For quite some time now, CSS Zen Garden has been an excellent example of the lengths graphic designers can take webpages with nothing more than CSS.

As a project which is largely open to anyone, it obvious comes up with a mixed bag - some are really good looking sites (such as The Original), some are cool if unusable (retro theatre for example) and some are at best average (such as Floral Touch).

The project has even spawned a book, although I am loathe to recommend this as personally it struck me as being a poor transition between web and print.

Anyway, of late, it seems that the CSS Zen Garden is slowly falling into disuse. The site seems to show “Retro Theatre” as the most recent entry and I am sure that has been the case since before Christmas. In the past, the Zen Garden was showing new designs almost weekly but this really is no longer the case. Sadly, this wonderful resource seems to be heading down the road towards becoming a museum peice. This really is a shame. I suspect that publishing their book has changed the focus of the site and it’s participants but I hope this is not the case.

All I can say is, if you have any design skills at all then please, try out the CSS Zen Garden Challenge and submit a new design. (Failing that, get posting to OSWD)

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