Review: Transcending CSS

I just picked up “Trancending CSS, the fine art of web design” by Andy Clarke and edited by Molly E. Holzschlag. It’s amazing. This is one of my favorite CSS books to come out since “The Zen of CSS Design“, which quite literally changed the way I look at CSS layout and design. This book is a superb follow up.

It offers in great detail explanations and examples of why accessibility is important, and why semantic code is more than just vanity on the part of cutting edge web designers. It validates, for me, a lot of what I’ve been working for. I take Andy very seriously as a web standards hero and a leader in the Web Standards Project. And Molly has over 30 web books to her credit and, according to Amazon and other sources, is deemed one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women on the Web.

The book pushes beautiful and creative design that is made possible by, rather than in spite of, CSS. Not a new concept, but it really takes things a step further. It even offers analogies that you can use when explaining your goals to clients to help get them on board. That’s a useful tool to me, as around here I’m the only designer who gives a flying fire truck about standards and my clients have never even heard of such a thing. I’m sure I’m not alone.

It’s got code, examples and beautiful design. It’s not just a programmers book, but a well-put-together design book. Great care was taken to make it both aesthetically pleasing and content-driven. Just like a good website. It is, however, not for beginners. Rather, it builds off of a solid foundation in XHTML and CSS, and works to fix some misconceptions and answer some major questions that have plagued the web-standards community.

All in all, it’s a great read. I highly recommend it!