Real-Life Responsive Web Design

Last week I had the opportunity to read “Real-Life Responsive Web Design”, the fifth book in the Smashing Book series.

Usually with books like this I will skip to the chapters that immediately catch my eye. This time was different, they all sounded fascinating — and they were! I read the book cover to cover in two sittings.

Disclaimer: I was given the book for free with no strings attached. I’m under no obligation to review the book or write kind words, these are my genuine opinions.

As with all books in the series, this book collates the red hot topics that are defining front-end development in 2015 and the foreseeable future. The content is conference level of quality in detail, research, and delivery (and I’ve seen many of the authors speak).

I’ll highlight a few chapters I see myself referencing often:

In “Performance Optimization Roadmap”, Vitaly Friedman recalls the on-going development of smashingmagazine.com since its 2012 redesign. It’s one thing to preach best practices, but to implement them with limited resources on a website of such scale is challenging (to say the least!)

Sara Soueidan has written an outstanding reference for SVG usage in her chapter: “Mastering SVG For RWD And Beyond”. I honestly thought I knew it all but even I learnt a new technique. If you’re not using SVG yet this chapter will set you on the path.

In “Building Responsive Components With Flexbox”, Zoe M. Gillenwater covers many real-world use cases for Flexbox whilst documenting the technical details. Flexbox is impressively versatile for implementing responsive layout. Again, if you’re not familiar with the spec — and importantly, what it can do — start your journey here.

It’s not often I read a book twice but I’ll definitely be going back to re-read these chapters. They’re packed.

So, good book? Yes, very good!