Make no mistake, this is Dave Shea's germination of a website, but he has let it be a community 

effort and everyone has their own special fruits and vegetables to grow and display. Molly 

H0olzschlag bring sin her master gardening techniques from years of design experience from 

preparing the web soil to harvesting the fruits of their web based labors. The Zen balance is there 

working in the background instead of up front in the content. 

They take ordinary to extraordinary! And they know what works and doesn't depending on 

which Browser is being used at any given time. They show when to plant to avoid the early 

morning killing frost of misbehaving browsers, yet demonstrate how best to water without over 

watering or plant without overcrowding or under weeding.  

This is not a beginner's book, but it is a must have keeper once you have started CSS gardening 

on your own and have migrated from Styrofoam cups to   acre plots. 

It took me a while to get through this book, because each page is rich with information that 

absorbs the mind. There are 7 chapters on source, design, layout, imagery, typography, special 

effects and reconstruction with each chapter pages a different pastel color and attention to detail.  

Much like the authors of the Logo books, even the masters share what they have learned along 

the way and suggest how even what they did can be improved and even show how browser 

obstacles can be overcome. Oh, and there are sidebars aplenty, with links for digging deeper too. 

I became engrossed in font sizing, fixed vs. elastic design, image replacement techniques and the 

last part on reconstruction goes from planning to final deliverable with notes along the way.  

Why garden when you can go to the store?  Why not learn from the masters, so you too can 

become a master CSS Gardener! Hey, it's all in how it is presented, isn't it?  

  MPN, LLC 2005 macCompanion 

Page 60 

August 2005, Volume 3 Issue 8