You can learn all aspects of web design and development online and for free, but for really getting to grips with a subject I personally don’t think you can’t beat a book. The photo below is of my mini library built up over 3-4 years, some of the books have seen more use than others, HTML By Example was the first web design book I bought and although much of it is now outdated (and probably not recommended) it did teach me how to build my first ever site. The more recent purchases are on the right and reflect my current interests CSS, usability and SEO.

If I was to recommend 4 of these books they would be -

• Designing with Web Standards (Voices That Matter) - Jeffrey Zeldman
• Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design (Voices That Matter) - Andy Clarke
• Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability - Steve Krug
• Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day - Jennifer Grappone & Gradiva Couzin

I am always on the look out for new web design and development books and would be interested in any recommendations.

One of the last things I do when finishing off a new website is to create a favicon.

Favicons (favourite icons) are the little graphics that you see in the address bars of modern browsers, they also appear next to bookmarked websites which can be helpful when trying to find a particular site in a list of others.

Thanks to online favicon makers they are simple to create from existing website logos and graphics.

Though their size 16×16 can be limiting it is surprising how creative some people mange to be, there are some good examples in this favicon gallery.

Here are some more favicon links -

Favicon ideas and inspiration

• Inspire Yourself: 50 Remarkable Favicons
• Favicon from Pics - Gallery
• MpP Favicon Gallery
• Favourite Favicons
• 5 tips for a nice looking favicon

Online favicon makers

• Favicon Generator - create favicons from text
• Favicon Editor
• Dynamic Drive FavIcon Generator
• Favicon Convertor
• Favicon Maker

I recently had the opportunity to beta test an early version of CMS from scratch - a new simple and easy to use content management system developed by Ben Hunt - web designer and creator of Web Design from Scratch.

One of the most frustrating aspects of content management systems that I have tried in the past is the actual integration of the systems into an existing website, it’s rarely straightforward and tends to involve a certain amount of programming knowledge combined with lots of trial and error. This is where CMS from scratch impresses - it really is simple to implement it into existing HTML pages. Sections of a page can be converted to ‘includes’ and these can be edited without having to mess with the page structure. These ‘includes’ can be anything from the meta description in the head section of a page to a paragraph of formatted text.

As a designer you have complete control over which sections of a site are client editable, this ensures a client can’t mess with the structure of their site and also cuts out all the unnecessary clutter - they only see the bits relevant to them, which in turn provides a much cleaner and easier to use interface.

CMS from scratch isn’t open source, it costs £100 for a single license, when you consider what you get for your money I personally think it’s worth the investment -

• Quick to implement and easy to use
• Unbranded, you can brand it for your clients
• Support and help direct from the developers

CMS from scratch can be tried free of charge for 14 days, to see the system in action take a look at this demonstration video.

Although website tools and tests aren’t always 100% accurate they can provide a quick way of finding out some genuinely useful information about how well a site is built and it’s effectiveness in search engines.

These are 3 of my personal favourites -

SEO Analyzer

SEO Analyzer tests how well a site has been built by taking into account factors including whether a page has a semantic structure, download time and use of obsolete & deprecated HTML. These are combined to give a score out of 100, although it is implied that this tool rates the SEO of a site, I think it’s a more useful indicator of if a site has been built to web standards.

Web Page Analyzer

Web Page Analyzer gives a report on the amount of time it would take for your website to load on different connection speeds. It also lists all images, code and scripts used on a page by size.

My only criticism of this tool is that it’s a few years old now and some of the advice given seems to reflect this - “Consider reducing total page size to less than 30K” I think a more realistic page size to aim for is around 100k.

Page Strength

Page Strength gives an overview of the visibility and importance of a page in search engines. It does this by ranking a page on factors such as links from sites including DMOZ & Technorati and domain name visibility in Google, these are combined (along with other factors) to give a web page a score out of 10 along with a brief summary.