I am a big fan of the website which is a big source of inspiration, and was very happy when I found out that there was a book.
And now... Disappointment.

First of all, the cover is very ugly, and the book's format is a bit clunky.
The designs they have chosen are nothing special, kind of boring designs. Why did they choose these designs, when there are much more interesting designs on the site?

And the book also feels a bit out-of-date. Hey, they even talk about Netscape!

Nope, spend your money on some other book. Read the CSS on the website!

I've only breezed through this book, but bought it because I wanted it as the companion to their website - css zen garden dot com - and I'm happy I did. You can download all the corresponding code from their site that goes along with this book (instead of having to type it all in manually).

After 9 years of old-style HTML coding, I'm upgrading my skills to the new CSS/XHTML. This book takes the focus away (momentarily) from code and points to beauty. I'm looking forward to becoming a designer like the ones in this book.

Beautiful and inspiring!

I bought this book because I was working on a website with good content but poor presentation. I wanted to get ideas about how to make a website look good and be web standards compliant. This book has certainly given me a lot of inspiration and tips on how to improve the presentation using CSS. The CSS snippets throughout are great for explaining simply how special effects can be achieved.

This is a book that will still be relevant when web technologies change because it gives a glimpse of the big picture: how content can be displayed in so many different and interesting ways. In the end, that's what every web designer is trying to achieve, no matter how they do it today or tomorrow.

this book focuses only on one project that is outdated on the web. It does not teach you, or shows you how to code. It takes some of the examples, created by random people and talks about a few tricks that are used on their pages. The examples of design, which is chosen, are horrible, especially when it comes to the use of typography.

.. but I fully expect to. Having followed the csszengarden site from nearly the beginning, I wouldn't miss it. I was learning css on my own when I came across the site.. being a visual artist, and unabashedly a "web DESIGNER" - I finally FINALLY felt that I had found my calling, my mecca on the pages of the site with all of the talented designers.

I learned SO MUCH downloading the css and trying my own stuff -- I actually credit the site for helping me to finally understand css and how it could be stretched - how it could be made to do the things I had always wanted to do. My kudos to everyone involved!

I recieved my order fast, the book was in great shape, and wouldn't hesitate to order from amazon! Great service!

This is a valuable book to the shelf of any web designer. But set your expectations correctly. I think many of those who give this a low score do so because they want a computer programming book. This does have some CSS code in it, and has many helpful hints to resolve browser (99% of which are IE!!) issues, but spends most of its time discussion the particular area of web page design (as opposed to print design) and how the experienced and novices alike should address this medium.

Approach this from the perspective of what can CSS do for me, and how do designers approach the topic, and you will be very pleasantly surprised.

And finally, my favourite page on the Zen Garden website is this page (for me it stands head and shoulders above all others, although I expect many may disagree!):

I'm not a "graphics" person. I struggle to understand creative design and how to build it in code. This book brought these elements together and really explained the process.

This is not a beginner's book on coding and design. It is more of an applications manual for someone who has worked with CSS. I was frequently looking at some area of a design and asking myself how, or why, did he do that? I don't think there was ever an example that left that question unanswered. If it wasn't explicit, there was always enough information and discussion to be able to figure it out. Including the code with the illustrations and explanations really tied the processes together.

This book will be kept on my 'A' references shelf. There is a detailed index and the example home pages were grouped in sections: Design, Layout, Imagery, Typography, Special Effects, and Reconstruction. Therefore, it will be easy to come back and locate relevant information.

A great book with excellent examples and descriptions on how to implement a CSS web solution.

This book is fantastic for layouts and suggestions. While it is not the simplist thing for the beginner it is very good for layouts and suggestions on ways to make your own CSS better and HTML lighter.

This is an odd sort of book, written by the creator of the CSS Zen Garden, which is a masterwork.

The CSS Zen Garden is a place where beauty and craft meet, and sometimes in absolutely brilliant ways; that's the beauty aspect; however, this book is about the craft aspect not beauty, which is disappointing.

All of the designs that are described are good examples of the various design subjects being discussed, such as typography or the use of color. But for all that they exemplify craft, they are all also rather bland.

Missing from this book are the designs that are beautiful. The most egregious omission is Mozart, which is one of the most visually arresting designs I have ever seen on the whole of the Internet, to say nothing of this site.

Other overlooked beautiful designs are Odyssey, Dark Rose, Invitation, C Note, Egyptian Dawn and Mediterranean. The book is much the worse for omitting these designs.

