Russell Beattie recently posted his thoughts on Web design using CSS and XHTML, saying that he believes we're entering a "cool new era of the web." We couldn't agree more, but his most important comments are on the community that's making such design possible:
The ability to directly learn person-to-person this way is incredible. When has a specific technical problem been so thoroughly and communally examined before in this way? It's almost like a scientific research community - the different design techniques are named for their creators.
Paul Scrivens recently said that he believes "everyone has said almost everything there needs to be said in web design" and that the design community has "reached a saturation point for knowledge." His charge is not without merit, but it's that very characteristic of design weblogs, the nearly excessive examination of problems, that has propelled the community, specifically the CSS/XHTML community, so far in such a short period of time.
Paul quickly found new inspiration, and, what's more significant, is doing his part to inspire other designers with his popular Bridgeport design series. Familiar memes are tiring, to be sure (and nobody does familiar memes like the design community), but we truly believe this is a "cool new era." CSS image replacement variants -- Aaron Smith's technique, via Tom Gilder, for example -- we hope, are the beginning of a long line of attention-getting CSS techniques. We don't know what the design community will be talking about next month, but it's likely we'll think of something.
As a postscript, allow us to be the most recent weblogger to fawn over Dave Shea's ability to say just the right thing (here speaking about creating accessible Web sites with CSS/XHTML):
The bonus is that Accessibility, that multi-headed hydra of legend, becomes not only practical and largely reasonable, but even a pleasurable and satisfactory pursuit.