Liquid or fluid layouts change width based on the user's unique device viewing size. These types of layouts have always been possible with tables but offer new design challenges as well as opportunities when built with CSS. This book, for experienced Web designers with some CSS experience, outlines how to do this successfully. Designers will learn the benefits of flexible layouts and when to choose a liquid, elastic, or hybrid design. They will learn not only how to build a liquid layout from scratch using standards-compliant and cross-browser compatible (X)HTML and CSS, but will also learn how to design and slice their graphic comps in a way that makes flexible design achievable. This book will show designers that flexible layouts do not have to be visually boring or difficult to build when planned and built correctly. Even those who do not intend to build liquid layouts can use the concepts and techniques taught in this book to improve their fixed-width CSS designs, because they will learn how to design for the inherent flexibility of the web medium, instead of the rigid qualities of print media or table grid-based layouts.

Are you still designing web sites like it's 1999? If so, you're in for a surprise. Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design. Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels. The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics: Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values. Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM) Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDF Organized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology. There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.

Learn how to think beyond the desktop and craft beautiful designs that anticipate and respond to your users' needs. The author will explore CSS techniques and design principles, including fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries, demonstrating how you can deliver a quality experience to your users no matter how large (or small) their display.

Deliver an optimal user experience to all devices—including tablets, smartphones, feature phones, laptops, and large screens—by learning the basics of responsive web design. In this hands-on guide, UX designer Clarissa Peterson explains how responsive web design works, and takes you through a responsive workflow from project kickoff to site launch. Ideal for anyone involved in the process of creating websites—not just developers—this book teaches you fundamental strategies and techniques for using HTML and CSS to design websites that not only adapt to any screen size, but also use progressive enhancement to provide a better user experience based on device capabilities such as touchscreens and retina displays. Start with content strategy before creating a visual design Learn why your default design should be for the narrowest screens Explore the HTML elements and CSS properties essential for responsive web design Use media queries to display different CSS styles based on a device’s viewport width Handle elements such as images, typography, and navigation Use performance optimization techniques to make your site lighter and faster

No matter how visually appealing or content-packed a Web site may be, if it's not adaptable to a variety of situations and reaching the widest possible audience, it isn't really succeeding. In Bulletproof Web Desing, author and Web designer extraordinaire, Dan Cederholm outlines standards-based strategies for building designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control--key components of every sucessful site. Each chapter starts out with an example of an unbulletproof site one that employs a traditional HTML-based approach which Dan then deconstructs, pointing out its limitations. He then gives the site a make-over using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), so you can see how to replace bloated code with lean markup and CSS for fast-loading sites that are accessible to all users. Finally, he covers several popular fluid and elastic-width layout techniques and pieces together all of the page components discussed in prior chapters into a single-page template.

Summary Web Design Playground takes you step by step from writing your first line of HTML to creating interesting and attractive web pages. In this project-based book, you'll use a custom online workspace, the book's companion Playground, to design websites, product pages, photo galleries, and more. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology How do top designers learn to create beautiful web pages and intuitive user experiences? Great examples, expert mentoring, and lots of practice! Written by web designer and master teacher Paul McFedries, this unique book shapes and sharpens your skills in HTML, CSS, and web page design. About the Book Web Design Playground takes you step by step from writing your first line of HTML to creating interesting, attractive web pages. In this project-based book, you'll use a custom online workspace to design websites, product pages, photo galleries, and more. Don't worry about setting up your own servers and domain names—the book comes with a free "playground" which lets you experiment without any of that! You can concentrate on core skills like adding images and video and laying out the page, plus learning typography, responsive design, and the other tools of the web trade. What's inside Getting started with HTML, CSS, and web design A free, fully interactive web design workspace Working with images, color, and fonts Full-color illustrations throughout About the Reader If you can use a browser, you're ready to create web pages! About the Author Paul McFedries has written nearly 100 books, which have sold over four million copies world-wide. Table of Contents PART 1 - GETTING STARTED WITH HTML AND CSS Getting to Know HTML and CSS Building Your First Web Page Adding Structure to Your Page Formatting Your Web Page Project: Creating a Personal Home Page PART 2 - WORKING WITH IMAGES AND STYLES Adding Images and Other Media Learning More About Styles Floating and Positioning Elements Styling Sizes, Borders, and Margins Project: Creating a Landing Page PART 3 - LAYING OUT A WEB PAGE Learning Page Layout Basics Creating Page Layouts with Flexbox Designing Responsive Web Pages Making Your Images and Typography Responsive Project: Creating a Photo Gallery PART 4 - MAKING YOUR WEB PAGES SHINE More HTML Elements for Web Designers Adding a Splash of Color to Your Web Designs Enhancing Page Text with Typography Learning Advanced CSS Selectors Project: Creating a Portfolio Page

Building an elegant, functional website requires more than just knowing how to code. In Adaptive Web Design, Second Edition, you’ll learn how to use progressive enhancement to build websites that work anywhere, won’t break, are accessible by anyone—on any device—and are designed to work well into the future. This new edition of Adaptive Web Design frames even more of the web design process in the lens of progressive enhancement. You will learn how content strategy, UX, HTML, CSS, responsive web design, JavaScript, server-side programming, and performance optimization all come together in the service of users on whatever device they happen to use to access the web. Understanding progressive enhancement will make you a better web professional, whether you’re a content strategist, information architect, UX designer, visual designer, front-end developer, back-end developer, or project manager. It will enable you to visualize experience as a continuum and craft interfaces that are capable of reaching more users while simultaneously costing less money to develop. When you’ve mastered the tenets and concepts of this book, you will see the web in a whole new way and gain web design superpowers that will make you invaluable to your employer, clients, and the web as a whole. Visit http://adaptivewebdesign.info to learn more.

This book will lead you, step by step and with illustrative screenshots, through a real example. Are you writing two websites - one for mobile and one for larger displays? Or perhaps you've heard of Responsive Design but are unsure how to bring HTML5, CSS3, or responsive design all together. If so, this book provides everything you need to take your web pages to the next level - before all your competitors do!

CSS3 adds powerful new functionality to the web’s visual style language to help you create beautiful and engaging designs more easily than ever. With CSS3, you can create eye-catching visual effects such as semitransparent backgrounds, gradients, and drop shadows without using images; display text in beautiful, unique, non-web-safe fonts; create animations without Flash; and customize a design to the user’s unique device or screen size without JavaScript. You’ll learn how to accomplish these effects and more by working through a series of practical yet cutting-edge projects. Each chapter walks you through standalone exercises that you can integrate into projects you’re working on, or use as inspiration. You’ll learn all of the most popular, useful, and well-supported CSS3 techniques, plus: How to use CSS3 to enhance your pages, not just in terms of looks, but also in terms of usability, accessibility, and efficiency When and how to provide workarounds and fallbacks for older, non-supporting browsers How to create stunning designs with unique typography and beautiful graphic details Advanced new selectors to streamline your markup and make it less prone to human errors New methods for creating multiple-column layouts How to quickly and easily create mobile-optimized web designs without using scripting