Andy Budd

Be inspired by 10 web design lessons from 10 of the world's best web designers Get creative with cutting-edge XHTML, CSS, and DOM scripting techniques Learn breathtaking design skills while remaining standards-compliant Here at friends of ED, we know that as a web designer or developer, your work involves more than just working to pay the bills. We know that each day, you strive to push the boundaries of your medium, unleashing your creativity in new ways to make your websites more engaging and attractive to behold, while still maintaining cross-browser support, standards compliance, and accessibility. That's why we got together 10 of the world's most talented web designers to share their secrets with you. Web Standards Creativity is jam-packed with fresh, innovative design ideas. The topics range from essential CSS typography and grid design, effective styling for CMS-driven sites, and astonishing PNG transparency techniques, to DOM scripting magic for creating layouts that change depending on browser resolution and user preference, and better print layouts for web pages. We're sure you will find something here to inspire you! This full-color book's examples are not just stunning to look at, but also fully standards-compliant, up-to-date, and tested in current browsers including Internet Explorer 7. Playing by the rules doesn't have to mean drab or dull websites—Web Standards can be fun!

Blogging has moved rapidly from being a craze to become a core feature of the Internet - from individuals sharing their thoughts with the world via online diaries, through fans talking about their favorite sports teams or music, right up to serious business minds discussing industry futures. And that includes you, right? If you haven't got a blog already, you want to start one, and want to find out how. If you have already got one, you want to know how to customize it, and make it look cooler than everybody else's. In either case, this is the ideal book for you. In this book, a team of renowned web designers take you through the ins and outs of putting together great blogs. They waste no time harking on about the philosophy of blogs, or the community behind them. Instead, they get straight to the practical details, showing how to set up a basic blog in some of the world's most popular blogging engines - Movable Type, ExpressionEngine, WordPress, and Textpattern. With your blog set up, they then show you how to build great looking, usable layouts for your blog. The last chapter even shows you how to build your very own PHP/MySQL-based blog engine! With this book in hand, you'll have found your way to blog heaven in no time!

Growth is arguably the defining character of a startup, but finding early stage growth is surprisingly hard. Especially when the majority of advice comes from well-established companies with deep pockets and their own dedicated growth teams. So what's an early stage founder to do?That's where The Growth Equation steps in. To act as your definitive guide to early stage growth.I've worked with countless founders in my role as a startup advisor and VC. While every startup is different, the challenges they face are remarkably similar. How do you land your first 10/100/1,000 users? How do you perfect your Go to Market strategy? How do you create a Growth Engine that will power you to your first million in revenue and beyond? And how do you do it all while searching for Product-Market Fit?I begin the book by highlighting the seven key factors I've found have an outsized effect on growth. These form the arguments of what I'm calling The Growth Equation. The equation itself is pretty simple. Maybe even bordering on obvious. However it's what you do with the information that matters.Using the concepts of loops and funnels the book looks at every stage of the growth journey, from how to acquire, onboard and activate new customers; to how to embed your product in their day-to-day workflow and keep them coming back for more. During this process we look at whether you should take a Sales-Led, Marketing-Led or Product-Led approach to growth; how to price your product effectively; how you shape your team; and how to use concepts like Behavioral Science and PLG to drive growth.While the book is designed to be read from cover to cover, plenty of founders have found it useful jumping straight to the topics which are bothering them the most. Trying to figure out your launch strategy? There's a whole chapter on GTM. Struggling with outbound sales, content marketing or product positioning? We've got in-depth sections on all these topics. Maybe you're struggling with activation, engagement and churn? We've got you covered. In fact whatever growth challenge you're facing, this book should have something for you.Now It's worth saying that none of the concepts in this book are groundbreakingly new, so I'm not claiming to have invented some infallible new system (much to my accountants disappointment). In fact all these insights are available online if you want to go hunting for them. However as author and investor Jake Knapp explains "Sure, you could sign up for a dozen different newsletters, listen to a bunch of podcasts, and hire a head of growth. Or you could buy this book."That's what the Growth Equation is really about. It's your one stop shop for all things growth. Or as one reviewer said "It's like having a startup coach in your pocket." My hope is that this will be the only book you need to reach your first $1M in revenue and beyond; for a fraction of the cost of a dedicated coach. So what are you waiting for?

