CSS3 For Web Designers by Dan Cederholm
I had the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Cederholm once. I had emailed him about some advice for Codesnipp.it and he very kindly sent a long and helpful response back. Plus he lives in one of my favorite cities. This makes him pretty high up on my cool list already, without a cool book to join him. Who knew he could be even more awesome?
I’d been eagerly awaiting CSS3 for Web Designers since they first announced it’s coming. I’d never read any of Dan Cederholm’s books, but after reading A Book Apart’s first book, HTML5 for Web Designers, I was ready to take a chance.
And I wasn’t disappointed! I love how short, yet choke full of info, these books are, and the fact that I can sit down for 15-20 minutes and make it halfway through the book.
I’m pretty familiar with CSS3 already, but transforms, transitions and the like have always been foreign to me. CSS3 for Web Designers has fixed that problem, and I now have a huge understanding of the animation side to CSS3. So much so, I decided to experiment with some of the techniques on this site. (Chrome/Safari users, have you noticed the rollovers?)
Dan sticks to the most relevant topics in CSS3 that we can use today, from animations to hovers, to neat tricks in HTML. He also goes through transforms (yuck), form enhancement and multiple backgrounds (my favorite property EVER).
My favorite part of this book is that he addresses what a lot of people think about CSS3 – that you can’t use it now. In fact you can (and I have been) and he shows you what happens when you do. Not only does he show how awesome something looks when CSS3 is applied, but also how normal and un-hurt the site looks in Internet Explorer. In fact, I didn’t even realize how some of the biggest things you can do in CSS3, still look so nice and neat in IE.
I’m keeping this review short like the book, but if you’re wanting an overview of how awesome CSS3 is, how you can use it today and what it takes – Buy it at A Book Apart for $18.00 or $9 for the eBook.
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
Programming books are always my favorite books, but is a book for HTML5 and CSS3 really necessary? I mean it’s pretty easy and there are tons of resources on the subject already. I guess if you’re new to the subject and you don’t know where to look for help, it could be helpful.
I think something like this is necessary. It’s a short book and provides a nice overview of what CSS3 is and what supports it. While you can find a ton of resources, they’re scattered about and not always up to date. Plus….books are always better
Yeah I agree, I tend to buy a new book on everything new I am learning, and if css3 or html5 are what iam learning at the time then I will grab a book on it. No matter if they are easy language or not, they still need to be learnt.
Thanks for the excellent review, Amber! Really glad you liked the book, and I appreciate you taking the time to write this up. Cheers
Thank you so much Dan! Stay awesome!
Amber, nice post! I need to get up on my CSS3. Love the review and will look into getting said book
Get it! HTML5 for Web Designers is awesome as well.
So is Smashing CSS….I really, really read way too much.