It's pretty hard to find good technical literature on web animation, which is really a shame.

As a web developer, I first got interested in motion design when I downloaded an amazingly well-designed app on my phone. Been chasing that level of quality ever since. There’s iOS animation then there’s web animation, and they’re entirely separate things. I heard of Velocity.js (author’s animation engine) through work and then began experimenting with it to see if I could recreate some of the more interesting motion design examples I've stumbled into on sites like CodePen and the like.

I wasn’t expecting the author to also release a book on this very subject. So, pleasantly surprised, here I am.

First off, the bad: This book is not very long. You’re not going to become a better designer through it’s myriad examples. In fact, it has only one full-on demo (the final chapter). That’s about it for the bad.

The good:

- The book provides you with a real foundation. I’m an advanced software engineer, but I easily see this being equally as applicable to novices.

- The book takes a really digestible, fluff-free recipe format that builds slowly and more or less climaxes in a really fascinating final demo chapter.

- The topics covered in here are topics I honestly haven’t seen covered elsewhere — so that’s refreshing.

- The more unique topics include text animation, animation performance (a real deep-dive, not superficial advice), and animation workflow.

- Animation workflow alone is worth buying this book for, and is worth dealing with the fact that this book primarily focuses on Velocity (not a big deal).

Not the best JavaScript book I’ve read, but it definitely ranks up there. Certainly one of the top technical books I’ve read, especially on the topic of web animations.

I have 4.5 years behind me as a full-time developer, and a lifetime as a hobbyist. I have been wondering for a while now about the prospects of working my way into the higher skilled areas of web animation. This is one of the few programming books I savored. Like another reviewer said, I haven't seen most of the content written elsewhere, particularly the chapters on text animation and animation performance. I've read 1 or 2 articles on these topics online but never actually read anything that completely breaks down the topics in bible/recipe format. All the while, the book continually (successfully) contextualizes how best practices should be used and what the balance is between going over the top with animations and keeping them subtle. Really a big fan of this. I also recommend reading the work of Aerotwist. He has related content.

As an prospective user of Velocity.js, I was excited to read what Shapiro had to say about animation on the web. I tend to waffle back and forth between the CSS- and JavaScript-based animation camps (mostly due to performance concerns), but Shapiro really won me over. The book helped me to understand how animations should fit into the architecture of my app, and helped me to make changes that improved not only my code structure, but the overall frame-rate of my app's interactions.

(Interestingly, it seems like his side is 'winning' in the battle between style versus script. Tons of 'put your styles in JavaScript' technologies are popping up these days, not doubt inspired by his work on the subject.)

This is a great book. Explains all the VelocityJS options, gives some nice tips and also some nice theory on Motion Design. Just know you won't be learning pure Javascript animation. This is all about the plugin/library Velocity. And that's okay, because Velocity is amazing.

I've read a lot of technical books over the past couple years, and this one is definitely a stand out. Excellent book to pair with an animation plug-in like Velocity.JS. Straight forward, to the point, exactly what I needed to get the job done, and gonna be near my desk for a while now that animation is getting more and more prevalent on the Web.

First I want to say that I learned a lot from this book, but I just finished it with the feeling that it could've been much better. I am still left feeling like there are many animations I wish I could do but don't even know how to approach them. I wish the book had had a lot more exercises, examples and different animations that were possible. For example, I wanted to know how to emulate typing on a screen, with a blinking cursor, but it wasn't covered as far as I saw, even in the chapter on text animations. The book contains a lot of white space, some pages are nearly blank or contain no new information. The last chapter has a good demo; I would have been much more satisfied if there'd been one example of that depth for each chapter. Even after finishing this book, there are Velocity.js demos on CodePen.io that I would have no idea how to code.

JavaScript animation can be an intimidating subject to tackle. Julian does an excellent job of presenting the material in this book at a pace that new and skilled developers can appreciate.

Information on how to get started using the author's javascript animation library is incredibly in depth. The standout chapters for me were on animation workflow and another on animation performance. Excellent job. I hope the author writes more books like this.

- Intro: A love letter to motion design (the book’s term for animation)

- Chapter 1: Walkthrough of why you’d use JavaScript instead of CSS for animation

- Chapter 2: A technical overview of how to perform animation in JavaScript

- Chapter 3: analysis of what constitutes great animation, along with practical examples

- Chapter 4: A fascinating, original take on how to implement animation into a professional web development workflow (my favorite chapter)

- Chapter 5: How to animate text (quite interesting)

- Chapter 6: Quick introduction to animating SVG elements

- Chapter 7: Extensive deep-dive into how to ensure animations run smoothly

- Chapter 8: A nice animation demo that ties together the knowledge from the previous chapters

A well written dive into a part of development that should not be overlooked. It's rich with insights on UX and usability. You'll learn why animation is important, how and when to use it, and relate those lessons directly to the code that actually makes it all work. If you want to level up and learn how to craft truly engaging experiences get this book.

This is really a book about how to use the author's javascript library velocityjs.

There's nothing wrong with that considering that it is a very good library. But he also has clear ideas about what constitutes good web animation, and manages to convey those ideas using simple concepts.

It's quite a quick read, yet I came away inspired and full of useful ideas.

Decent book, covers Velocity ok, just feels a bit brief maybe. Up side is, its not a problem finishing the book, so you do get a good feel for it.

Essential if you are developing with Velocity.