The first thing you notice about Andy Clarke's Transcending CSS: The fine art of Web design is how it looks. Riffling through the pages makes you realise that this is not just another worthy, standards-based Web design book.
Clarke’s description of himself as a “visual Web designer
” is amply reflected in the book’s sophisticated layout and sumptous use of photography.
The book is divided into four distinct parts:
- Discovery
- Process
- Inspiration
- Transcendence
which at first brought to my mind John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, with its Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm movements. But that’s my jazz head talking.
In the Discovery section, the principles of ‘Transcendent CSS’ are introduced and explained. As well some best practices, like using the full power of current and future CSS, and getting the DOM via JavaScript to overcome CSS’ shortcomings, Clarke also encourages us to share ideas and collaborate with others, citing several examples that had an important influence on the progress and adoption of CSS over the years.
The second Process section outlines a Web design workflow, collating a number of practical techniques for Web designers that have been proposed and developed by the Web community. These include a ‘content-out’ approach to markup and interactive prototypes. A subsection guides the reader through this workflow with a well realized set of example pages.
Certainly the most thought-provoking parts of the book make up its second half, Inspiration and Transcendence. In Inspiration, Clarke moves on the “fine art
” promised in the book’s subtitle. There is an extended discussion (with some well known examples) of grid-based design, long used in print, but only recently becoming of special interest to Web designers. Clarke argues persuasively that grids are not barriers to creativity, but can provide designers with compositional frameworks to create useful and harmonious layouts that Web users understand and appreciate.
Designers are encouraged to look for inspiration offline, rather than repeat ‘tried and tested’ layouts ad nauseam. Techniques used by interior designers and artists are suggested as methods for Web designers to get away from their workstations and renew their creative energies.
The final section, Transcendence, consists of several intriguing examples of the techniques and approach Clarke recommends to us in the book, including a subsection on advanced layout that employs a module of CSS3.
Transcending CSS is aimed squarely at visual Web designers rather than developers, though Clarke notes that is important for back-end programmers to work closely with their front-end colleagues. Like his conference talks, Clarke’s book conveys his distinctive take on designing for the Web with wry humour, style and clear examples. And while the lush photography can verge sometimes towards recipe book excessive, his voice encouraging Web designers to be designers first and foremost never wavers.
