22 Best CSS3 Books for Front-end Developers 2023
Want to become a web designer? Great! Now you need some CSS3 books to start. Funny how sometimes newbie technology enthusiasts misunderstand using Photoshop to build websites. You only need Photoshop when designing a layout, perhaps even a theme. But, the stitching of that layout still needs to happen with CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript.
Picking up web design as a learning skill can greatly benefit your career. Google, for example, is constantly monitoring web design sites like Dribbble for potential new and visionary talents. Such desginers exist in vast numbers already. But unless we learn to appreciate web design for what it is, we will mistake beauty for something we take for granted. Even though many sites look pleasing, the aesthetics behind some of these sites are plain terrible.
That’s where CSS3 books come in handy: for educating yourself about industry best practices, the most secret tips and techniques, and also how you can learn about web design without writing code, for example through learning about product design, user experience design, and why a team of developers need to work together. A lot trending stuff right now for layout designs, content presentation, and product design; all topics that we’re covering in this list of CSS3 books.
Unfortunately, the majority of these books here are for sale; you won’t be able to download them for free legally. This is how things are regarding concise web knowledge; these authors have poured their hearts into producing a book based on their knowledge and experience. Buying them a few cups of coffee is the least you can do.
Best CSS Books To Learn Web Development
Responsive Web Design
Ethan comes from the state of Boston. His passions are both design and code, and the process in which both can work together. He has been working with clients like Stanford University, NY Magazine, Boston Globe, and he’s even written a few books; co-written two of them. Ethan is seen as the pioneer of responsive web design by those who admire reading books on design.
His book, Responsive Web Design, has had such a huge impact on designers. Many consider it an essential work for anyone wishing to establish a designer career online. The book goes in-depth about the process of reaching above desktop computers. It also looks at solutions and practices that can be put in place to cultivate design for responsive devices. The book contains interesting concepts, research, and facts explaining what it takes to build a responsive user experience, regardless of device/screen size. Great starter book for those who are keenly interested in mastering media queries.
Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS
When learning HTML5 and CSS3, this is the book that does the trick. It has been around since 2012, however, you can now get an updated 2020 3rd edition. With over three hundred pages of information, Responsive Web Design with HTML5 and CSS covers a whole bunch and then some. While you may already have the gist of website building, but you would like to take things a step further, this is the CSS3 book that will get you moving in the right direction.
Under each subject, you get sample code for ease of understanding. Also, you get the landing page’s source code, which employs some of the techniques the book teaches. Responsive Web Design topics with HTML5 and CSS covers are scroll snap, variable fonts, clip-path, custom properties and CSS grid, to name a few.
Fundamental Concepts for Web Development
Roxane Anquetil thought it would be wise to write a book about the fundamental concepts of web development. After all, once you master the basics all the rest ends up being a whole lot simpler. With her book, Fundamental Concepts for Web Development, you will learn about HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and more.
Nowadays, creating a website is way more effortless than it used to be. However, you still need the fundamentals in order if you would like to experience a smooth sail. That’s when books come into play, helping you gain new knowledge. With Fundamental Concepts for Web Development, you will learn about responsive websites, mobile applications, OSI model, how to create stylesheets and more. The book also covers the introduction to search engine optimization.
New Perspectives on HTML 5 and CSS
It is not just about the theory; the action is even more important. With New Perspectives on HTML 5 and CSS, you will gain new knowledge of the modern tech through easily-digestive chapters and practical activities. Keep in mind, when working on the projects, you can easily use the outcomes in your portfolio. Learn about problem-solving, test your logic, troubleshooting and a whole bunch more, all thanks to New Perspectives on HTML 5 and CSS. The book is readily available on Amazon as a paperback or an eTextbook. By the way, there are 936 pages worth of quality material for you to study.
HTML & CSS: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
For everyone new who would like to learn about HTML and CSS, this step-by-step guide has you sorted out. However, even if you have some of the basics, still, this book will help on the way to becoming an expert.
With the amazing and user-friendly structuring, you will learn the ins and outs quickly with a lot less effort. In short, learn web development regardless of your skill level and learn about the new features of HTML5 and CSS3. You will understand the critical roles of the programming languages first and go from there. Through practical tasks, images and other useful content, you will understand how the process goes hassle-free. It is never too late to dive into the web development world; you just need to take the right approach to it.
