Comments on: [Review] The Smashing Book

By: The Smashing Book: Already Got Yours? | Tutorial51

The Smashing Book: Already Got Yours? | Tutorial51 — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:48:14 +0000

[…] “The Smashing Book is a great, really great book for everybody who is interested in design and web-development. Especially the typography and learning from the experts chapters where inspirational resources to me. The content is great but I believe the layout of the pages should be as a book. Support the Smashing Magazine Book by ordering your copy and I hope SM will continue the concept of bringing the content by book.” — Sander Baumann, Designworkplan […]

By: The Smashing Book: Already Got Yours? - Smashing Magazine

The Smashing Book: Already Got Yours? - Smashing Magazine — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 11:42:42 +0000

[…] I hope SM will continue the concept of bringing the content by book.” — Sander Baumann, Designworkplan“The book is basically all of SM’s best articles condensed into a book. This is what you’d […]

By: Rizwan Reza

Rizwan Reza — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:14:15 +0000

I’ve also reviewed this book on my blog: http://rizwanreza.com/2010/01/08/the-book-that-smashed-my-expectations.

I do agree with what you say, but I thought of a better book from them. I know they’ve done a fabulous job with content and layout, but a design book should be everlasting.

By: Robin Parduez

Robin Parduez — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:58:50 +0000

I got the book but I haven’t started reading it yet. After flicking through the pages, it looks pretty good, but I totally agree with others that the book is too small for this type of content and it’s not easy to lay on a table next to your computer if you want to follow examples.

By: Dan Grossman

Dan Grossman — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:00:33 +0000

@kirkoconnor That’s NOT a Google phrase! It predates Google’s existence.

By: Alex Blundell

Alex Blundell — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 16:13:16 +0000

Thanks Vitaly Friedman for your thourough reply, Regarding the cost if the book I actually agree with you. I have just moved house and had the book been much more expensive I would have definately thought twice about buying it. Put it into perspective really!

Thanks again

By: Sander Baumann

Sander Baumann — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:29:37 +0000

Thank you Vitaly Friedman (editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine) - very much for taking the time to respond, very appreciated. I hope people can see beyond the form of the book and concentrate on its great contents, a true added value for the design and web-development community. Thanks again and good luck, I'm sure it will be a Smashing 2010 for you and the team, keep it up!

By: Vitaly Friedman (editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine)

Vitaly Friedman (editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:00:40 +0000

Sander, thank you very much for the objective and professional review. You indeed provided a very extensive overview of the book, its content and its quality. Thank you for you time.

@Vince, @Dan Grossman, @Alex Blundell: we are aware that the whole shipping delays story was a big disappointment, it definitely damaged our reputation and we will have to regain it in 2010. We are aware that we made some unprofessional mistakes with the print, and we will do our best to make sure that next editions of the Smashing Book are professional from the traditional print publishing standpoint. 5 months was indeed a ridiculously long waiting time and we are aware that it was also our fault. We are already working on some improvements to make sure that it won’t happen again.

However, we think that we did a quite good job in terms of editorial and content. There are some light typing errors in the Table of contents, but apart from that the content should be a goldmine for designers and developers.

@Vin Thomas: your point ic valid, however you need to understand that our goal was to make the book affordable for everybody worldwide. $67 for print+pdf (“Digging into WordPress”) is a price that most developers from India can not afford. It was very important for us to keep the price as low as possible. Unfortunately, the result was that the binding wasn’t appropriate. However, we will improve the binding in the second edition.

@Design Informer: a spiral binding would drastically increase the price of the Smashing Book, and we didn’t want it to be expensive.

Overall, thank you for your feedback and comments. We pay attention to your feedback and we will make sure to improve the quality of our work in 2010.

By: Design Informer

Design Informer — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:57:50 +0000

Really nice book review. I’m still working on finishing the book and I plan on writing a review as well. I definitely agree with you about the size. I would love to see a bigger font and a bigger book.

A good idea is what Chris Coyier did with his recent book. He made it have a spiral binding. This would have been excellent to have for the SmashingBook.

By: kirkoconnor

kirkoconnor — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:16:35 +0000

I am eagerly awaiting my copy but a bit surprised now that they didn’t research the printed book issues more thoroughly.

Isn’t that why we are all buying the book — to make sure we thoroughly research the web content design thoroughly ?

Perhaps they need to eat their own dogfood to quote a Google phrase !