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.