CSS3 for Web Designers
Those who have designed before will know Dan Cederholm as one of the co-founders of Dribbble; a bustling graphics designer community. He is also the co-founder of SimpleBits, a design studio and a content blog on design topics. Dan has written several books, and his portfolio consists of clients like Google, YouTube, and countless other big names that we’ve all learned to embrace over the years. A talented man like Dan doesn’t just appear every other day; it’s a lifelong journey that Dan dedicates himself to, and in the long run it paid off; a visionary, if you will.
Although it would be great to list Dan’s books here, we have to give space for other visionary designers and writers. His first book we’re displaying is CSS3 for Web Designers. If web is the canvas, then CSS3 is the paint. As simple as that. In the book, you’ll learn about immediate techniques to use CSS3 in your existing designs. You may also progress to learn about typography, selectors, animations, and all that wonderful jazz that CSS3 provides. Dan’s approach always remains uplifting yet concise and up to date. You can expect to master techniques that no other tutorial on the web will provide you, at least not with an expertise that Dan can bring to our attention. The book was also updated to better reflect the current CSS3 trends, and general trends in web design.
Sass for Web Designers
Since this is another book from Dan, we don’t need to introduce him twice. This one is titled SASS for Web Designers. A CSS pre-processor makes writing stylesheets more of a programming experience. Raw CSS can be quite difficult at times, because designers must know the ins and outs of browsers, and layout patterns that would suit all types of browsing devices.
With a preprocessor like Sass, you can supercharge your CSS experience. Why rewrite a single selector when you can make a function out of it and use it globally for whatever purpose? The same goes for reusing colors, shapes, and dimensions. Traditionally, you’d write thousands of lines of CSS code just to get the desired results. But with simple functions, you can always access the same call repeatedly. You also save performance points in the process.
Design for Real Life
Sara is an expert on content design and its effects on user experience, while Eric is an expert on web’s two most common languages: HTML and CSS. He’s also an exceptional writer. Both are, as you will find in the following book: Design for Real Life. Now more than ever, product developers, designers, and influential companies need to understand the concept of real designs that create pleasant user experiences.
Thorough user analysis isn’t something you can keep doing and redoing all the time, since a tangible result would need a large data set. But past experiences, case studies, and research can be used to create products and product experiences that are more empathetic to the average web user. If you’re in the business of crafting user experience, then this book will become your instant favorite; it depicts the topics of understanding your vision, creating beautiful design layouts, learning to use design to convey business purpose, learning from your own users, and adding some organic human elements that enlighten your users instantly.
Get Ready for CSS Grid Layout
Rachel Andrew is a web developer with emphasis on CSS design. She’s written a few books, has spoken at numerous conferences and even has her own content management system in place, which is actively under development. Apart from writing about HTML5, she also produced the Get Ready for CSS Grid Layout book. It depicts the use of CSS grid layouts in front-end design. In 2016 alone, we’ve seen an immense influx of grid layout frameworks that are becoming more interactive, more dynamic and applicable to current design trends. The book covers all there is to know about grid layouts, their use in responsive design, and where grid layouts are heading in the future.
Responsible Responsive Design
Scott Jehl has appeared in public, talking about design on several occasions. Having worked with great companies in the past, he has enough credibility in the industry for others to recognize his work through his book; Responsible Responsive Design. While Scott says that responsive design helped to shape the landscape of mobile device designs, there are still things that one can master and that includes understanding user intent, measuring the device type to adjust performance, and structuring a codebase that won’t dissolve into dust when times comes for another major web update. It’s a book that will open your eyes to new possibilities in responsive design, perhaps as Scott would say himself, responsible possibilities.
Enduring CSS
For nearly two decades, Ben Frain has been punching the keys on his keyboard to create web designs. He’s an expert in responsive design and consistently works with HTML5, CSS3 and SASS languages to bring about performance-optimized front-end designs. Ben says that he’s also a little bit interested in JavaScript. As an active front-end developer working for one of the largest online betting sites, Ben balances his knowledge deposits by writing books, and sharing insightful articles on his blog.
Enduring CSS is Ben’s take on what it takes to structure a CSS project that could potentially grow humongous with time. In the book, he shares his experiences and advices on how to scale a CSS project to multiple developers without losing track of what is being worked on. It is the fundamental guidebook for understanding how to use CSS at scale. Ben warns readers that this isn’t strictly a learn-how-to-type-in-CSS book. Rather, it is an intellectual combination of aspects that help designers and developers to build large scale projects using CSS.
Transitions and Animations in CSS
Estelle has established a career as a web development author, teacher, and a general expert in CSS3, HTML5 and JavaScript. She’s written a handful of books about web development and web design; her latest work was published this year, entitled Transitions and Animations in CSS.
