederst. "Furthermore, there is plenty of room for you in the business. The industry is thirsty for folks who know how to make web pages (even at an entry level) and the opportunities continue to expand."
Niederst's extensive knowledge was gained from years of web design experience, both as a designer and as a teacher. Learning Web Design, A Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond starts from the very beginning-defining the Internet, the Web, browsers, and URLs-so readers don't have to have any previous knowledge about the Web. Niederst's book provides a solid foundation in the HTML, graphics, and design principles necessary for crafting effective web pages. She also explains the nature of the medium and unpacks the web design process from conceptualization to the final result. "With something as seemingly vast and fast moving as the Web, it's not easy to know where to jump in," says Niederst, "but you have to start somewhere."
Although the scope of her book is wide, Niederst adds that nothing has been "dumbed down" or glossed over. The nuts and bolts of HTML and graphics production are treated with the kind of thorough technical detail that you'd expect from an O'Reilly book.
In writing this book, Niederst draws from her experience teaching hundreds of absolute beginners. "I found that as a teacher, I wished I had the perfect book to be the companion to my classes," Niederst says, "this book is the result of my experience of teaching and the knowledge I've gained of how people learn. Reading it is a lot like sitting in my classroom."
Jennifer Niederst has been designing for the web since 1993, and was designer of O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first commercial web site. She is the author of Designing for the Web and Web Design in a Nutshell, both published by O'Reilly. Learning Web Design is the cornerstone of the Web Studio Series from O'Reilly, a new series that offers a solid core of web design knowledge to a wide audience. "I got started in web design early in 1993," she says, "pretty close to the start of the Web itself. In web time, that makes me an old-timer, but it's not so long ago that I can't remember the first day I looked at a web page."
Additional Resources:
Chapter 6, Creating a Simple Page (HTML Overview) is available free online.
More information about the book, including Table of Contents, index, author bio, and samples.
A cover graphic in jpeg format.
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By Jennifer Niederst
March 2001
ISBN 0-596-00036-7, 418 pages, $34.95 (US)
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