This is the ultimate in inspirational, high-level web design books. There is no attempt to teach the basics CSS or JavaScript — competency is already assumed. This book brings together 12 of the world's most talented web designers to share their secrets with the reader. The techniques discussed cover the full spectrum of essential web design topics, and readers will find enough innovation inside that they will keep coming back to the book again and again to improve their work. The book, presented in full color, is completely standards-compliant, and up-to-date, including discussions of IE 7 support.
The emergence of Web 2.0 is provoking challenging questions for developers: What products and services can our company provide to customers and employees using Rich Internet Applications, mash-ups, Web feeds or Ajax? Which business models are appropriate and how do we implement them? What are best practices and how do we apply them? If you need answers to these and related questions, you need Unleashing Web 2.0—a comprehensive and reliable resource that guides you into the emerging and unstructured landscape that is Web 2.0. Gottfried Vossen is a professor of Information Systems and Computer Science at the University of Muenster in Germany. He is the European Editor-in-Chief of Elsevier's Information Systems—An International Journal. Stephan Hagemann is a PhD. Student in Gottfried's research group focused on Web technologies. - Presents a complete view of Web 2.0 including services and technologies - Discusses potential new products and services and the technology and programming ability needed to realize them - Offers 'how to' basics presenting development frameworks and best practices - Compares and contrasts Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web
The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve. “Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as: • Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better. • It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them. • The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. • A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody. Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.
This book will teach you how to build hand-crafted web pages the Web Standardistas way: using well-structured XHTML for content and CSS for presentation. By embracing a web standards approach, you will hold the key to creating web sites that not only look great in all modern browsers, but also are accessible to a wide variety of audiences across a range of platforms—from those browsing on everyday computers, to those accessing the Web on the latest emerging mobile devices. Even if you're an absolute beginner in web design, this book will teach you how to build future-proof web pages the right way using easy-to-master tools which are, in most cases, free. Through 14 easy-to-follow chapters, we introduce you to the fundamentals of contemporary web design practice. Step by step we'll assemble well-structured XHTML webpages, which we'll then style using handcrafted CSS. By the end of the book, you'll have a firm knowledge of the essentials of web design: everything you need to know to move forward in your lifelong journey as a Web Standardista. To equip you on this noble quest, we've included enjoyable practical assignments at the end of each chapter. Embracing these challenges will not only teach you how to create great looking web sites that are the envy of your peers, but also equip you with an unrivaled knowledge of monkeys that journeyed to space and apes that starred in the movies—the real stars of this book. On completion of this book not only will you be able to create well-crafted web sites, but you will have earned the badge of a Web Standardista, proving your worth as a good citizen of the Web.
A 2010 IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number one leadership competency of the future. What are you doing right now to build yours? Book jacket.
IDEO founder and Stanford d.school creator David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley, IDEO partner and the author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation, have written a powerful and compelling book on unleashing the creativity that lies within each and every one of us. Too often, companies and individuals assume that creativity and innovation are the domain of the "creative types." But two of the leading experts in innovation, design, and creativity on the planet show us that each and every one of us is creative. In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.
WINNER OF THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • “A delightful, compelling book that offers a dazzling array of practical, thoughtful exercises designed to spark creativity, help solve problems, foster connection, and make our lives better.”—Gretchen Rubin, New York Times bestselling author and host of the Happier podcast In an era of ambiguous, messy problems—as well as extraordinary opportunities for positive change—it’s vital to have both an inquisitive mind and the ability to act with intention. Creative Acts for Curious People is filled with ways to build those skills with resilience, care, and confidence. At Stanford University’s world-renowned Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, aka “the d.school,” students and faculty, experts and seekers bring together diverse perspectives to tackle ambitious projects; this book contains the experiences designed to help them do it. A provocative and highly visual companion, it’s a definitive resource for people who aim to draw on their curiosity and creativity in the face of uncertainty. Teeming with ideas about discovery, learning, and leading the way through unknown creative territory, Creative Acts for Curious People includes memorable stories and more than eighty innovative exercises. Curated by executive director Sarah Stein Greenberg, after being honed in the classrooms of the d.school, these exercises originated in some of the world’s most inventive and unconventional minds, including those of d.school and IDEO founder David M. Kelley, ReadyMade magazine founder Grace Hawthorne, innovative choreographer Aleta Hayes, Google chief innovation evangelist Frederik G. Pferdt, and many more. To bring fresh approaches to any challenge–world changing or close to home–you can draw on exercises such as Expert Eyes to hone observation skills, How to Talk to Strangers to foster understanding, and Designing Tools for Teams to build creative leadership. The activities are at once lighthearted, surprising, tough, and impactful–and reveal how the hidden dynamics of design can drive more vibrant ways of making, feeling, exploring, experimenting, and collaborating at work and in life. This book will help you develop the behaviors and deepen the mindsets that can turn your curiosity into ideas, and your ideas into action.
“The ‘inside-the-box approach’ can reveal key opportunities for innovation that are hiding in plain sight” (Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive). The traditional attitude toward creativity in the American business world is to “think outside the box”—to brainstorm without restraint in hopes of coming up with a breakthrough idea, often in moments of crisis. Sometimes it works, but it’s a problem-specific solution that does nothing to engender creative thinking more generally. Inside the Box demonstrates Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT), which systemizes creativity as part of the corporate culture. This counterintuitive and powerfully effective approach to creativity requires thinking inside the box, working in one’s familiar world to create new ideas independent of specific problems. SIT’s techniques and principles have instilled creative thinking into such companies as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and other industry leaders. Inside the Box shows how corporations have successfully used SIT in business settings as diverse as medicine, technology, new product development, and food packaging. Dozens of books discuss how to make creative thinking part of a corporate culture, but none takes the innovative and unconventional approach of Inside the Box. With “inside the box” thinking, companies of any size can become sufficiently creative to solve problems even before they develop and to innovate on an ongoing basis. It’s a system that works! “Boyd and Goldenberg explain the basic building blocks for creativity and by doing so help all of us better express our potential” (Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational).
Written by the authority on web standards, Jeffrey Zeldman - founding member of WaSP (web standards project). •Provides code snippets and web site examples of compliant code in use so that when done correctly all web sites will look the same regardless of the browser. •Details compatibility in terms of HTML, XHTML, XML, and CSS - the key coding languages of the web.
Ready to play? Whether you think of yourself as an artist, a doodler, a dreamer, or none of the above, this book will jump-start your creativity. Popular art instructor Carla Sonheim offers fun, engaging ideas on every page, from drawing upside down to imagining new worlds (down to their silly hats and strange animal species). All you need is a pencil or pen and your imagination.
