Implications


User-contributed designs began appearing within days; traffic increased to tens of thousands of visitors a day within the first week. People volunteered to translate the site into dozens of other languages, and it was immediately clear that the Zen Garden satisfied a pent-up demand that nothing else on the Web had managed to address.

Since launch, the Zen Garden has appeared in dozens of magazines around the globe and a host of other books, cementing its canonical status in the history of Web design. Thank-you letters pour in from around the globe, coming from designers and developers who have used the site to convince their employers, clients, and coworkers of the value of CSS design. And most who have contributed design work have felt a nice boost to their careers due to the exposure it has given them.

Though created and maintained by a single individual, the Zen Garden is largely a collaborative and volunteer effort. Talented designers helped it succeed through their submissions. Everyone has a different reason for finding value in the Zen Garden, and although it was built mostly as a demonstration to prove the value of CSS design, it's clearly also valuable for other reasons that weren't anticipated.

  • Designers who struggle with a layout problem have a place to turn to if they get stuck; because of the hundreds of submissions, there's an excellent chance someone has solved that exact problem before. Using the CSS on the site as a method to learn how to solve layout problems is allowed and encouraged.

  • Similarly, new layout techniques and CSS effects are there for discovery. Chances are good that you will find something new among the hundreds of submissions.

  • It's a great place to test a Web browser's rendering capabilities. All files are written in valid, standards-based code, so in theory they should render the same across all browsers. (In practice, though, the latter isn't yet the case. Due to bugs and unsupported elements, most designers have needed to account for major rendering differences through various CSS filters and hacks.)

  • It's a common place to point employers and clients to when making the case for standards-based design.

  • It's a great cure for the creative blues. Feeling stuck? Noodle around for inspiration.

  • It provides wide exposure to seasoned pros and up-and-coming designers alike. Employers and prospective clients regularly contact the designers of the submissions they like, for both contracts and jobs. The work often appears in international books and magazines.

  • It provides teachers and instructors with a useful tool for teaching contemporary Web design practices.



    The Zen of CSS Design(c) Visual Enlightenment for the Web
    The Zen of CSS Design(c) Visual Enlightenment for the Web
    ISBN: N/A
    EAN: N/A
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 117

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