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Sexy Web Design is a 2009 book by Elliot Jay Stocks about the design work that happens before a website is coded. Published by SitePoint, it guides readers from understanding a brief and researching a project through structuring content, planning navigation and interaction, developing visual ideas, and handing designs to developers. It is a design-process book, not a manual for writing HTML or CSS.
What is Sexy Web Design about?
The title refers to making website interfaces visually appealing while also considering how they work. Stocks’s central idea is that design should begin by understanding what a site needs to do, not by immediately opening a graphics tool. The book treats research, information architecture, sketches, interaction, visual principles, and developer handoff as connected parts of design.
Its six main chapters are “Interfaces are Sexy,” “Research,” “Structure,” “Navigation and Interaction,” “Aesthetics,” and “Deliverables.” That sequence moves from the role of interface design into the practical stages of planning and presenting a site.
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What process does the book describe?
Start with the brief and research
In the chapter-two preview, Stocks argues that a designer should first establish what is being created. He frames a design brief as an understanding between client and designer, and uses research to clarify the project before making design decisions. The excerpt opens: “Before we decide how we’re going to create our design, we need to decide what it is we’re going to create.” — Elliot Jay Stocks, Sexy Web Design, chapter 2, “Research.”
Explore structure before polishing visuals
The structure chapter begins with loose paper sketches as one way to explore how a site might be organized. The point is to work through structure before treating a finished visual layout as the answer. This is an example from the book’s 2009 workflow, not a rule that designers today must use paper or follow one prescribed tool sequence.
Plan interaction, aesthetics, and handoff
After research and structure, the book turns to navigation and interaction, then visual aesthetics and design deliverables. Stocks describes a broad design remit: interpreting client requirements, organizing information, developing visual direction, presenting work to a client, and preparing it for developers. Its emphasis is on the decisions and communication around a website design, rather than on implementing the site in code.
Who is the book for?
SitePoint presents the book for new designers, experienced designers looking for inspiration, and developers who want to improve the appearance of their sites. Stocks similarly describes it as useful to web designers and developers seeking better-looking websites, with design theory and screenshot-rich inspiration among its draws. A reader interested in planning, visual direction, client work, or the handoff between design and development is likelier to find it relevant than someone seeking a technical coding course.
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Does Sexy Web Design teach HTML and CSS?
No: its focus is the design stage before coding. A December 2009 review in USENIX LOGIN praised its approachable process and visual examples, particularly around planning, usability, aesthetics, and client work, but described the treatment as brief and noted little to no CSS. That is one reviewer’s assessment of the book when it was published; it should not be mistaken for a judgment about modern web-development practice.
Because it appeared in 2009, the book should be approached as a historical design-process reference and source of ideas, not as an up-to-date guide to responsive implementation, current browser behavior, accessibility standards, frameworks, or contemporary design software. Its broad coverage is also compressed: the same review considered the treatment brief.
Publication details and finding the book
Sexy Web Design is by Elliot Jay Stocks and was published by SitePoint in March 2009. Its ISBN is 9780980455236, which can help identify the title when searching a catalog or bookseller. Current stock, format, and price are not established here, so check the marketplace or library catalog you plan to use rather than assuming it is available.
Stocks announced the release in a post dated 19 March 2009: “So it’s official: I’ve written a book, it’s called Sexy Web Design, it’s published by SitePoint, and it’s out now!” The book’s publisher-hosted previews of “Research” and “Structure” offer a direct look at its early-stage planning approach.
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