Rating: 
Summary: Lets end the debate!
Review: Enough debate over whether to buy Creating Killer Web Sitesor Designing Web Graphics. I say both books are a waste of your moneyand your time. These books and a $1.25 will buy you a cup of coffee, if you're lucky and if you don't go to Starbucks. The heart of the issue for both of these books is the personal design tastes of the authors. Neither Weinman or Siegel has a corner on the design market. Nothing in either of these books hasn't been said dozens of times by dozens of different writers already. Publishers are getting fat off the fallacy that you must have design books to help you create wonderful Web sites. Heck, they'd love it if we all kept on buying these overpriced and overrated books. Ever wonder why Seigal's book costs $45 and isn't even 300 pages? Ever wonder why Weinman's book costs $55 and is only 325 pages? I'll give you a hint, its not because the books are printed with fancy colors. Magazines print in full color and charge only a few bucks. The real answer is that there's a wonderful profit margin on a book that is marked up 200-300% over what it reasonably should be priced at and if the buying public (me and you) is dumb enough to pay through the nose, the publishers are going to ensure the shelves are full. Instead of buying in to the fallacy that you need a design book or two or three, I say look elsewhere. I good book that focuses on the core issues of Web publishing as well as design will carry you much further. The book should focus on content, design and execution (which are three ingredients for a great web site). And, NO, you don't have to buy separate books on each of these subjects. Just find one that is comprehensive enough to meet your needs. The most comprehensive guide to Web publishing that I have found is William Stanek's WEB PUBLISHING UNLEASHED PROFESSIONAL. The book is a massive tome at 1500 pages and certainly has everything you need to create truly wonderful Web sites. Throughout the book Stanek explores content, execution and design issues, which are the keys to your success. At any rate, books that focus on core issues will take you further every single time. Keep clear of design-only books and you will be much happier. Matthew Cornel, a lowly book reviewer who hopes his opinion matters.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice but not realistic
Review: This book is a great book if you want to learn to design the greatest web sites. However, for professional web designers, this is not a reality, but only a dream, unless you live out in San Fransisco California. David Siegel will show you a lot of awe inspiring work, and tell you a lot of useful things, however his design ideas are unrealistic. Most the time when designing sites for clients, you are dealing with people who hardly have the internet, and want this and that, and all sorts of web design "no-no's". They want the standard, buttons on the left with, banners/headers on top, and very little done with the bottom of the page. Most companies are on a budget and don't set much aside for us web designers. Oh yeah, this book also assumes you have at least several Adobe Products (which most web designers should) I give this book a 3 for 3 reasons (positive). 1) It's very inspiring. 2) It's an easy read, and Siegel presents the information very well. 3) It talks about some important issues. The two reasons I give this book a bad mark are 1) Most the book is not written by David Siegel, but rather, his employees. But, Siegel has some sorta ego problem, so go fig. 2) It's expensive for such a thin book which does not contain that much information. It's expensive because it's printed on what seems like photo realistic paper, and is kinda shiny, and a lot of typographic layout goes into the design of this book. This book is a must for all newbie web-designers who probably live on geocities, angelfire, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious and outdated
Review: I got the first edition of this book when I first started working on web sites. I learned a few tidbits from it, but mostly I was (un) impressed by the author's arrogant attitude about "artists." He rambled on about how what they wanted to do to be creative in their site design was more important than what the technology was doing, or how the user experienced the site. (A lot like Kai Krause's "creative" interfaces that he was proud to note that techies didn't get!) His attitude about developers vs. artists and designers was especially distasteful, even though in the end he proved he really was a techie inside all along. I don't get the people who see this as a milestone. It's more like a millstone around the neck of web designers and developers. I think it did more to widen the gulf between designers and developers than help us work together. Leaf through this online or in a library, glean what you can from the few techie tips that are still worthwhile, then put it down. If you're a web developer or architect, you won't get much out of it, and if you're on the design or business side you will only get the wrong idea about what web site design is all about.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect wedding of aesthetics and technology for developers
Review: One great gauge of a technical books usefulness is if it grabs you with techniques and examples which lead you to say "I (or we) need to do that!" several times. Reading Creating Killer Web Sites was like that. I found myself constantly thinking of applications for our own web publications and saying just that. Creating Killer Web Sites (2nd edition) is stimulating and chock full of great ideas for web design. It is concerned with the building of what the author calls "Third-Generation sites". These are web sites that are conceived by design and not just by technological ability. The book is my first introduction to actual design issues on the web. Most of the time I have, I admit it, focused on the technical issues of what can be done rather than how it looks. This is probably a common error to all start up's. However "Third-generation" web developers have evolved beyond technical issues to a wedding of the technology and aesthetics which are peculiar to the World Wide Web. A balance of functionally and design. It would have been quite unsatisfying for the focus be just on ascetics. Developers need actual how to's. The book satisfies by providing plenty of roll up your sleeves, lets get to work technical issues as well. The nitty gritty how to use specific HTML tags, how to select software tools, the latest on CSS, and covers the issues involved with color reduction giving concrete examples on how to deal with them. If you use photoshop you will feel right at home here as many of his examples show you how to optimize your work flow. You'll also find techniques and principles which you will need to build sites for today's 4.0 and the coming 5.0 browsers. The book also provides real perspective when it comes to the subject of cross-browser compatibility - which is always a topic on our Cut and Paste JavaScript. While I found myself disagreeing with some "pronouncements" on what makes good design I nevertheless highly recommend the book for web veterans and new developers alike. Jeremy J. Black Infohiway Cut and Paste JavaScript Reviews END
Rating: 
Summary: You need to be an artist to design a 3rd generation web site
Review:
The introduction to Creating Killer Web Sites says that "This is the first book about the conception, design, and construction of third-generation sites." It may be, but many of the details are not unique to this book. The first edition of Lynda Weinman's Designing Web Graphics (now in its second edition) discussed at length the topics covered in chapters 3 (Preparing Images), 4 (Laying out Pages), and 5 (Rendering Type) of Siegel's book. Even the trick of using invisible gifs for precise alignment is in her book.
