Simon Willison’s Weblog

Very cool. Too bad "stormweather" looks busted in Mozilla (text overlaps things improperly; I can do a screenshot if you want). He should have tested cross-browser more carefully. That said, "tranquille" and "salmon cream cheese" are beautiful. Thanks for pointing out the link. I will show this to the web designers at my company.

Joe Grossberg - 8th May 2003 19:42 - #

Wow, I am really impressed. I think Dave Shea (author of the designs at the CSS Zen Garden) is the most talented CSS author I have seen. - Jay

Jay Sheth - 9th May 2003 03:07 - #

For the title of most consistently creative CSS, I'd have to say Ryan Gantz (sixfoot6) is one of my favs. Chris Casciano still gets mad props for the stuff he was doing a while back. Is there a directory of inventive CSS? There are some big lists, but none that seem to allow ranking/commenting and are 'quality'/'design' centric.

leonard - 9th May 2003 05:09 - #

Finally, a proper demonstration that standards compliant, accessible, CSS driven web sites do not have to be boring or ugly.

Err... that would be great, but the page you link to sets the font size to 8pt, a tiny size that is completely unreadable here. The other designs do things like set a background that completely overpowers the foreground text, making it impossible to read, or overlaps the text and images (which looks like a lack of testing). I'm no designer, but I don't particularly like the designs either.

Jim - 9th May 2003 11:40 - #

>> There are some big lists, but none that seem to allow >> ranking/commenting and are 'quality'/'design' centric. Never fear... I am currently working on a list similar to my Big List that focuses on quality of design, quality of coding, and will feature ranking and comments on each entry. Watch Pixellated for an announcement in the next couple of days regarding "Built for the Future."

Bob Sawyer - 9th May 2003 17:51 - #

I'm a fan of the first one, and it uses some clever techniques to get that beautiful, but my problem with it lies in the fact that where i to do something like that myself, it would break in anything other than the latest gecko browsers or IE6.

Still beautiful, the initial design at least

Matt Davey - 9th May 2003 22:37 - #

Thanks for the write-up, Simon! I've had a tremendous response as the Garden has made its way around the web community. Jay, your comment was my favourite amongst those I've received so far, if not somewhat hyperbolic. ;) I'll agree whole-heartedly on the comments about Chris C. and Ryan G - they're two pioneering minds that have paved the way for me. I'll definitely admit to having a few glitches in my CSS - Stormweather was the worst design for browser compatibility, luckily that has now been attended to by a generous soul. But I think the point has come across regardless; CSS is pretty damn capable as a design language. I suppose the designs themselves are not for everyone; user participation is the goal though, and I hope to see some fantastic replacements that put my original five to shame.

Dave S. - 10th May 2003 03:36 - #

Yes vary nice, Rare combination o color designs , it is vary cool no comments !!!

Fred Harb - 29th September 2003 18:55 - #

Has anyone any idea about using post method to pass hidden parameters keeping accessibility and avoiding javascript?

Pablo - 27th October 2004 16:14 - #

I'm very excited about the project as I just finished a design theme for csszengarden.com You can have a look at css Zen Garden theme design

Jane Jolin - 4th August 2005 14:10 - #