Site Redux
UPDATE: I no longer use this theme.
A few weeks ago, I was working on converting a Photoshop design into a website for a client. This particular design was really putting my CSS skills to the test, as so many do these days, to keep it looking exactly the same in all browsers the client wanted to support. So I started poking around the Interwebs looking for insight, and came across an article touting the benefits of sending your client a mocked-up site already marked up with CSS, rather than a pixel-perfect rendering of the Ps design (as a JPEG, for example). Feeling like I’d been stuck in a CSS rut for the past couple of years, I undertook the very refreshing experience of absorbing as many articles as I could handle on the topics of CSS3 and progressive enhancement.
After finishing up that tricky hack job, I thought it was high time to finally get a blog going on my own website, which had lain dormant and neglected for far too long. I decided to challenge myself to create a WordPress theme, while bypassing Ps completely. Not only that, but I wanted to limit myself to a single image for the layout. So I generated a very small image on Stripe Generator, and got straight to work.
This was great! I was at home in my text editor and could really crank out the code, making plenty of use of CSS3 and jQuery, my Javascript library of choice. What you are looking at is the result of about 4 hours’ work.
Armed with the theory of progressive enhancement, I would like to start developing more sites with less dependence on Ps. And it is reassuring to know there are so many developers pushing for a less pixel-perfect portfolio. But I realize this may not suit every situation. For example, some clients may not be convinced that a site shouldn’t necessarily look the same in every browser. In those cases, we’ll still have Ps to fall back on.