Product Description

The dos and don'ts of web entrepreneurship.


Have you ever wondered why your websites didn't quite match up to the success of your competitors or peers? Have you ever looked at other sites and thought: Why didn't I think of that? Have you ever spent too much time trying to find basic information that was buried deep in a needlessly complex website? You are certainly not alone and this book aims to change that by bringing together some of the world s most highly acclaimed designers and developers, spanning every continent, all of whom share their knowledge and experience.

With chapters arranged by subject (interface and design, marketing and communication, technology and programming, technical advice, content/content management, and commerce), a clear do/don t structure, and plenty of real world examples of successful and award-winning websites, this book has all the advice and examples you will need to give your personal or business website an edge on its competitors and also win industry acclaim as well as respect from your peers. Your visitors will thank you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #195999 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

About the Author
Rob Ford, born England 1969, founded Favourite Website Awards (FWA) in May 2000, a recognition program for cutting edge web design which has since served over 30 million site visits. His work has been featured in numerous publications including The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian and many web related magazines. He has judged for most of the industry award shows, contributes regularly to other well-known web design sites and magazines and writes a regular column in Adobe's Edge Newsletter.
Julius Wiedemann was born and raised in Brazil. After studying graphic design and marketing, he moved to Japan, where he worked in Tokyo as art editor for digital and design magazines. Since joining TASCHEN, he has been building up the digital and media collection with titles such as Animation Now!, the Advertising Now series, the Web Design series, and TASCHEN's 1000 Favorite Websites.

Customer Reviews

Visual Designer's Guide to Award-Winning Flash websites
Robert Ford, creator of the Favourite Website Awards (FWA) and companion website, has teamed with Julius Wiedermann, author of a series of Taschen books on notable websites, have teamed together in this work.

The content is basically FWA award-winning websites from 2000 to the present. There are over 200 websites identified with one to three image captures from the site, as well as the following information: agency, designed by, developed by, software, awards, and launched. This is the heart of the book.

The book is attractively designed and presented, and in itself is an excellent example of graphic print design. In terms of look, feel, and content, it is most like a coffee table book.

The table of contents is:
Interface & Design
Marketing & Communication
Technology & Programming
Technical Advice
Content/Content Management
E-Commerce

Websites are distributed among the chapters to illustrate chapter content. But, please do not come away with the understanding that these are dealt with in any particular depth, technical or otherwise. Instead, use the chapter introductions and Dos and Don'ts as a guide to current best practice. Much, however, is common sense, obvious, or well-known practice.

This is a designer's guide, and it does represent a wide variety of styles and nationalities.

But, it is also, almost exclusively, a guide to elaborate Flash sites usually with large corporate budgets behind them. According to my count -- 98% of the sites cited use Flash occasionally to exclusively for presenting content.

So, to an audience of high end Flash designers, the book will identify peers and their award-winning work.

So, is this of value to the humble web designer, working with Dreamweaver for small business websites? I'd say that it is.

This book is a visual delight. It brings together top creative talent with the new technology of the web and shows the result. It is a continually thought-provoking work for creative design. We all can benefit from that.

And, the future of the web is more interactivity. With Adobe Flex/Air and Microsoft Silverlight, the range of tools for a rich desktop experience expands. This book identifies the kinds of user interaction we will provide in future years.

Not much to learn here
The presentation is nice and the sites they chose are fairly cool or illustrative of each of the categories. However, the copy simply isn't very educational or interesting. The lessons (the do and don'ts) are often either completely obvious or just not relevant. It's as if the two guys had some cool sites they found online which they wanted to put on a book, but then they rushed to write some filler content. Lame.

Looks nice but disappoints
I am not sure if I will end up keeping this book. Any book showcasing 'cutting-edge' websites gets dated very quickly. As a web designer, I was hoping for a little more explanation on what went into each site, strategy, technology, creative thinking, etc. There is very little information like this inside this book, just a lot of smallish pictures of sites that probably are cool experiences, but you'd have to type in the URL to find out. Sprinkled throughout the book are some Do's and Don'ts by the individuals who developed these sites- these aren't anything earth-shattering. The best part of the book is the actual design of the book. If you want a book that just shows inspirational site design, you can probably find some better ones out there, better yet, why not find sites like FWA (the author's) which are free and you can actually experience the sites.