There are hundreds of sites that offer tutorials, examples and inspiration about CSS. In no particular order, here's a list of my favorites that I visit on a regular basis.
Roger Johansson's site is a consistently valuable source of tutorials and examples (here's one) about using CSS properly (among other topics). Few sites explain the intricacies of the CSS spec as well as he does.
As others have mentioned, there are now plenty of CSS showcase sites on the web. Some have earned their place while many are just shameless ripoffs.
However, Screenspire earns its place as my destination of choice when I'm in need of some inspiration for its novel approach of showing a complete picture of the site being showcased. I find it very handy to be able to flick through screenshots of a whole site.
Honorable mention: Stylegala.
Perhaps this is my guilty secret, but when ever I need to check on a CSS attribute, I find myself heading back to the W3Schools site. I just find it so easy to use and I like its no frills approach to presenting information. Plus, if you're a CSS newbie, you can try out and edit examples right there on the site.
Some of the articles are a little too bleeding edge to be employed commercially (usually because of their lack of support for a certain browser). That being said, the quality of the articles is consistently high and I have learned a ton from this site.
Another source of regular good articles on CSS, like this one on writing maintainable CSS. Some of the articles are pretty technical though, so if you're new to the field of CSS, be aware of this.
Russ Weakley's articles and tutorials on CSS are clearly written and easy to follow (such as this one on building a web page template in CSS). His examples and tutorials on lists and floats are also essential reading.
If you've ever wanted to understand exactly why a browser (well, okay IE) exhibits a particular CSS bug and know how to get around it, this is the place to go. Holly and John also have a collection of great articles on CSS and a number of CSS layout demos, such as the wonderfully titled Jello Mold Piefecta Layout.
As well as being primarily a mailing list with far too many posts each day for one to keep up and manage a day job (although some people obviously do), the web site has a huge collection of CSS resources for you to get lost in.
This is not a site that I visit regularly, but if you ever needed a vast compendium of CSS (and other web design) resources, well, here it is.
Although Dave Shea hasn't been writing as much about CSS recently as he used to, when he does, it's worth reading. For the uninitiated, there's a large CSS archive to work through until the next post.
Like Dave Shea, Doug Bowman is not as prolific a writer as I would like. However, his articles on CSS are always insightful and extremely educational (and usually pretty cutting edge). He, too, has a large collection of archived posts on CSS to peruse until the next one comes out.
So, I can't count. As I was thinking about the CSS sites that I visited regularly, I realized that I find most of my information via Google. To be honest, if I want to get a CSS question answered, Google is my first port of call 9 times out of 10. So, in so far as Google can be considered a 'site', I thought I should include it in my list.
Posted on: October 11, 2005 | 8 Comments
8 Comments Posted
thanks a lot for listing screenspire.com, hope you have a good time there :)
thomas
1. Posted by thomas marban on October 11, 2005
Nearly perfect this Top 10 CSS list, but I'm missing www.jasonsantamaria.com
2. Posted by Heiko on October 11, 2005
Thomas - you're welcome. Keep up the good work with your site.
Heiko - Jason is a very talented designer; however, he doesn't write about CSS very much and so I don't consider his site to be a great CSS resource.
3. Posted by Christian Watson on October 12, 2005
Don't get me wrong, screenspire lists some great sites for general web design inspiration - but it seems that many within screenspire are purely Flash. So personally I would take stylegala over screenspire for CSS and standards inspiration.
But then again, what does it matter? They both showcase some great sites. I just think one focuses on CSS and standards more than the other. :)
4. Posted by Patrick on October 12, 2005
Patrick - you're right, of course. My sense is that the majority of sites showcased there are CSS-based though; hence its inclusion in my list.
By the way, fadtastic has a recent post on the subject of site showcases, with an interesting discussion in the comments.
5. Posted by Christian Watson on October 12, 2005
Excellent article, thanks so much! Personally I'm a big fan of Google for learning CSS tips myself :)
6. Posted by Rock Creek Creative on January 19, 2006
Google is typically my first port of call when I'm looking up a CSS problem. I also do find myself going to the W3Schools site a lot if I can't remember how a particular rule should be written.
7. Posted by Christian Watson on January 22, 2006
Thanks for the tips. I am an aspiring young designer who is always looking for some inspiration.
8. Posted by Timothy on April 07, 2006