The personal disquiet of

Mark Boulton

January 31st, 2009

Managing expectations

Managing the expect­a­tion of the new book has been inter­est­ing. When I first announced it, I used to still blog quite a bit. People seemed excited – which was nice – so was I. Then, I stopped work on it for a while, all the expect­a­tion and buzz died down as the pro­ject did. Since we pinned a release date on the book, buzz has stead­ily increased once again, but with it the expect­a­tion. And I don’t mind telling you, that expect­a­tion is weigh­ing a little heavy on my shoulders.

You see, this book isn’t really like a lot of other graphic design books. Most of them are cof­fee table ‘inspir­a­tional’ books filled with other people’s work. But, it’s not a typ­ical web devel­op­ment book either. They tend to be task, or ‘les­son’ focussed — walk­ing the reader through a series of case stud­ies and examples – half of which require a com­puter to be next to you as you work through the chapters. 

My book is a little of both, but pur­pose­fully unlike either.

I wanted more of a con­ver­sa­tion. More informal, more of me. The con­tent is still prac­tical, but it’s not a les­son plan. Weav­ing through the book is a strong sense of tra­di­tional graphic design and how I think it applies to the web today. There are tips and tools to sup­port the the­or­ies, but it’s not a ‘for dum­mies’ book. I’d like to think it’s writ­ten in plain eng­lish, and not magic-designer-speak. It’s about the prac­tic­al­it­ies of design­ing for the web, but only rep­res­ents some approaches that I feel work. 

So, it’s not meant to be a defin­it­ive guide to all that is ‘design­ing for the web’. As I say in the intro­duc­tion to the book:

…it’s a little book about graphic design and how it applies to the mod­ern web. It’s not a book about CSS or usab­il­ity… it’s aimed at people who want to learn some basics of graphic design and apply them to their web designs — pro­du­cing more effect­ive, pol­ished, detailed and pro­fes­sional sites.

There. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 3:54 pm and is filed under Simple Steps.

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12 Responses to “Managing expectations”

  1. Dr Shock said on: January 31st, 2009 at 9:43 pm

    Sounds very good, most books are cof­fee tables books as you said before. I am still look­ing for a book on graphic design for the web, can’t wait, when is it due?

    Kind regards Dr Shock

  2. Jordan said on: January 31st, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    That sounds great, Mark. I’m really look­ing for­ward to your book, and I’d rather have some­thing con­ver­sa­tional and use­ful, than pre­ten­tious and just sit­ting on my cof­fee table.

  3. Eric said on: February 1st, 2009 at 1:39 am

    I have sought but have not found a book like this.

    I have read all of the XHTMl/CSS books I could get my hands on. Very few of them teach you any­thing about how to Design. I’ve become very good at XHTML/CSS but my web pages are still miss­ing some­thing because I don’t know how to Design. 

    I was hop­ing some of the cof­fee table books you men­tioned could teach me a thing or two about design. But most of them con­sist of only inspir­a­tional and the­or­et­ical mater­ial. Inspir­a­tion is good but I want to learn how to Design so I can finally put some­thing up on the web that I am proud of.

    That’s why I’m look­ing for­ward to the release of Five Simple Steps. It sounds like a book that will finally fill this void on the mar­ket of books that teach you how to design your web­site using graphic design principles.

  4. Mark Otto said on: February 1st, 2009 at 4:21 am

    Sounds great!

  5. Norbert said on: February 1st, 2009 at 7:01 pm

    Com­pletely agreed Eric. I’m in the same situ­ation. While I’m good with the cod­ing part of the page, I find it really hard to come up with a design for it, or find color schemes that match the users needs. 

    I know what each color means, but how do you extract the mean­ing and cre­ate a scheme out of that? 

    Wait­ing for tomorrow!

  6. Dennis D. said on: February 2nd, 2009 at 3:52 pm

    Just down­loaded my copy. Thanks and Kudos Mark on a won­der­ful guide and ref­er­ence on help­ing web design­ers without a graphic design back­ground cre­ate web­sites that stand out for their pro­fes­sional look & experience. 

    P.S. look­ing for­ward to the grid book (more pres­sure on shoulders)

  7. Norbert said on: February 2nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    The coupon is tak­ing forever. And I don’t have enough on my PayPal to get it for £12. Just my luck :)

  8. Nate said on: February 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 pm

    If it’s any­thing like the rest of your Five Simple Steps series, I’m sure it’ll be wildly suc­cess­ful. I can’t wait to down­load it.

  9. Shaza Hakim said on: February 2nd, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    Ser­i­ously, utterly hooked. 

    Pur­chased the ver­sion with 5 licenses and spread­ing the word to every­one here at Stam­pede. Finally, a val­id­a­tion and a cause of cel­eb­rate the obses­sion over minute design details!

  10. mat said on: February 4th, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    Just pur­chased it, I am really enjoy­ing it. You’re smart for pub­lish­ing a book, you’re writ­ing is sub­urb and comes off the page easily. 

    Just because I want to nit­pick though, the tools sec­tion is pure mac cent­ric, I was kind of look­ing for­ward to see­ing what tools would be the tools of choice for an apple user being forced to try out the alternatives. 

    Thanks for the great read.

  11. John said on: February 16th, 2009 at 10:05 am

    This is really what the most people need: learn some basics of graphic design and apply them to their web designs”. 

    We are web­mas­ters, we have many sites…

  12. coffee said on: February 20th, 2009 at 7:25 am

    My mom used to scold for keep­ing Cof­feecup on the book.Hmm…but still I am using the same.

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    Hello. My name is Mark Boulton. I’m a designer, an author, a speaker and I run a small design agency where we work with lovely cli­ents and pub­lish books as we go. This is my blog.

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