As you can imagine, animations is a hot topic right now. Designers are learning to adapt to this new trend where motion experiences become a norm for delivering authentic and original user experience. Truthfully, the reasoning behind it is quite simple. A little dynamic effect goes a long way to enrich the design and make it burst out with life as depth appears. Furthermore, users are provided with a pleasant way of experiencing modern web. Estelle, in this book, takes you on a journey of animations and transition effects. She also teaches you how to quickly prototype an animated effect for your forms, buttons, text, pages, and other important parts of your website. All the necessary CSS properties for animations are covered in-depth; you can learn from Estelle’s own examples, too.
CSS Secrets
Lea Verou isn’t a name you won’t cross if you work for the leading brands and corporations in the technology field. She can be found being featured in top magazines, CSS journals, and countless web design tutorials. She’s a confident little CSS guru who has built her career based on confidence, creativity, and inspiration. Lea is as passionate about CSS as she is about JavaScript and HTML5. Many of her GitHub libraries have more than 1,000 stars and are being used by millions of combined users everywhere on the web. You can’t attain such results unless you’re seriously into design, development, and the open-source movement.
Lea has a strong background of web development understanding, but her eye for visual design won’t go unnoticed by those who’re passionate about visual design as much as she is. Now, she’s putting that creative inspiration into a CSS Secrets book. Don’t worry, there are no secrets in CSS, not where properties are concerned. But there’s a lot of secrets that an expert like Lea herself could bring to the table. CSS Secrets features dozens of tips, methods, techniques and practical approaches to help intermediate CSS developers to climb the ladder to advanced skillsets. This book is absurdly amazing because Lea covers all of her tips with prime code examples, ready to be reused whenever you feel ready.
CSS: The Missing Manual
Dave McFarland has a crush on writing missing manual series. He’s done so for CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, and god.. even Dreamweaver! What a dude! David also does many great things on the digital web platform. He writes code, he designs websites, he can be hired as a consultant, or even for speaking arrangement. As you can guess, he’s also passionate about writing, which shows in his eloquent books depicting common web technologies.
CSS3, as we learned, acts as the paint for the canvas, but many designers don’t tell you that picking up CSS isn’t as easy as reading the standard documentation. The path to expertise in CSS isn’t linear, yet that process can be minimized and shortened, which David noticed as an opportunity for producing a humongous 700 page book that now has multiple editions; which is good! You’ll be sweeping through tutorials and helpful tips and tricks on making truly modern and professional websites, the kind you can sell to your clients.
The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
It won’t matter to anyone if you read 100 books about web design. Without actually investigating the book’s purpose and putting its framework lessons into action, you’re just reading letters on a piece of paper, and that’s about it. SitePoint has a good reputation and history for being a design junkie resource. It has also acted as one of the pioneers of decent online communities where people can hang out and discuss development, design, and technology at their own pace.
This book of web design principles is going to teach you the following lessons: how to use color in web design, how to structure layouts that work on desktop and mobile alike, how textures can be used to create unique design patterns, how to use grids and whitespace to build a layout, what role typography plays in design and how to benefit from it, are front-end frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation worth the trouble? They may sound like tips scattered across the sea, but once you hold the book in your hands and immerse yourself into the first few chapters, it all becomes clearer than sky on a sunny day.
Jump Start Bootstrap
The tech monitoring tools tell us that Bootstrap is actively used on more than 7.1M websites. We can safely assume that the number is twice as much with some plusses and minuses here and there. Bootstrap has a reputation for being friendly to beginners, but also for being reliable to businesses that need concise frameworks when building a business website calls. And that’s not all. Bootstrap is more than a framework; it’s a coating that you can apply to your apps, software, mobile websites, everything. And the funny thing is, these days at any given time you could be challenged to know Bootstrap, as more libraries and plugins start to use Bootstrap as their default theme and core framework.
Having a handy little guide to help you through the rough patches sounds like a wonderful start, and Jump Start Bootstrap is just the precise little handybook to help you get started. You’ll be taking home some interesting new lessons about Bootstrap: the process of setting it up and making your first project, learn about Bootstrap’s role in web development performance for websites, how to create Bootstrap grid layouts that work as responsive designs, explore the huge directory of Bootstrap components and how they can help in creating authentic user experiences, how to implement plugins, and how to achieve unique designs through Bootstrap theme styling.
