Sent by Mark Stevens on 30 September 2003 16:04
Hello.
> Does anyone know of a site where there is either (i) a collection of
> appealing CSS designed sites, or (ii) a single site that looks great
> designed in CSS (that is standards compliant) that would put the
> sites on "The Best Designs" to shame?
> It's a difficult thing taking standards designed sites that function well
> and making them look appealing & exciting at the same time.
One of the great misconceptions is that Flash-based sites are automatically
"better" than more traditional XHTML+CSS sites simply because the former
typically delivers huge blobs of eye and ear candy, while the latter tend to
deliver more textual information.
It never ceased to amuse me when my brother (a graphic designer) would show me
the latest sites he'd found up at http://www.linkdup.com/, excited by the
amazing display of design. I'd be looking at them, thinking, "Okay, these are
quite pretty, but what's the site actually about?" My brother would frown
before saying, "Well, nothing really -- it just is what it is!" Naturally, the
opposite would happen when I (a writer) would show him some of the latest
sites I'd discovered, excited by the range of articles and documents on offer.
He'd be looking at them, thinking, "Okay, there's a lot of words and stuff
there, but where's the visual splendour?" I'd frown before saying, "Well,
there isn't really much in the way of eye candy, you're meant to read the
articles!"
I guess the point is that the web can never really be all things to all
people. Web standards, W3C compliance, accessibility... they're all something
worth striving for, but at the end of the day there will always be an audience
for web sites that can't adequately meet the artistic vision of its
designer(s) without breaking some of these rules. After all, much of mankind's
greatest artistic achievements came about as a result of a little anarchy, so
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing when rules are broken. As long as
the artist and the audience are on the same wavelength, then rules don't
matter.
I suspect those of us who make a point of ensuring our web sites are built out
of valid XHTML and CSS are mainly preoccupied with the distribution of textual
information. That's not to say a graphic designer's portfolio web site
shouldn't strive to meet the same high standards, but they're distributing
something else entirely. They don't call it eXtensible HyperTEXT Markup
Language for nothing. Should graphic/web designers, who are largely concerned
with presenting visual/audio data, really be conforming to a set of standards
that's built around the presentation of text? You can apply the rules of XHTML
and CSS to something like a book, or maybe a magazine, and have the data
remain more or less intact, but can you use them to take control of paintings
or music? I guess another question to ask is whether or not the web is an
adequate distribution system for aesthetic information, but that's another
argument for another day.
Of course, the main problem with complex graphic design, fine art or music is
that so much of our ability to consume it via the web relies heavily on the
hardware at our disposal. Displaying text, boxes and colours on a variety of
screens/browsers is a doddle compared to the adequate presentation of
architecture or a musical composition. Bringing together a unifying set of
standards that governs the presentation of such complex entities is certainly
something worth striving for (and much of the groundwork has already been
started). In the mean time they're just going to have to piggyback on other,
slightly less accomodating web standards.
Having said all that, I'm an XHTML + CSS whore and, in spite of that, my
favourite web sites include http://www.amontobin.com/index2.html and
http://www.warprecords.com/.
Hum ho!
--
Mark Stevens
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