CSS for Print Designers

6. Sculpting with CSS

Making Something That Looks Like a Real Web Page

I think of writing CSS as being a lot like creating a sculpture because both CSS and sculptures are deliberate, planned processes of whittling a basic structure into a more beautiful form.

The sculptor starts with a big square block of stone, or wood, or some other material. When we write CSS, we start with an HTML structure that reads top to bottom like a basic Word document.

The sculptor starts by planning the big picture: Where do the different elements belong (things like the head, arms, torso, and feet), and how big should each one be? When we write CSS, we rough out the layout by pushing HTML tags around to create columns and a general layout for a page, making decisions ...