Here's an indispensable source of practical advice and creative inspiration for anyone designing screen-based communications-from Web to CD-ROM and beyond. From Jack Davis, co-author of the award-winning Photoshop Wow! Book, this book covers the conceptual process, design fundamentals, and essential interface components. It includes over 50 case studies and more than 600 full-color examples of highly successful and creative interfaces for marketing, sales, education, and portfolio presentations.
This outstanding full-color guide teaches you how to apply design principles to the creation of on-screen interactive media-- primarily Web sites and, to a lesser extent, CD-ROMs and floppy-disk presentations. The authors first provide an overview of what you need to consider when creating a Web site or any other multimedia project. They discuss production methods and teach you how to define your purpose and audience; decide on your project's organization, content, and navigation; and assemble, test, and market your final product. Next they delineate the various interface elements you need to consider, such as buttons, backgrounds, typography, animation, images, video, and audio, and they discuss the trends in each area, such as the decreasing popularity of beveled buttons and the increasing popularity of 3-D graphics, interactive help, and user feedback. The following chapter is devoted to teaching you five basic tenets of good design, including clarity, consistency, and contrast. The following chapters show you successful Web sites and CD-ROMs in the areas of marketing, entertainment, education and training, publishing, portfolios and presentations, and sales. These case studies show lots of graphical elements along with explanations of why certain approaches work and others do not.
There's very little emphasis on the tools you need to accomplish the design of your site or CD-ROM. But, where such information is relevant, the authors mention the Windows and Macintosh products designers used to create a special graphic or effect, or products frequently used in general, such as Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Flash. Unlike other books in the Wow! series, the focus here is not on software how-to tips but on design tips, so just about anyone--whether beginning designer, creative director, production manager, or marketing professional, for example--can learn what's important in planning, designing, finalizing, and updating good sites and CDs. One thing that's consistent with the series: each topic is addressed in one or two pages, so you get a quick glimpse into each topic and therefore an easy way to browse to find whatever might interest you. The included hybrid CD-ROM comes with demonstration versions of WYSIWYG and standard HTML editors and full versions of Netscape Communicator 4, Internet Explorer 4, Macromedia Shockwave and Flash, RealPlayer, and GIF and other Web utilities. --Kathleen Caster
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
Lamest design book I've ever seen:
I was required to buy this pointless little book for a college class I took several years ago and I still regret wasting money on it. It had no substance whatsoever. Every once in a while I'd see a nice little blurb about information architecture or page layout, but it was 99% fluff. Everyone stoped bringing it to class after the second week, because the only times it was useful were those rare occasions when we had designers block and needed to jack someone else's full-color idea. Now I am the kind of... more info
Outdated:
This book is useful for one thing... an interesting historical perspective on the web.
Published in 1998 (thus written in 1997) this is a a 7-year old book. MUCH has changed since that time, and leaving this in print without a new edition is disgraceful on the part of both the authors and publisher.
I guarantee that 90% of the websites they use as examples have completley changed their interface and design since this book.
In fact, many of the examples they show are hopelessly confused... more info
book was ok not what I expected.:
The book was not that great source it was ok but the condition of the book was excellent. Thanks
Not bad, but VERY outdated!:
I ran into this book while looking for the best thing out there in terms of Web Design. Well, this book is just 4 years too old, unfortunately. Some of the examples, yes, they made sense... but they lack some of the elements that have come to the forefront of the field in the past few years. I was amazed that it was still in the shelves, in fact! If you want an EXCELLENT and current (as of this writing) book on the topic, get yourself a copy of "Web Redesign: Workflow That Works" by Kelly Goto, Emily... more info
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