The Beauty of Style!
Welcome to the SitePoint Community CSS Design Contest, The Beauty of Style. To enter just apply whatever styling you like to the elements contained in this page and send us the results!
How to Submit your Design
Just send your images and style sheets attached in an email (in ZIP format) to spf.contest@prestontalk.com. Please ensure that you don't edit the source code of this page, although you may use whatever CSS and design trickery you like!
HTML Utopia
When I'm talking about HTML Utopia, I'm talking about the separation of content from formatting. With databases we've achieved that separation to some degree but only on the production side. We're still outputting our content into salami-like HTML code where we mix it with the cholesterol of <table> and <font> tags. Besides, not all websites are database driven and the ones that are rarely database 100% of their content.
CSS Happiness!
There are some serious benefits to separating your content from your formatting. A few of these include: Reduction in file size, because your not constantly writing <table> and <font> tags and the like the file size of your pages will be much smaller; One file controls the whole site design, OK you've heard this before - it is part of the beauty of CSS in general. Should you decide to add Geneva to your font family because you're becoming Mac friendly then modify your style sheet and the changes will be reflected across your whole site; and Alternative Style Sheets, You can have a separate style sheet that is used when your page is printed. That means no more separate 'print version' pages.
Learn More
If you fancy the idea of ditching tables and learning to design with CSS why not check out SitePoint's brand new book, HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS, written by Dan Shafer. Also take a look at the SitePoint article, HTML Utopia - Designing Without Tables Using CSS, by Julian Carroll.