Project 10. Designing in the Garden

I love you twisted

And I love you straight

I'd write it down but I can't concentrate

Words won't me obey they do as they please

And all I am left with is these

—ELVIS COSTELLO

to challenge them to write a style sheet that would present the file with flair, visual appeal, and originality.

be beautiful, that such beauty could be created on top of a relatively simple document structure, and that the same document could be presented in totally different ways. It has succeeded brilliantly on all counts.

Since Eric Meyer on CSS finished with a challenging project (in that case, re-creating the book's layout in CSS), it seemed to me that taking on a similar challenge would be fitting for this book. Creating a Zen Garden design seemed to fit the bill nicely.

There was only one problem. I freely admit that I'm not a strong visual artist (and some would label that a gross understatement), and Zen Garden designs need to look really good. So I decided to go to someone who is a strong visual artist: Dave Shea, founder of the CSS Zen Garden and a technical reviewer for this very book. Dave produced a beautiful design, and I turned it into a CSS-driven layout. This project is a recounting of the steps I took to make that happen.