That’s a broad topic to cover in just one chapter, especially since it’s the topic I’m really interested in. The chapter covers six different Zen Garden designs and highlights the primary design elements in each. Instead of saying “this is how you do design”, this chapter says “this is how others have done design.”

Atlantis

Minimalist perspectives were part of the problem, not part of the solution. Until Atlantis came along, apparently. While coders have stuck with boxy minimalism that could never be called inspired, Atlantis takes coder minimalism and smashes it against that really expensive, antique, fragile heirloom that you’ve treasured your whole life. Then it dumps a whole bottle of inspiration on it.

Or I’m drinking far too much coffee.

Anyway, while Atlantis uses boxes, it uses the graphic design elements of shape, symbolism, and iconography to make minimalism interesting.

Zunflower

Holy bright, Batman. White background, yellow flowers, and orange-yellow header bars. I had to blink a few times before I could read the chapter. Then again, I’m a fan of the dark. Light and shadow are actually the biggest tools that this design uses to differentiate itself from everything else that’s out there.

This chapter also has a bit about using space, and I agree with most of it. Usually, I discount space as anything more than what’s between the important stuff – the content. After reading this and considering it, I’ve figured out that that’s one of the things that made me a coder, and not a designer.

Springtime

The general and specific info are separated by the ground in this design. The green is very light throughout the bottom, and blue is light near the top, but they meet at a vibrant green line of grass and plant life. The chapter focuses more on the color used in this design, but that’s not what I like about it.

The separation of content by a ground, or a line of earth, is something so far outside of the realm of what I would have considered… I had to stop and just wonder how the designer came up with it. Novel isn’t the word I want, but it’s the only close one that I’ve got.

Viridity

Contrast, pattern, color blindness (and accessibility), CSS code for repeating graphics, contrast, etc. I really didn’t find the design very interesting… I felt overloaded by the greens, honestly.

Ballade

It’s all about connections. Each section must lead from one to the next, and the eye must follow. There is a difference between content naturally flowing from one section to the next and leading the eye from section to section with creativity and subtle detail. Ballade accomplishes this with its literal theme of a walk in a park.

The authors couldn’t decide, initially, if the colors implied Winter or Fall, but I immediately thought of Autumn. Winter would bring blues and whites, while Autumn is all about the browns.

There’s also a helpful comparison between using tables for layout (not what they were designed for), and using CSS for the same layout. CSS is the clear winner, hands-down.

Night Drive

The look at this style is nothing but technical. It addresses specific problems that arose in moving the design from Photoshop into the actual CSS and graphic files. Alternative code layouts compliment an exposition on the purpose of different type of graphic file and compression formats. I took to this section of the chapter more easily than the rest; code-monkey strikes again.

I’m amazed that this worked. Honestly, a bunch of graphic designers got off of their collective rumps and actually took up the challenge to show off the design elements of CSS. It reads like a geek legend – like Kibo – and I’m just amazed.

Long story short, CSS is recommended by the W3C, but nobody’s picking it up. Browser support sucks, and when the support does come about, only coders are using it. Boxy, minimalistic designs that are only using the coding aspect of CSS. Which makes sense, because they’re… well… coders. Like me.

So, Dave Shea puts out this challenge to take his HTML code and crank it up to 11 on the CSS front. And they do. There are over a hundred designs now, and all use the exact same HTML, but look completely different. Graphics, layout, style… DESIGN. This is where I’m lacking. This is the challenge I face: Moving from the coder to the designer.

Maybe being both.

This can’t help but be a good weapon against the auto-suck.