A few months back, I came across Kyle Neath’s blog and began reading about purely XHTML/CSS constructed websites. I guess you could say I was designing in a sort of vacuum for the past couple years.
But once I began reading his blog, I began following links that were canvased throughout the entire designer blogosphere, including those of designer greats like Cameron Moll, Jon Hicks, Steve Smith, Shaun Andrews, et cetera, and that’s when my interest in standards truly began to unfold.
My first love in getting to know standards compliant construction and design was actually less through blogs though, and more through website showcase sites. Sites like CSS Mania, CSS Remix and Shea’s Zen Garden.
And as I’ve learned a lot, practiced a lot, and even designed a few full sites, I feel like it’s my chance to give back to the community in the form of a css website gallery.
…I know what you’re thinking, and this entry is titled as so. My answer is that I would hope it wouldn’t be. I want to create a website that helps people learn from the entire site, instead of just “being inspired” by their designs.
The site could appeal to everyone, showing the designs and supplying the links to new, lovely sites for the advanced designers but also would have links to more information for those that are still on the fence or just learning. It could include a copy of the sites main page code as well as style sheet to help people learn what’s what. See what properties are used often, what aren’t, and what each thing does visually, not just textual explanation. Of course, with a site this complex, it couldn’t be automated, or rather automated easily. So the site would suffer in lack of new sites being fully added and also may get negative feedback from the community as people work very hard on their code and stylesheets.
I’m not sure about any of this. Just thinking out loud.
