Sometimes, one gets a little obsessed

Design and construction. You must understand how to build it, come up with a design that fits your parameters, and then go. It can be a piece of clothing, or a house, or a beaded flower, or software. It doesn't matter. You need to see the vision and understand how it needs to be built first. Then, you can pass go and collect $200.

I've often times complained about a lack of talent in the 2D arts. I can't draw. I have no interest in flat peyote stitch. But you've all see the necklaces and flowers I'll design and make.

For me, it never really seems to be a slow understanding. When it clicks, it clicks and the light bulb turns on bright. That happened this week for me with the OS Commerce software I use on the shopping cart for the flower patterns and the use of CSS. CSS = Cascading Style Sheets.

I've known of this website for a long time. It's called Zen Garden. It's really quite amazing if you go in and dig around. The concept behind it is simple. You have a basic html page, with each section enclosed in a div with an identifier. Using a style sheet and some artistic talent, you can rearrange that page to your heart's desire. It's a call to graphic artists out in the world to learn to use style sheets to really make the technology work for you. You're no longer hardcoding. Today you feel happy, so we'll plug in the happy style sheet. Tomorrow, you feel like crap and you plug in the dark and dreary style sheet. The presentation is different but the contents is the same. We now return to the software model of model/view/controller.

Wow...I'm really having a moment here. I think I need to talk to some computer people a little more. Anyways, go check out Zen Garden. It's really amazing.

With the inspiration and the light bulb in the on position, I started the first step in the makeover of the websites at Judy Yiu Designs. The shop is based on a preexisting template. I hope to make the main website something that is modifiable with CSS, but that will take a little longer as I try to figure out what I want it to look like, and study the various Zen Garden examples some more.