A wonderful reference book. Very inspirational. All web designers bible.

A beautifully put together book on CSS ... it should be since the topic is web design. It shows what can be done with CSS and how to get CSS layout to cooperate. You'll need to view the CSS code on the Zen web site as you read through the book if you want to thoroughly understand how each design is implemented.

I'm not feeling it. This didn't help put all of the peices together for me. Its not particularly bad, just not my style. May be good for some people. I prefer the bulletproof book & the zeldman book on the same subject much more.

Shea has earned his spot as a respected authority in the Web Design space. And "The Zen of CSS Design" encapsulates in a volume the essence of this discipline and what CSS as a tool allows the web designer. Though some argue that this is more of a book on design than a book on CSS, I say it's neither one.

"The Zen of CSS Design" cannot be considered a CSS reference, yet it offers some valuable tips and explanations for some of the best designs submitted to the author's now legendary site, CSS Zen Garden. Still, I wouldn't call it a design book either, yet it goes through most of the essentials of web design (and arguably, design in general) to take into account when crafting the looks of your site.

In the end, assuming the reader is not new to either discipline, the book borrows the essentials from CSS and design and provides an exquisite piece that will enlighten you and inspire you to take your web designs to the next level.

This extraordinary, beautiful and amazing book explains, in detail, the designs illustrated on the Zen Garden web site. This is a book to read, to savor and to come back to. It is part tutorial, part reference book and part inspiration.

No one who is doing web development can afford to ignore CSS for long, and this is the book that takes you beyond CSS as a simple tool for design and brings you to CSS as the missing third leg in creating world-class web applications: [..]for server side technology; Ajax for client side responsiveness and enhanced customer experience, and CSS for separation of data from presentation and layout. An astonishing book. Highly recommended.

This book should probably be called A Portfolio of CSS Design. It contains lots of nice pages showing examples of some lovely CSS design. However, it doesn't present enough constructive information to really help you. Tell me exactly how the page put to together rather than some obscure problem which the average CSS user is unlikely to encounter. I don't know who this book is aimed at. There's not enough in it for it to be a tutorial book and while it's nice to look at, is this any better than viewing the actual web pages on the Internet?

This book is mostly about design principles and much less about CSS. Useful information but not the hard hitting CSS principles I would have expected.

At the bookstore, I was seduced by the graphics and the concept of the book. The world really needs a book like this. The concept of incorporating css and graphic design as one creature is really pertinant.

However, the book was watered down and poorly organized. It takes designs from the website and discusses parts of them. I found this piecemeal approach really difficult to understand. A little code here, a little design there but never enough to provide a solid context.It also tried to cover too much ground, and as a result it didn't go into enough depth to be of any use.

This was a pretty expensive book (at the book store it was about $40), and I found it almost a complete waste of money. Buy something better, such as Styln' With CSS.

This book is an analisys from a designer's point of view of the cssZenGarden.com project, which is a beautiful project on itself.

The title can be a little deceiving for people looking for CSS references, because that is something this book certainly isn't.

This book is about web design, each chapter covering a different subject, such as Typography, Images, and so on. CSS covered as a tool to achieve the results inteded by the design.

This book is very inspiring and you can in fact learn a lot about CSS usage, hacks and web desing implementation process.

This neither a book for a first contact with CSS nor a coder's book, but is a fantastic book for someone looking for web design.

As the web developer in our company I often hear our graphical designers asking me what IS possible with CSS. Well this book gives you a good idea. It is not really about learning CSS but at least it gives a good idea about all the possibilities. Each time I get stuck in the limits of CSS, I get back to this book.....

If you are a programmer that knows nothing about graphic design, this book is pretty nice. It is about 70% focused on how to do graphic design, and about %30 about CSS. Otherwise, if you want to learn CSS this isnt the best book.

Im a graphic designer first, CSS programmer second. There is a lot of fluff in this book, a lot of Graphic Design 101 concepts, so it could be a LOT shorter. The graphic design theory is interesting for a non-designer, but I read this book in 2 hours because I know all the graphic design stuff. The CSS code is buried in the fluff, and in the end I am referencing other books to get real CSS code fast. The glossy prettiness of this book bumps up the price, substance doesnt.

