
Don't Fear the Internet: Basic HTML & CSS for non-Web Designers - joshuacc
http://www.dontfeartheinternet.com/
======
canistr
Why are the tutorials presented in reverse order? Surely this must scare new
designers if I look at the first video and it says "CSS". The site needs to
reverse the order with Part 0/1 at the top and 5 at the bottom.

~~~
systemtrigger
"Why are the tutorials presented in reverse order?"

Probably because it's a WordPress site and the author didn't get around to
adding

    
    
      query_posts($query_string."&order=ASC");
    

to index.php before the if(have_posts()) logic.

------
barkingcat
The site looks like a mess! No visual hierarchy at all - a mess of full caps,
bolding, non-bolding, lines, diamonds.

And why is "the" in "don't fear the internet" underlined in white on the title
text? Aside from gratuitous use of design elements, there is no reason to
focus attention on a grammatical article (part of speech) unless they want to
say that this is THE internet we're talking about! - which is very obvious and
stupid. How many other internets are there?

I expected more from these "designers" - am I the only one who thinks this
kind of design is completely unsuitable for the online medium? In print it
would look pretty good, but my eyes just got assaulted - and I was really
distracted and could not absorb any of the information on that page.

It's like @font-face and the new css styles are the "blink" tag of today.

~~~
ugh
The website is very consistent and has a very clear visual hierarchy.

It seems your subjective impression colored all your subsequent judgments
about the site. What you are writing there in the first sentence just makes no
sense at all, caps, bolding, lines and diamonds are all used consistently to
create a clear visual hierarchy.

Don’t hate on it just because you don’t like the look of it.

~~~
mnutt
Though it could have been said more constructively, I don't the the parent is
completely wrong about the grouping of the elements. I find the diamonds a bit
distracting because to my eyes it makes the right column a long string of
different sized line lengths. If they just removed the diamonds I think it
would be much clearer visually that the videos and text were grouped together.

~~~
ugh
That’s a small (even debatable) thing. Nothing that would warrant the language
the grandparent used.

------
replicatorblog
This site looks great, but if you want to get the basics of HTML/CSS, this is
the best $20 you'll spend. Some of the Head First books are not the best, but
this was the best resource for box model, table less HTML/CSS I've found. I
went from having almost no knowledge of markup to being able to do anything I
could imagine.

~~~
roryokane
It looks like you had a link on “this” that got swallowed by HN. HN doesn‘t
allow <a> tags in comments; you have to put the URL you want directly in the
text, and it will be linked automatically.

Did you mean _Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML_,
<http://headfirstlabs.com/books/hfhtml/>?

------
brackin
Great site, I agree why are the videos in reverse order. It's ironically not a
very well designed/organised site.

------
coderdude
This is well put together. Just a little nitpick though, HTML and CSS are part
of the Web, not the Internet as a whole. If you're going to start teaching you
might as well start at the beginning. Other than that it has a unique layout
and the bold use of typography is pretty cool. It would be nice if the videos
were accompanied below by the lesson in written form. The videos are high
quality. Props!

Edit: Regarding my nitpick, I see that you start off with an actual
introduction to the Internet, so I retract my nitpick. :)

------
mgoo
Its not enough to know just html & css. Design is more different thing. If you
have a nice idea and could sketch on the paper even ordinary web designer
could implement that. Dont waste your time with these crap things. Just try be
best painter, photographer or illustrator forget the html and other things,
just sharpen your design skills.

~~~
jordanlev
I understand your sentiment but I know a lot of designers who, while they love
what they do, are finding it harder to land non-web gigs. So for them, it may
be necessary to learn html/css in order to keep making money at a job that's
at least somewhat related to their existing skill set.

------
Shenglong
Wonderful. I feel like I learned HTML/CSS/JS from observing and guessing.
Having an explanation would've been a hell of a lot easier.

Unfortunately, most brilliant web designers are terrible at communication. Not
all - I _know_ there are at least several exceptions.

Look at Twitter Bootstrap for example. It's great, and I'm guessing it's made
for non-web designers, or people who want to make something quickly. In the
prior case, I can't imagine any design newbie understanding how to use it.

~~~
joshuacc
I think that Twitter Bootstrap is actually targeted toward the experienced
front-end developer who needs to put together a prototype or other simple app
quickly.

------
skybrian
Nice idea, but sadly, it's a series of videos. I'd expect good web designers
to be able to express themselves well using text on web pages.

~~~
mattvot
Videos are easy to digest, and considering the target audience is not web
designers I think this is a great resource. I can point my friends to it when
they ask what I do :)

