Welcome to the Designer's Block CSS Sandbox. In response to our forum members requests for just such a feature we have decided to create a mini-competition, where you can enter your designs to be judged by the DB team, win the respect of your design peers and feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

So what makes the Designers Block CSS Sandbox any different?

Well, for one thing we're probably gonna be much easier on the entrants than some CSS sites, and we don't mean anything bad by that. It's just that we are not just here to showcase the best of the best, but we want those people starting out in web design to get confidence in their abilities by working with their peers on a collaborative CSS project, this part of the site will grow and change over time.

So what's gonna be different then?

Well, this page is going to start out small and grow over time, which will do a couple of things. It will make it worthwhile for people who have submitted a design and had it listed to have another go with the expanded page (or pages).

It will also give beginning CSS designers a good chance at creating something cool and eye catching using only a few XHTML tags. As the page grows and the designer's abilities grow then they can add more and more complexity and layers to their CSS layouts.

What have I got to do to enter?

Well, hopefully you read the page that links to this page, if not click back on your browser and read it then carry on reading below.

It's pretty simple:

1. Save the page as a HTML file and load it up into your favourite web editor (me, I like Dreamweaver).
2. Attach a CSS file to this page and start adding images and layout styles etc. If you're not sure how to get started with CSS then why not check out the tutorials at w3schools.com.
3. Compress your files into a zip file and upload the file onto your web space (remember to include the original HTML file, the CSS file and all your required images).
4. Go to the forum and PM Boris the link to your zip file. Sit back and wait until the end of the month. The winner will be announced at the end of each month.

A few tips from the Team

• Do not remove any of the XHTML, you may only add classes to the page and they should be used sparingly.
• Try to stick to Semantic CSS, this uses the containing div ID's to control the elements within.
• Test your layout in as many browsers as possible, though we are not worried about your design breaking in Netscape 4, you should be able to get good results in all the major modern browsers.