There are hundreds of books on the market that relate to web design and the disciplines within. It can be difficult to know where to start, especially if you are new to the field. If there's one book to start with, its this one, Designing with Web Standards, by Jeffery Zeldman. Now in its third edition, this is required reading for anyone involved in website design and creation. Start here.

I read the first edition about 5 years ago, and it changed the way I worked. Mr Zeldman is not only a wealth of technical and strategic information, he's a great communicator. His writing style is relaxed and witty, and that makes a tremendous difference when you are learning a new concept. This book is still accessible to the beginner or the non-technical reader, and draws you gently up the learning curve. The chapters on accessible, semantic markup and CSS are just as valid today as they were in the first edition. The concepts of standards-based design don't change. However, it provides a great backdrop while you explore some newer technologies, such as HTML5, rich typography, CSS3 goodness, to name a few. A good deal of fresh technical content comes from Ethan Marcotte, who collaborated on the third edition.

The web changes quickly, but the underlying concepts don't. "Create once and publish everywhere" is a kind of axiom in the online world, and creating within the framework of web standards is going to give you the most mileage out of your publications. Your content will thank you!

So if aren't familiar with this book, proceed with haste to get your hands on a copy and read it.

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