I think CSS Zen Garden is an amazing idea, and it has been an inspiration to me ever since I first found it, despite how bad it makes me feel that I'm no good at graphic design (yet ... allegedly practice makes perfect).
I was wondering about CSS and the Zen Garden earlier, and it occurred to me that the XHTML file it all runs on may be one of the best examples of good markup out there. After all, there are several hundred designs for the site all using the same XHTML file, and they are all completely different. And what most of us are aiming for is to create XHTML and HTML files that will never, or extremely rarely, require change - even if the design is changed.
And that got me wondering if there have been designs that people have created that have turned out to be impossible to implement? That would mean that the CSS Zen Garden XHTML file could, maybe, be better - but the changes that would need to be made to that file would be a good indicator of what sort of forward-thinking additions we should be making to our markup to accomodate change later.
So my question is this - does anyone know of (or have they experienced this themselves) CSS Zen Garden designs that have been impossible to implement because of something missing from the XHTML of the site? And if so, what would have to be added to the XHTML to make realising that design possible?
3 Comments
I could very easily see that being the case. I can think of more than a handful of cases where I've had to go back into the markup I thought I had completed in order to add CSS hooks like id/class names or semantic elements. I haven't tried my hand at Zen, though, so I couldn't tell you what I would need to add...
#1, Stu Schaff, United States, 27 May 2005. Reply to this.
I'm very excited about the project as I just finished a design theme for csszengarden.com
You can have a look at http://www.celebrityblog.net/zengarden/zengarden-sample.htm
#2, Jane Jolin, Israel, 4 August 2005. Reply to this.
You should get the book "The ZEN of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web" its written by Dave Shea, and has a whole chapter on how he created the base XHTML page, and he talks about how it could have been better.
#3, Jack Sleight, United Kingdom, 2 November 2005. Reply to this.