CSS Zen Garden

The CSS Zen Garden site is a collection of beautifully designed templates that includes several amazing designs complying to CSS and XHTML standards. The site that first started out as a way to show what can be achieved through designing sites with CSS and XHTML became a book. The book takes some key template designs and explains how some of the magic was achieved. The site The Zen of CSS Design is a real joy and adventure for those that appreciate a nicely designed web site. Each page is based upon the same template. The participants use various CSS code techniques (and images) and the chosen master pieces available at the web site are nearly all very impressive design examples. Dave Shea also requests that the designs and effects work in the most common browsers. The whole project has an educational purpose in that the code used in the templates can help others to learn from it, just like it helped and inspired me.


The CSS Zen Garden book that I was able to get hold of last year in Paris was and still is an interesting read. Yes I admit, I didn't sit down to read it studiously as I maybe should have done. Instead I read different parts now and again. It's more of an enjoyable experience that I have tried to space out over time. I think it's also important to say that the book engages in some advanced concepts in some chapters. To this effect I feel that it may be considered a bit steep for beginners but it really is a great book. Some of my none technical friends have quite enjoyed reading certain chapters...

The CSS Zen Garden site is such a great place to see what CSS can enable a good designer to do and the book is a great compliment to it.


Obviously in a collection of designs there are always one or two that stick in your mind and the one that I always think of first is Mike Davidson's which when viewing it with a good browser like Opera you get a superb 'lift' effect with the Buddha like part of the design moving down the page when you scroll down. I actually think that it was this design that made me realize the potential of CSS. I think it's true I wasn't really sure what I could do with CSS and where it was going. So I must say kudos to Mike for this great piece of work. I just looked in the book and this template is part of the special effects section which explains how the special effects used on this design "ensure that the viewer spends extra time scrolling the page to see them in action". Don't you hate it when people guess what you've been secretly up to !


Some designs like the 'architect' design from Marc Trudel are just a real pleasure for the eyes and when you take a look at the code it is quite simple in fact. To be honest though it's a bit like marketing. When you tell clients what they should do, they often think it's obvious, after you've told them, of course ! Well there are the ones that say that they had already thought of doing it but that's sometimes a good alarm bell for the unreliable client...



So what are you waiting for ? The The CSS Zen Garden site is just a click away. Why hesitate not only can you can create beautiful sites that are 'search engine friendly' and of course allow for people with multiple types of systems to view your site, you can also create sites whose maintenance can become very simple !