Nov 26
Blue Beanie Day
2007 at 11.50 am posted by Veerle
It’s been a few years now since I decided to throw all the old school methods out the door and commit myself in supporting Web Standards in every single website project. Today is “Blue Beanie Day”, in honor of Jeffrey Zeldman’s photo on the cover of his book, “Designing with Web Standards”.
Previously
Back in 2003 I saw an article about pMachine Pro in Mac Addict explaining setting up a blog. That article sparked my interest in blogs and using CSS for layout. Around the same time one of my clients from the Library of Congress showed me the CSS Zen Garden. "Something definitely worth looking into" she said. At first I didn't completely understand it and there was even some disbelief and astonishment. Accessibility was a criteria for these projects so all those things got my attention. So later that year I started building and experimenting with my first blog. Learning how to do this was my 1st priority and blogging was just something that would follow because I've set one up anyway.
Throwing out old school methods was a huge step for me. It took me a few months to get around the basics and being able to build sites the right way: clean, well structured and therefor accessible. One thing I learned along the way is that it's better to give it some time instead of rushing in like I did. I started right away without even opening a book. I hate reading first, processing things and then get into action following strict steps etc. I don't have the patience for that. I just want to start things right away, but that's of course not smart and even rather stupid. I've learned that by making mistakes such as "div-itis" for instance (forget to think about actual structure and wrap everything in div's).
I learned from looking at how other people were building their site by looking at their code. While I was learning, I did read one book though, probably the most well-known book out there: "Designing with web standards" by Jeffrey Zeldman. To me he's like the daddy of web standards :) His latest article about Understanding web design proves once more how inspiring he really is and why he is still relevant in our field. So that brings us to...
Blue Beanie Day
I thought I just join this idea and show my support. Maybe to some people this might seem like a silly idea, but to me it's in honor to the people who I've learned from over the past few years. Everyone that shared their knowledge about CSS, Web Standards and accessibility. Ever since I travelled that road I feel more statisfaction in the work I deliver to the client, because I have the feeling that what I deliver is 'just right'. I'm purely talking about the coding part now, not the design. For me coding has become more 'fun' because it is more challenging to have it done following the W3C guidelines. It drives me to do a better job than before and it ends up being more rewarding.
Want to join too?
Post your photo, or photos to Facebook, the Flickr pool, and other social networks.
12served
1
Blue beanie today it is, then ;-)
Nice idea to promote web standards…
2
Happy blue beanie d’eh everyone!
3
I’m also trying to throw away all “old-school methods”, but i have a great problem. If i create a site from the very beginning, then everything is ok, i can create clean css & xhtml. But in time, when small site update is required, i apply these old-school… And i don’t know how to solve this problem.
4
I was going to go out and buy a blue beanie but I totally spaced reading that article by JZ.
Thats alright though, I don’t look good wearing a beanie anyway and I support standards just as well through my site.
It is still a great idea thought, I hope some of the larger companies would start moving towards standard compliance. I also wish we could get one standard and actually move forward with it, but that doesn’t look like it is going to happen anytime soon.
5
Great, I’ve had fun today checking out peoples avatars on twitter! Heres some more details.
6
Jeffrey was insiparation for you and Your blog was inspiration for me when I first look at the world of blogs and web design about 2 years ago. You was the one who gave me some advices by email and after one year of learning my blog was presented on the same page as yours in the smashing magazine article.
For all that big Thank you. Do not stop inspiring us with all the great work you do.
7
It’s great to hear how you first started getting into web standards. My story is similar, but I’m meeting more and more web designers who never built a single website with spacer gifs and nested tables. That’s exciting news to me and I don’t pitty them one bit...that is until they have to do maintenance work on older websites. Happy Blue Beanie Day!!!
8
I have recently decided to take my first steps into understanding CSS and web standards better (or at all). As a graphic designer websites were always foreign to me but now I want to be able to offer more. THis means doing it right. I really appreciate you telling us that jumping in wasnt the right path for you… I may just take your advice.
Thanks.
9
Seen many blue beanie images today, but this one was most appealing. I said I wouldn’t bother making my own, but now—with only 20 minutes left before the end of the day in my time zone—I think I must.
10
Designing with Web standards is what I have been trying to learn. I think it should be a requirement for all web sites out there aiming to serve more web users.
I wish I can have more time to read through books about Web Standards; in fact, every time I visit a bookstore I would always pick up books about Web Design standards and such, (I just so happened to see Veerle’s blog design featured in a book and that was how I found your blog!).
11
Whoa, totally missed the significance of that day (being in the GMT +12/13 time zone does have it’s disadvantages I guess).
As one to have recently joined the web standards bandwagon, “div-itis” is still very much in my veins. And like lewro a couple of posts below, your site and articles have helped me and are still helping me through the transition.
Keep fighting the good fight.
12
I have been makeing websites from seven years and I`ve never heared about Blue Beanie Day - It`s good to know about it. I have learned many important things from book of Jeffrey Zeldman and few more books, for example from books of “Cleare Left”. In fact I`m the real webmaster from one year. In my opinion makeing websites in a proffesional way is important becouse websites are one of the most popular carrier of information. I hope that there will be more people like prowebmasters and teachers.
Greetings, Tworzenie Stron