The Web Designer’s Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide To Themes, Trends & Styles In Website Design (Paperback)
Product Description
Inspiring Web Design at a Glance
The Web Designer’s Idea Book includes more than 700 websites arranged thematically, so you can find inspiration for layout, color, style and more. Author Patrick McNeil has cataloged more than 20,000 sites on his website, and showcased in this book are the very best examples.
Sites are organized by color, design style, type, theme, element and structure. It’s easy to use and reference again and again, whether you’re talking with a co-worker or discussing website design options with a client. As a handy desk reference for design layout, color and style, this book is a must-have for starting new projects.
About the Author
His diverse interests have merged web technology and design, resulting in work that touches everything from high design to hard-core programming. Ultimately, his love for design, inspiration, and sharing knowledge has fueled his passion for running Design Meltdown, where he has cataloged and observed web design trends over the last few years. It is this passion that led to the creation of this book.
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As a web design author, I often get asked what books I recommend. This of course depends on who is asking and what they want to learn, but one book I often pass along is Curt Cloninger’s original* Fresh Styles for Web Designers: Eye Candy from the Underground from 2001. The specific design examples are quite outdated now, but to me, that book was a pivotal source of inspiration at a time when everything online seemed to be either boringly corporate or awkwardly amateur. Cloninger helped me to see the web differently; I learned to creatively tag design trends and techniques so that I could mentally catalog them for my own use.
This process of mentally classifying design inspiration has become a critical part of my growth as a designer as well as my ability to explain web design to the non-designer. In The Web Designer’s Idea Book, Patrick McNeil takes the task of cataloging current trends and styles to a meticulous new level. Within the book’s 256 pages, McNeil has sorted over 700 screenshots of stellar site design by color, design style, type, theme, element and structure. Within these 6 chapters, he has defined a total of 75 individual design categories. Some examples of these categories include: Blogs, E-Commerce, Minimalist, Wood, Pink & Blue, Muted, Rays, Gradients, Tabs and Massive Footers. Then, within each of these seemingly exclusive categories there are a few paragraphs explaining when, how, and why it should be used along with an average of 8 or 9 example screenshots.
Obviously, reading this book will not teach you to be a great website designer. What it will do is expand your design vocabulary and train you to break down your favorite sources of design inspiration into bite-sized chunks that you can use in your own work. I spent a good portion of the cold, rainy weekend reading through the text in each category and pouring over the pages of screenshots. I saw quite a few familiar examples of good design, but was amazed by quantity of inspirational sites that I had never heard of. If I had one complaint about the book it would be that I wish all of the screenshots were full-size, or perhaps if they couldn’t be, that there was an archive of the full-size screenshots posted somewhere on the web. Regardless, I’m sure the book will be a huge source of inspiration for me for years to come. Then, when it is too old to serve as inspiration, it will most certainly be an excellent resource for web design history.
* As I was writing this review, I discovered that Curt Cloninger just released a sequel to this book: Fresher Styles for Web Designers: More Eye Candy from the Underground You can be sure that I’ll be reviewing this book as well in the near future.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Screenshot book
I was very surprised to see the contents of this book. Page after page of someone else’s designs. The text accompanying the images is bunch of random ideas thrown together with…
This book does just one thing, it showcases beautifully made websites and the author does this extremely well. The Web Designer’s Idea Book is a must have for any web designer/graphic designer out there to have real world examples of good design on hand.
2.0 out of 5 stars
eh
Not exactly what I was looking for. I wasn’t very impressed by the content. While there’s a ton of sample sites inside, they’re not all that exciting and they are way too small…
This book has a huge selection of design style examples, all organized in a very intelligent way. The print quality is very good. As a reference book, this is a must have for any web designer looking for some inspiration.
1.0 out of 5 stars
“…the ultimate guide to themes,trends and styles in website design” – LOL
I was little bit disappointed by this book, but it was because I haven’t read about it’s content. I thought that it will show how to find and grab nice ideas from everyday life,…
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Idea Book if you own a magnifying glass
Overall, the content was good but the size of the book and images were way to small for visually inspired people such as myself.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great resource
I found this book to be a great resource for inspiration. The chapters were split up into logical themes.
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you look for inspiration this is great!
At my office my boss bought this book as a inspirational book, for when we are designing websites!.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Author also has fantastic website!
Well laid-out and organized book. Better than I expected. Author’s website is also a fantastic resource of ideas and quick tutorials. Well-worth purchase!
4.0 out of 5 stars
a good desktop reference
The screenshots of websites in the book are thumbnail size – they are really too small to get a good indication of the design.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great resource for web designers.
This book is pretty much what you think it is, about 200 pages of site thumbnails. Interspersed throughout are write-ups on the category that is being presented and a little intro…
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Starting Point for Design Inspiration
This book is exactly what it says it is. It gives page after page of good looking sites grouped by styles, colors, themes, purpose, etc.