A number of "innovative" CSS code in this book is not cross-browser compliant, so as of 2006 it is pretty worthless. There are some hacks, but not enough. Since proper website design is always designed for legacy browsers, lowest common denominator, I dont think the innovative or CSS3 code is useful for another couple of years until the critical mass catches up. IE is the big offender, and if they can ever release a proper browser, maybe this book's code would be more applicable.

For now and near future, it's clear CSS wont replace DHTMl or Javascript even though the authors want to pretend it will (I want that too, but. . .)

Open your mind! We are not in the 90's any more. Slash pages are stupid, web-counters are stupid. We are in the XI century and web should look like it. If you want to create beauty, this is your book.

A good book that works to explain the website and some of the designs. It will not show you how to build CSS driven websites like this or give you a tutorial, but will rather show you the possibilities of what can be done and give you some explanation on how they can be done. Interesting, but looking at the website is almost as valuable.

Yes, I admit this book is not as technical as one would think when thinking about books on CSS. However, this book has opened up my eyes to the art-side of web design like no other book has. I've read "art" books, and I've read "technical" books. This book brings me the best of both worlds, looking at the art side of technical websites.
I recommend this book for those who have faith in the art side of web design and don't just see them making boxy websites for corporates for the rest of their life.

Hello -

As a college web graphics, HTML, and CSS instructor with a history in graphic design, there is not greater book (especially combined with a careful review of the actual website the book is based upon) written on CSS that brings out its strength in design.

How ironic that the critics here are upset that it spends so much time on design. That's the point. Most web developers DO NOT study carefully the principles of graphic design and how to apply them, so they miss its power (not just Beauty... but the power to persuade, among other things).

I disagree that there is not enough CSS explanation in the book, though it is probably not the book for a total beginner. If you have written a bit of CSS code in your pages, AND what to learn what design is all about then you will understand it, and this is an invaluable book. Be sure to take the time to visit the CSSZenGarden.com site and chew on the concepts with the real examples.

'the Zen of CSS design' by Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag is one of the most important web design books on the market today. The word Zen is truly the right way to describe this text, as it is laid out so carefully and calmly, you can't help but feel your heartbeat go down and your tension decrease as you enjoy this wonderful text.

Using examples developed on their own web site csszengarden.com, the authors study a myriad of different approaches, the decisions that were made when developing each of these sites, and the ways that CSS can easily be altered and modified by the web developer.

Looking at all the facets of web design from font selection, image choices, tables, color picking, etc etc etc this is the perfect resource for anyone that is in charge of designing a web site which is being used as an online application, corporate web site, or even a personal site. The authors combine years upon years of experience to produce a guide that is informative, pleasing to read, and calming to look at.

ESSENTIAL buy for all web designers that want to learn the difference between a good web site and a great web site. Learn that sometimes MINIMIZING maximizes a users experience and discover how to get there with this exceptional book.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

CSS Zen Garden, Eric Meyers and Jeffry Zeldman have long been at the forefront of CSS Design and their work has been the inspiration for countless applications, mostly in the niche of blogs and content sites. How their CSS table-less design methods affect e-Commerce is yet to be determined, but the techniques for layout is surprisingly well suited for search engine optimization.

New eCommerce applications from Zen Cart (Open Source) to our own CSSCommerce (commercial) have been equally inspired by the compliant coding promoted by this book.

CSS Zen Garden is richly beautiful in its own right and one can immediatly see the advantage of using the techniques found here as the cornerstone of high-end web site design. But, as it applies to e-Commerce, the information is strangely lacking... more needs to be written.

Forms, columns and rows of products, the mainstays of eCommerce are untouched by this book.

This book is about extraordinary web page design. Thirty-six designs are featured from the web site Zen Garden: The Beauty of CSS Design [...], which was created by one of the authors, David Shea. The Zen Garden web site is really a great concept. Start with a simple, well-formed HTML document, coded for maximum flexibility in applying a style sheet, and then invite designers to submit a CSS document with image files to "style" that basic HTML web page. The challenge is to explore the possibilities and push the limits.

The book focuses on fundamental design concepts such as typography, color and layout. This is not a typical step-by-step book, which often has really ugly visual examples of what the code will do. Shea and Holzschlag look at CSS-formatted pages through a different lens. Each showcased project is introduced with an explanation of the design principles examined, followed by a breakdown of the elements and how they were formatted with CSS. Snippets of code are included, and you can go to the web site and download both the HTML and the CSS for that particular page if you want to follow along.

