web design introduction for print designers

giving print designers a jump start into webdesign

[janharders]

Does anyone know a good introductionary read for print designers who are going to design a web site?
I was contacted by a designer to do the technical stuff (e.g. convert the design into xhtml+css, set up the site, install scripts etc) and she asked me if I knew any literature on the do's and dont's of webdesign.
Sure, I could sit down with her and try to walk through the major differences and try to explain why something isn't going to work, but I'd surely forget to mention alot and it'd come back to me when I have to make her design "work".
Anyone know a good read that explains the difficulties and focuses on people who know print design but don't have any experience in web design?

[Marcia]

Jan, it's not only a matter of adapting to the difference between print and design for the web; the design has to be search engine friendly, and that's something a lot of basic web design books don't get into.

If you do a search at Amazon for web design seo (using the three words) you'll find a few that cover basics as well as sites being "findable" which would be a starting point. Then, when you look at the books, Amazon makes further related suggestions, which makes it very easy to comparison shop.

I do a lot of shopping and looking through books at Amazon, and always try to read excerpts either there or using Google Books, and read the all reviews - and also look at the author's site if they have one, to get an idea of their style and readability.

[janharders]

Thank you for your reply, Marcia.

I'm actually not looking for books that can turn a print designer into a full blown web developer - I'm the one who's actually building the site, writing the source etc and I'm well aware of the technical side, however I've got zero talent for anything graphical, so I work with designers who do the screendesign. They send the layout to me, and I turn it into a working xhtml-page, set up the CMS etc.
The problem I've been facing in the past is that most designers who are very experienced in designing printed products will just work the same way when desiging for the web. Some will just take a screenshot of their browser and treat the visible "blank" space like a page so that everything is perfect for their specific browser and their window-size. They usually don't think about the fact that people might have a smaller or bigger screen, have some fonts not available or have a different OS with a total different font set. They've never known how to scale font size in their browser so they don't think about how it might look if someone was to scale the fonts up to improve readability. Basically, they're doing it as if they were desiging a flyer or a letter head - not considering the special circumstances of the web.

I doubt that they'll read a whole book, I was hoping for a few pages, just a short "don't do this. do that. look out because that won't work. watch your thoughts on this"-tutorial, which does not try to teach them how to design, but rather tells them how to design for the web.

[Marcia]

Got it now. Web Page Design for Designers covers just that, and the author also has articles on his site.

Also, Jakob Nielsen has had articles on it:

Print Design vs. Web Design [useit.com]

[janharders]

Thanks! that's just what I was looking for ... I guess I just didn't have the right keywords, my searches brought me to hundreds of web-and-print-design agencies but didn't really get me to my point. thanks again!