A Beginner’s Guide to Leaner CSS
Don’t repeat yourself (DRY). It’s a simple concept with the ability to completely change the way you write code. If I look back to my early days with CSS though, I don’t think the concept meant much to me. Sure, all right, don’t repeat myself, thanks for the advice. How does that translate to applicable advice though?
Today we’re going to look at the very core concepts for how to rethink the CSS you’ve been writing by trimming the fat and reducing the redundancy. The result will be leaner CSS that’s easier to author and maintain.
September 4th, 2012 Posted in CSS
Code a Mountain Lion Style Notification Window With CSS
This one is for my fellow Mac nerds. Apple’s newest desktop operating system, OS X Mountain Lion, has a built-in notification system similar to what we’ve had on iOS for years. Today we’re going to build one of the notification windows using CSS.
To pull this off, we’ll use some basic HTML and a little bit of fancy CSS3. To finish it off, we’ll add a touch of jQuery magic to allow the user to drag the window around. It’ll be tons of fun, so boot up your favorite coding app and follow along!
September 3rd, 2012 Posted in CSS
Semantic Grid Class Naming With Placeholder Selectors in Sass 3.2
CSS frameworks are known for taking a club to the idea of semantic HTML. This is such a problem that developers everywhere have entirely sworn off the idea of grid-based frameworks solely on the principle that it leads to non-semantic class names.
With Sass, it becomes quite easy to work around this problem and use a predefined grid without resorting to wonky class names. In fact, the latest version of Sass (3.2) has a new feature that makes this task easier than ever. Read on to see what it is and how it works.
August 28th, 2012 Posted in CSS
Code an Awesome Hire Me Card With Your Gravatar
It’s been a while since we polished our HTML and CSS skills with a fun little demo, let’s end that streak with a project that’s both super attractive and super practical.
Today we’re going to build a card-style “Hire Me” widget that you can quickly drop onto any web page. Along the way we’ll learn a bunch of great stuff about CSS positioning and how to use pseudo elements to pull off some cool effects.
August 22nd, 2012 Posted in CSS
Master Responsive Web Design With Gridset
Let’s face it, responsive design is hard work. Web design was difficult enough when we were only considering desktop platforms, but the challenge of seemingly infinitely varying screen and viewport sizes has really added to the complexity of website layout.
Whether you’re completely new to responsive design or consider yourself an expert in the area, the tool that we’re going to look at today will blow you away. It’s called Gridset and it’s amazing.
August 13th, 2012 Posted in CSS
5 Design Lessons That I Learned From Writing 85 Web Design Critiques
Here at Design Shack we offer a simple but useful service called a web design critique. It’s basically a consulting service that you can take advantage of for a mad cheap price in exchange for letting us post it on the site as an educational tool.
I’ve personally written up a whopping eighty five of these things thus far (#85 will be posted later this week). That’s a whole lot of design advice! Read on to see what I’ve learned about web design in the process, both from the good examples and the bad.
August 9th, 2012 Posted in CSS
Which Is Right for Me? 22 Responsive CSS Frameworks and Boilerplates Explained
CSS frameworks have been around for years now, but the arrival of responsive design practices has rendered many of our old favorites useless. Fortunately, lots of really talented developers have jumped in to fill the gap with the next generation of CSS frameworks and boilerplates.
There’s already a ton of these things floating around. Everyone has a list, but no one really walks you through how each framework and boilerplate differs from the next so that you can make an informed decision. That’s our goal today. Follow along as we take a look at what makes each of these 22 responsive CSS frameworks and boilerplates unique.
August 8th, 2012 Posted in CSS
A Beginner’s Guide to Using Google Web Fonts
When Google Web Fonts was first released, we wrote up a quick walkthrough. Since then, the service has been completely overhauled and it’s high time for a thorough walkthrough from scratch.
Join us as we start at the very beginning and discuss what the Google Web Fonts service is and how to get it up and running on your site today. Give us a few minutes of your time and we’ll open you up to the awesome world of awesome free web fonts.
August 1st, 2012 Posted in CSS
3 Quick Ways to Show Attention to Detail in Web Design
With today’s current design trends I’m of the view that attention to detail is perhaps the most important part of any design, be it web or print.
In this article, I’m going to exhibit a few examples of designs on the web that lack that little bit of detail that would make the websites a much more pleasant place to explore.
July 3rd, 2012 Posted in CSS
Pull Off Awesome Scroll Effects With Stroll.js
Scrolling effects are all the rage these days. As the user moves down the page, content does more than move up the screen, it comes alive and becomes more interesting. Unfortunately, there’s no easy way to pull these effects off with pure CSS. If you don’t know JavaScript, you’re out of luck.
That’s where Stroll.js comes in. It’s a super easy to implement library that makes applying mind-boggling scroll effects a breeze. All you have to do is paste in a couple of brief lines of JavaScript, the rest is all handled with HTML and CSS. Keep reading and I’ll show you how it works.
June 26th, 2012 Posted in CSS