The Road to Enlightenment
Littering a dark and dreary road lay the past relics of browser-specific tags, incompatible DOMs, and broken CSS support.
Today, we must clear the mind of past practices. Web enlightenment has been achieved thanks to the tireless efforts of folk like the W3C, WaSP and the major browser creators.
The CSS Garden invites you to relax and meditate on the important lessons of the masters. Begin to see with clarity. Learn to use the (yet to be) time-honored techniques in new and invigorating fashion. Become one with the web.
So What is This About?
There is clearly a need for CSS to be taken seriously by graphic artists. This exercise aims to provide a designer with a document to display their talents and skills, inspire, and impress.
CSS allows complete and total control over the style of a hypertext document. The only way this can be illustrated in a way that gets people excited is by demonstrating what it can truly be, once the reins are placed in the hands of those able to create beauty from structure.
Benefits
Why bother? To demonstrate the power of CSS-based design. This is sorely needed, even today. More and more major sites are taking the leap. In order to create the type of dynamic and beautiful designs that are possible with these techniques.
Requirements
We would like to see as much CSS1 as possible. CSS2 should be limited to widely-supported elements only. The CSS Garden is about functional, practical CSS and not the latest bleeding-edge tricks viewable by 2% of the browsing public. The only real requirement is that your CSS validates.
Full browser compliance is still sometimes a pipe dream, and we do not expect you to come up with pixel-perfect code across every platform. But do test in as many as you can. If your design doesn’t work in at least IE6+/Win, Safari, and Firefox (run by over 90% of the population), chances are we won’t accept it.
This is a learning exercise as well as a demonstration.