Growth is arguably the defining character of a startup, but finding early stage growth is surprisingly hard. Especially when the majority of advice comes from well-established companies with deep pockets and their own dedicated growth teams. So what's an early stage founder to do?That's where The Growth Equation steps in. To act as your definitive guide to early stage growth.I've worked with countless founders in my role as a startup advisor and VC. While every startup is different, the challenges they face are remarkably similar. How do you land your first 10/100/1,000 users? How do you perfect your Go to Market strategy? How do you create a Growth Engine that will power you to your first million in revenue and beyond? And how do you do it all while searching for Product-Market Fit?I begin the book by highlighting the seven key factors I've found have an outsized effect on growth. These form the arguments of what I'm calling The Growth Equation. The equation itself is pretty simple. Maybe even bordering on obvious. However it's what you do with the information that matters.Using the concepts of loops and funnels the book looks at every stage of the growth journey, from how to acquire, onboard and activate new customers; to how to embed your product in their day-to-day workflow and keep them coming back for more. During this process we look at whether you should take a Sales-Led, Marketing-Led or Product-Led approach to growth; how to price your product effectively; how you shape your team; and how to use concepts like Behavioral Science and PLG to drive growth.While the book is designed to be read from cover to cover, plenty of founders have found it useful jumping straight to the topics which are bothering them the most. Trying to figure out your launch strategy? There's a whole chapter on GTM. Struggling with outbound sales, content marketing or product positioning? We've got in-depth sections on all these topics. Maybe you're struggling with activation, engagement and churn? We've got you covered. In fact whatever growth challenge you're facing, this book should have something for you.Now It's worth saying that none of the concepts in this book are groundbreakingly new, so I'm not claiming to have invented some infallible new system (much to my accountants disappointment). In fact all these insights are available online if you want to go hunting for them. However as author and investor Jake Knapp explains "Sure, you could sign up for a dozen different newsletters, listen to a bunch of podcasts, and hire a head of growth. Or you could buy this book."That's what the Growth Equation is really about. It's your one stop shop for all things growth. Or as one reviewer said "It's like having a startup coach in your pocket." My hope is that this will be the only book you need to reach your first $1M in revenue and beyond; for a fraction of the cost of a dedicated coach. So what are you waiting for?

Fully updated to the latest CSS modules, make the journey to CSS mastery as simple and painless as possible. This book dives into advanced aspects of CSS-based design, such as responsive design, modular CSS, and CSS typography. Through a series of easy-to-follow tutorials, you will learn practical CSS techniques you can immediately start using in your daily work. CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions is your indispensable guide to cutting-edge CSS development—this book demystifies the secrets of CSS. While CSS is a relatively simple technology to learn, it is a difficult one to master. When you first start developing sites using CSS, you will come across all kinds of infuriating browser bugs and inconsistencies. It sometimes feels like there are a million and one different techniques to master, spread across a bewildering array of websites. The range of possibilities seems endless and makes for a steep and daunting learning curve. While most books concentrate on basic skills, this one is different, assuming that you already know the basics and why you should be using CSS in your work, and concentrating mainly on advanced techniques. This new edition covers all of the CSS fundamentals such as the importance of meaningful markup, how to structure and maintain your code, and how the CSS layout model really works. This new edition contains:New examples and updated browser support information Full coverage of modular CSS and responsive design Essential information on CSS typography and layout control What You'll LearnDiscover the best practice concepts in CSS design Master the most important (and tricky) parts of CSS Identify and fix the most common CSS problems Deal with the most common bugs See the latest information on CSS features and support Who This Book Is ForIntermediate and advanced web designers and developers. It offers a quick recap of the main points of CSS, while dispelling some common myths, but then moves forward to delve into the higher-level aspects of CSS. It contains fully up-to-date information throughout, and acts as a one-stop-shop for current CSS best practices.

Building on what made the first edition a bestseller, CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions, Second Edition unites the disparate information on CSS-based design spread throughout the internet into one definitive, modern guide. Revised to cover CSS3, the book can be read from front to back, with each chapter building on the previous one. However, it can also be used as a reference book, dipping into each chapter or technique to help solve specific problems. In short, this is the one book on CSS that you need to have.This second edition contains:New examples and updated browser support information New case studies from Simon Collison and Cameron Moll CSS3 examples, showing new CSS3 features, and CSS3 equivalents to tried and tested CSS2 techniques