Jump Start CSS
Louis Lazaris is a geeky little fellow who resides in Toronto, the tech empire of Canada; or so they wish it to be. He’s a freelance web developer who has also written several books on the topic. He runs a web developer tutorials website, and can be found sharing his insightful learning experiences across many other such websites. The joys of being a freelance developer these days!
Jump Start CSS escalates your previous lack of knowledge of CSS to a level where you will feel comfortable to write your own CSS code without worrying that you need to recheck with the documentation every five minutes. And while that sounds basic, some chapters also discuss CSS3 animations and CSS3 transitions. As you already know from previous book descriptions, those are two very popular technologies right now. It’s a chance for freelancers to secure themselves financially so they can work on their own projects. SitePoint rarely disappoints with their books, so Louis’s book is a good choice for those experienced, and those who’re just learning about the basics of website development.
Killer UX Design
Don’t judge a book by its cover. But at the same time, don’t assume that the book’s title implies the application to more than one use. Killer UX Design is a beginner friendly book that’s produced to help web designers (and developers) understand how their apps can be built with a more user-in-mind approach. This is not a book that’s going to show you code samples; it’s based on practical understanding of UX design. The only way to apply it to your own workflow is through understanding and continuous practice.
It’s not a light read, but neither is the whole spectrum of UX design. Jodie Moule goes all out with her expertise on this book, and you’ll come across some psychology based concepts that can be used in web design as well, as she has a degree in psychology. There are case studies that compliment some of the concepts discussed in the book. They have been very well-edited to suit the needs of designers ready to make great apps and products.
The Web Designer’s Roadmap
The Web Designer’s Roadmap from Giovanni DiFeterici depicts the patterns that set apart professional web designers from those just learning about design. It’s a 200-page powerhouse of a book packed with insightful answers to questions that every web designer is bound to encounter during their progress on the ladder of web design. Those answers include: how to create a successful process of launching a web design, how to seek and manifest inspiration for your next design, how to do authentic design research, how to tap into the minds of your clients, how to design a website without using professional graphics design software, what are design patterns and how they can be utilized, what are the basic principles of responsive web design.
Sounds like a lot? Well, it’s all been packed into less than 200 pages. That way, you won’t be reading for too long before you start grasping those concepts.
The CSS3 Anthology
We already have Rachel Andrew mentioned earlier, her book on css grid layouts. She’s got one with SitePoint, as well. This one goes by the name The CSS3 Anthology. What could it possibly contain? The book targets people (designers, developers) with prior experience on the potential of CSS3, whether in the form of a website layout, a stunning code sample on CodePen, or through browsing GitHub repositories. Rachel does an excellent job at pinpointing those kinds of CSS possibilities, and goes in-depth about each one. Advanced layouts, responsive layouts, smart layouts, browser compatibility, and user experience optimized forms — the major topics discussed throughout the book. Rachel’s witty approach and endless sea of experience are bound to capture your attention from start to the end.
A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Steve Krug is the expert master of usability on the web. His Don’t Make Me Think book takes a common sense approach to explaining how to design for usability. It has sold millions of copies to designers, developers, and product managers in the last 10 years. Ask anyone who has worked with product design and product user experience in the past, and they’ll have heard of Steve’s book before.
Since it is also a fairly short read, you can finish it in just a couple of hours. Yet, the insights can be put into action for years to come. It works for beginners as it does for experts, and many will also tell you about the engaging aspects of Don’t Make Me Think. Steve’s main point is that the users make the web, our products and apps. And so, we have to create experiences where the products we build are easily usable, since the field is getting flooded with new ways to browse, sticking to concise patterns of usability will improve the long-term standing value of the product’s you’re building.
The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Freelance Web Design Business
If working for others doesn’t rustle your jimmies, then perhaps a freelance career is the way to go. Freelance web designers can earn as much as a top designer at Google, but the journey to those highly valued clients is like the jungle one needs to get acquainted with. iThemes has been running their freelance WordPress business for years, and, with great success, too. Now, the owners are putting their learned lessons to the test and converting them into a freelance web designer book.
Through this book, you’ll get to know the process of creating a business goal, how to establish a freelance business budget, what are rates you need to set for yourself, how to use online marketing to promote your design work, where to get high-quality clients, what are additional methods for earning online as a freelance designer. With this book, you get to upgrade your technical skills. A chapter also specifically talks about productivity for those who work from home. The reviews aren’t lying when they say this book is life-changing.
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Thanks for sharing these books. All these books are very helpful.