Coming soon: Professional CSS

Hitting a bookshelf near you this summer -- Professional CSS by Christopher Schmitt, Mark Trammell, Ethan Marcotte, Dunstan Orchard and...me. Published by Wrox (the company with sun deprived developers on all their book covers), the 500-page book will "...give developers a peek into the process of the best CSS designers in the world through the work of high profile, real-world web sites that made them famous."

Each chapter dissects a popular web site that extensively uses CSS and demonstrates the tips and techniques that went into creating it. For my portion of the book, I wrote about the The 86th PGA Championship, of which I was the art director, designer, and developer of all the CSS, XHTML, and Flash content through Turner Sports Interactive. Topics include the PGA Championship's CSS drop-down menus, how the Flash/HTML drop shadow effects were implemented, and methods for including Flash in a standards-based layout without breaking document validity.

Professional CSS is a unique take on CSS, for it combines both raw code and discussion of the creative process that facilitated each site's creation. In the case of the PGA Championship, I not only wrote about how a particular effect was done, but why, and how it related to the overall creative concept. It's a unique blend that (I hope) greatly appeals to any developer who also wears a designer hat, and vice versa.

This is my first published work (which may explain why Amazon left me off the author roll -- it's been fixed), and I must say it's a little surreal to see my big mug on the cover. I expect to multiply that by two or three the first time I see it in Borders.

At any rate, I personally thank co-author Christopher Schmitt for inviting me to be part of the book (it's not easy sometimes when you're an unpublished author), and I hope the book is a smashing success for all involved. Look for it (according to Amazon) sometime mid-July.

Note: yes, 'Durstan' is painfully aware of his misspelled name on the cover. It isn't the 'true' cover, just a pre-release promotional image so it'll be fixed in time.