Handcrafted CSS
by Dan Cederholm · first published 2010
63% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A practical, design-focused CSS tutorial that teaches refining styles with good visual judgment. It is a next step after a basic CSS introduction, for those who want to polish their layouts.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Seemingly non-obvious details can often separate good web design from great web design. You might not appreciate the quality of a well-designed website until you start using it, looking under the hood, putting it through tests, etc. Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design is an attempt to share some of these details that matter most. By encouraging “progressive enrichment” to utilize advanced CSS and CSS3 properties that work in browsers today, to reevaluating past methods and best practices. This book will show how craftsmanship can be applied to flexible, bulletproof, highly effici
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…http://www.amazon.com/Information-Design-Workbook-approaches... ---------------------------------------------------------- c. (software design and coding) * Bulletproof Web Design - http://www.amazon.com/Bulletproof-Web-Design-flexibility-pro... * Handcrafted CSS - http://www.amazon.com/Handcrafted-CSS-More-Bulletproof-Desig... * jQuery in Action - http://www.amazon.com/jQuery-Action-Second-Bear-Bibeault/dp/...
on “Ask HN: Modern web design resources?” ↗Eric Meyer is the go to guy for CSS. Also check out "Handcrafted CSS" by Dan Cederholm. The only part of that book that is no longer a best practice is his .after float hack, which today has been replaced by the overflow:auto hack.
on “Ask HN: How to learn Javascript and HTML for devs coming from C++/Java/Python?” ↗The ones I've found that are good starting points: Stylin' with CSS by Charles Wyke-Smith - its mainly a (good) CSS book but gives enough hints at good design so you don't go overboard. Handcrafted CSS by Dan Cederholm with Ethan Marcotte - again CSS tutorial with emphasis on good design with CSS. Once you get the handle on those (or before hand) check out the great examples in CSS Zen Garden. ( http://www.csszengarden.com/…
on “Ask HN: Best Books for Learning Web Design?” ↗…http://www.cssmastery.com/ Bulletproof Web Design http://astore.amazon.com/simplebits-20/detail/0321509021 Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style Handbook http://astore.amazon.com/simplebits-20/detail/1430219203 Handcrafted CSS http://handcraftedcss.com/ It would be worth to check out some about HTML5: Brief but good introduction: http://books.alistapart.com/products/html5-for-web-designers Also: http://introducinghtml5.com/…
on “Ask HN: How to learn Javascript and HTML for devs coming from C++/Java/Python?” ↗…HTML find a good book on the basics (I had used Visual Quickstart Guide to HTML, but I bet there might be better ones now), for CSS I recommend "Stylin' with CSS" which will keep things simple. Maybe "Handcrafted CSS" to learn how to refine styles even more. Another great common sense design book is "Don't Make Me Think" will go a long way into determining what would be best in design and UX. You will find when…
on “Ask HN: How to learn front-end development as a back-end web developer?” ↗Problem is there are many ways to do something in CSS and a lot of CSS is kinda ugly. My approach was reading some good CSS books (Handcrafted CSS is a good one, Stylin' with CSS is another) and articles, also find sites with the look you like. With an understanding how good CSS works, you can better use a browser's CSS inspector to identify the…
on “Ask HN: Making things look not-terrible – especially in HTML/CSS” ↗…the most were: Stylin' with CSS: A Designer's Guide by Charles Wyke-Smith This is kinda dated but does good on getting the basic structure down with a little bit on how CSS makes pages look better. Handcrafted CSS by Dan Cederholm with Ethan Marcotte This goes more into improving styles and how to get things working better and simpler CSS. Both are showing their age but the approaches work for the programmer…
on “Ask HN: What are the best resources for learning CSS well?” ↗Hi, over the years I've worked to round out my design skills by reading books like Don't Make Me Think, the Non-Designers Design Book, Bulletproof CSS, and Handcrafted CSS. One area where I feel like I'm sorely lacking is Photoshop. Right now I cobble some basic stuff together using Acorn. I'm looking for a good way of learning PS from the perspective of modern web/app…
on “Ask HN: Recommendations on Learning Photoshop?” ↗One thing Dan didn't mention in the article is that he wrote 3 books about web design before Dribbble's launch: Web Design Solutions (2004), Bulletproof Web Design (2005) and Handcrafted CSS (2009). These books were unique among the first to hit a then-niche market: web designers who cared about quality. This was the perfect set-up to launching a platform for web designers who cared about…
on “What I Learned Co-Founding Dribbble” ↗…I've read over the last two years and I figure posting them here makes a lot more sense in case anyone wants some good tech books without going to Amazon. :) "SuperFreakonomics", "Web Form Design", "Handcrafted CSS", "Ordering Disorder", "Don't Make Me Think", "Landing Page Optimization", "Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type", "The Ten-Day MBA 3rd Ed.", "Outliers: The Story of Success", "Designing the Obvious"…
on “Selling my startup book collection before going traveling (San Francisco)” ↗