What is new about Siegel's book, relative to Weinman's, is its purported emphasis on site design, rather than the design of individual graphics. Unfortunately, this aspect of Siegel's book is not emphasized enough and is often lost in the details of graphics design. I would have liked to have seen more principles of good design, in addition to the examples of good design. A lot of what Siegel has to say is on his various web sites (www.killersites.com, www.dsiegel.com) and all the examples in the book are online. It is often, though, not easy to find the information on his web sites corresponding to the chapters in the book. Some of the online examples are also a bit different from the book.
I got the feeling from Siegel's book that the main feature of what he calls a "third generation web site" is that it's been designed by an artist. Isn't this the natural conclusion to draw from his admonition to forget about HTML formatting tags and to build a site in Photoshop? That's going to leave many people out of the game. It could also put a big burden on the net as web sites become ever more graphics oriented. Siegel's home page takes 1 min 38 sec to load over a 28.8kbps line. You'll have time to read his book while you browse the new "third generation" web sites.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious and outdated
Review: I got the first edition of this book when I first started working on web sites. I learned a few tidbits from it, but mostly I was (un) impressed by the author's arrogant attitude about "artists." He rambled on about how what they wanted to do to be creative in their site design was more important than what the technology was doing, or how the user experienced the site. (A lot like Kai Krause's "creative" interfaces that he was proud to note that techies didn't get!) His attitude about developers vs. artists and designers was especially distasteful, even though in the end he proved he really was a techie inside all along. I don't get the people who see this as a milestone. It's more like a millstone around the neck of web designers and developers. I think it did more to widen the gulf between designers and developers than help us work together. Leaf through this online or in a library, glean what you can from the few techie tips that are still worthwhile, then put it down. If you're a web developer or architect, you won't get much out of it, and if you're on the design or business side you will only get the wrong idea about what web site design is all about.
Rating:
Summary: A classic book on web design.
Review: Though somewhat dated, there is still good information in this classic book on web design. The website is also packed with information and it has recently been updated with up to date content among other nice features. Check it out at: www.killersites.com
Rating:
Summary: Good guidelines
Review: This book doesn't teach you html. You should already know html before you buy this book. This book teaches you how to design good looking web sites. Personally, I don't think this can be taught. There are many examples of good and bad sites, before and after sites, but the old saying, "Can't teach an old dog new tricks" goes when it comes to art and design. Fortunately, these things are very subjective. What is bad to me, may be good to you. But in the end, there are only so few that really deserve to win a bikini contest.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty outdated
Review: I bought this book and sat down to read it with great excitement, but that feeling has gradually dimmed as I get further into it. It does have the occasional handy tip, but mostly it's too outdated to be of any great use. Most of the sites he uses as examples of killer sites are not so great by the standards of today, and at least one that he uses as a major worked example in his gallery section as a site he created, has since been redesigned by other designers and is totally different. I'm just glad I picked it up cheap. It's definately a book that's well overdue for a revision.
Rating:
Summary: You Can Safely Skip This One
Review: This book is far from being memorable. It introduced me to the fascinating world of typography and teaches a few tricks on keeping your web files and pictures as small as possible, but that is pretty much it. The author distinction among first, second, and third generation web sites is interesting, but not heart stopping, whereas he seems to really emphasize it too much. Plus, in 2002, this text is outdated.
| 
