Creative HTML Design.2 walks you through building a real working web site, specially created for the lesson plans in this book. In the process, you will learn all the phases of site design, from selecting an ISP and uploading files, to more advanced techniques, like adding animation and rollovers. Step-by-step tutorials for Photoshop 6.0^® teach how to design using 'safe' colors, make distinctive background tiles, align your graphics, use tables and frames, include JavaScript rollovers, and use CSS, as well as numerous other design and HTML features. This book includes a complete HTML 4.0 reference with details on all current HTML elements.

This book is designed to work on a number of levels. It can be read in linear order, or it can be surfed, much the way you would gather information on the web. Everyone learns differently--some people learn from theoretical books, others from manuals, others from step-by-step exercises, and some from simply diving in head first and doing. We have tackled this book from all these angles. We wanted to do more than a how-to book, more than an exercise book, and more than a theory book. Our goal was not simply to present information, but to also explain why it was necessary, how you would do it, and where could you find resources related to it.

What's New About Creative HTML Design.2?
A lot has changed since we first wrote this book in 1998, so our goal was to update its content with new information about WYSIWYG(What You See Is What You Get) editors, new graphic applications, and new HTML and graphic techniques.
This book is useful to those people who plan to use HTML editors and web graphic editors because it will give you the knowledge of what those tools are doing behind-the-scenes. If you plan to do this work professionally or interact with other professionals, that knowledge will at a minimum make you feel more confident, and at a maximum will help you troubleshoot a problem down the road.
More than learning to write HTML yourself, our goal was to show you how to integrate graphics editing with HTML editing and share tips and techniques that will make your work easier and site more creative.

Our Lesson Approach

Once you're up to speed on web publishing, you would design your site in the following stages:

• Concept
• Planning
• Collecting Assets (artwork, text, media, etc.)
• Producing graphics and layouts
• Writing Code/HTML Editing/Scripting, Etc.
• Publishing to a Server

We did not choose to teach you how to create your web site in this order because we agreed that it would not be the best order to learn from. How can you develop a concept if you don't understand the limitations of the medium? How can you plan a site if you've never built one before? How can you collect assets if you don't understand what you need? How can you produce graphics and layouts if you've never authored for the web? How can you publish something you don't know how to make yet.

For this reason, we organized the materials in a logical manner for learning web publishing with HTML and graphics. If you find that there's something you already know, feel free to skip ahead to the next section or chapter. If you're curious about something that hasn't been discussed, turn to the Index to locate it and flip ahead.

You'll find all the related files to each exercise in its respective chapter folder on the CHD2 CD-ROM.

On the Web

The Creative HTML Design web site (http://www.htmlbook.com) is there to help you by providing updates to the book and tips and pointers that will be kept current as new technology emerges.

The Ducks In A Row web site (http://ducks.htmlbook.com) is a live implementation of the examples and exercises in this book. In fact, this book represents the actual process that we went through in building this site.

Lynda and Bill both live active email lives. Lynda's email address is lynda@lynda.com; and Bill's is wew@bearnet.com. Please feel free to contact us with questions, comments, complaints, and even kudos. We love kudos.

We hope you enjoy reading this book as much as we've enjoyed writing it. We both learned a ton from each other while writing this book, and it's our hope that you will benefit from the results.

--Lynda & Bill