At first glance this is a visually rich book, but the screen shots are unfortunately small (they were created at 72 dpi after all) and some of the details are noticeably pixilated. Some include an expanded view of the web page, something you'll never see through the browser window, but helpful for seeing how it all fits together. Another thing I found useful was the view of all of the images used on the webpage, spread apart so I can get a good look at them. I may be stating the obvious, but what makes these designs so exceptional is the use of images. And to really appreciate the designs you need to look at them in the intended presentation-on screen. Also online is the complete style sheet for every page-you can deconstruct to your heart's content.

The authors state that the book was written for anyone with an interest in designing and developing web sites, from novice to advanced users, designers and programmers. I would argue that you have to have a pretty good grasp of CSS for most of the explanations to make sense. I'm a graphic designer struggling to learn CSS. I've given up font tags and rollover images for CSS formatting and text-based rollover effects for links, but I still use tables. I haven't yet grasped using CSS for positioning elements on the page. What I was hoping to find in this book were simple, straightforward, engaging CSS-formatted web pages. Unfortunately this wasn't the case. The featured layouts relied on a number of hacks and workarounds to get the pages to appear as intended. Is this a reflection on the state of browser compliance to web standards? For folks who enjoy the challenge of finding unique coding solutions there are plenty of clever examples in this book. However, it is definitely not a reference book. It's even hard to find anything specific through the index.

Is there any long-term value to this book? Or is it like so many other computer books that become outdated after a few years, sometimes as quickly as when a new version of software is released? The Zen of CSS Design may serve as a snapshot of the early days of CSS design and an inspiration for today.

This is a beautiful book, not only does it explain by example CSS concepts from beginner syntax right through to advanced techniques, but its just a nice book to read with some great visuals. It really does the CSS Zen Garden justice and is a nice book to just pick up and leaf through every now and then. Very unconventional for what is essentially a CSS textbook.

When I first started reading this book, I thought the premise was a bit artificial -- take a single web page and, using only CSS style sheets, give it a myriad of different looks.

By its middle, I was starting to notice a pattern: designers had to bend over backwards to use just CSS -- when a little extra HTML would have gone a long way. It still seemed, well, hokey.

But at the end, I realized that I had learned a great deal about how CSS is actually applied, and that while the exercise was artifical, the lessons learned were not. I had a great deal more insight than a mechanical walk through CSS would have provided.

It's not a primer on CSS, for sure, and presumes a lot in the reader. But, better to be challenged than, pardon the pun, mollycoddled...

This book reads like the authors tricked the publishers into letting them write a book on CSS Design, when they really intended to write a book on design theory. That's cool and all, but I wanted a book on CSS Design. I already have better books on design theory.

The CSS examples were helpful, but sparse in the book. There was plenty of going on about typefaces to use, colors, and artwork, though.

All in all, it was only moderately helpful.

Good book. My only recommendation for the authors would be to NOT encourage CSS hacks within a CSS document as this can only lead to future trouble. I would recommend using IE conditional statements as a method to point IE hacks to a different style sheet that can be easily altered when IE someday gets something right. In fact IE 7 beta version fixes a lot of these issues addressed in the book.

The idea of the Zen Garden is genius. I recommend the book only to those who want inspiration and to learn the history of the CSS Zen Garden. NOT to those wanting to learn much about CSS. You can learn more by just viewing the designs and downloading the CSS from ZEN Gardens site. It is allowed.

-MAK

This book tries to be an answer for all. Instead of focusing one one subject (just css) it explains all of standard based code. From how to create XHTML whose design can be modified completely through only css, the benefits of standard based code, the problems making css compatible with multiple browsers (you could play quite the drinking game counting how many times you encounter IE workarounds), and the various design elements websites designers need to be aware of and how they are implemented in css, this has it all. Not for begginers, this book will not teach you most of the fundamentals of CSS, and is supposed to be more of a companion book to those types of books. It is organized on a per example bases (each chapter is titled by an example of a style on the csszengarden.com website). Because of this, the book can be a little bit disorginized and repetitive, but the information contained within makes up for it. If you are just getting started into css design, I would not recommend this book, but if you are interested in css design, and have some knowledge of it with some extra cash to spend, this is your book.

This book was a good read and a great reference. Not as techie as most might think, but it does do a good job of showing beautiful sites and then giving the related CSS examples.

I expected another one of those books where they show you a lot of cool stuff but don't give you source knowledge.

Great Job! to Mr. Shea and Ms. Holzschlag