[thelist] Re: CSS Article... I can't find it!

Kelly Hallman khallman at wrack.org
Sun Jul 13 11:22:45 CDT 2003


On Sun, 13 Jul 2003, Adrian Rinehart-Balfe wrote:
> Many people see something a little different and immediately close their
> eyes. I doubt that many of them even read the text on that page.

My guess is many were already biased by the URL:
> http://www.chunkysoup.net/opinion/boringcss/

> Chris Casciano has broken out of that restrictive box and all you can do
> is complain that his link colors... He strikes me as just the type of
> innovative designer the web could do with more of.

I have lamented the ubiquitous CSS site design (singular) before, too.  
The Zen Garden is a cool idea because it shows what designers can do with
CSS -- wow, graphics, on a web page??.  As we've seen, apparently tech
heads mostly want to argue about using px font sizes and their personal
dogmas on what is the right or the wrong way to implement things.

Personally, I had no major problems with the Chunky Soup design.  Having
to scroll right was odd, but unique in a not bad way.  I mostly would have
thought it to be "wrong" only if it was an unintentional bug.  It appeared
to be deliberate...certainly more provocative and interesting than if he
had followed a list of CSS styling guidelines gathered from this group.

I've read and even subscribed to a number of magazines that flagrantly
ignore or abuse the common wisdom on layout, typesetting, etc.  They are
fun to read, and each page is a new experience.  The web can't go that far
(at least not until we have something better than CSS and markup) but it
can still be an interesting experience visually as well as mentally.

I know many of the opinions on this subject that have been voiced here are
supported by (mostly) logical reasoning.. but it often lacks perspective;  
no one speculated on why Chunky Soup decided to be such a wide page, they
simply branded it as wrong, and threw in some additional criticisms to
bolster their position (:absolute).  Imagine walking through an art
gallery or museum with such an attitude, you'd look really smart!

> We shouldn't be tied down to all these rules, the web can be more than
> an endless repetition of sites looking like the default Movable Type
> template! Get out, live a little and please loosen those ties!

Pure gold.

--
Kelly Hallman
http://wrack.org/



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