my thoughts on the zen garden

i discovered the garden through alistapart.com and it has been my subject of study and dreams for approximately four days.

i have several thoughts and several questions about this everso creative quilt of rhetoric. but first i will tell what i have learned, for background.

the idea behind the css zen garden is one i find kind of strange--possibly because i'm more of a writer, less of a digital artist. the garden was planted by dave shea, who calls it

A collaborative gallery of hundreds of international designers, all in the name of advancing the state of web design.

the argument is clear enough behind the garden's asiany metaphors of roads and life and light. i can definitely see that it's made a difference in the design world since it was established, back in 2003.

six of the stylesheets are by shea himself. there are 187 official designs (so far), which you can click through forever at csszengarden.com. i went through every single one of them last weekend, grazing on small bits of code and feasting on a lot of unique artistic talent. my favourite styles are linked at the bottom of this post.

including those 187 official stylesheets, there are 840 total, comprehensively listed and categorized on shea's own mezzoblue.com. and now there's a book. the garden is still open for new flowers. i wonder how many it will eventually contain.

in terms of aesthetics, the zen garden is for the most part exquisitely beautiful. which is not to say there aren't a few unpleasant-looking pages in there (example: focus and shoot). some of the designs are a bit on the illegible side, some are a lot on the illegible side, and almost all of them are heavily image-laden.

this isn't just css. this is graphic design. i don't know why, but that combination, used to strikingly to make a point about webdesign, seems the best and worst thing about the zen garden.

in terms of rhetoric... well, it's simple. the zen garden claims a big chunk of virtual exigence, using words like 'important', 'need', 'seriously', and 'gets people excited'. 'One day this gallery will be a historical curiosity; that day is not today.' very effective.

other rhetorical tactics i recognize involve a bit of ethos (hundreds of international designers), a bit of ideographicalish topoi (zen and its connotations of clarity, simplicity, peace, meaning, mastery), and of course the pathos that great, innovative art(coupled with an open invitation to participate in that great, innovative art) so easily invokes.

the blending of audience and rhetor is brilliant here, really. it gives the reader an amazing sense of possibility. talk about enlightenment.

the concept as well as the designs of the zen garden are innovative, despite being 3 years old now. and the project is continuing, despite being considered somewhat 'old news' by now. i wonder how much longer the rhetoric will remain effective.

as i wandered through the zen garden's expansive display, i wondered several things that haven't been answered by shea's zen garden faq page:

• how come i haven't seen this before?
• why did he decide to call it the zen garden?
• will i ever be good enough to manipulate cascading stylesheets so amazingly?
  
• what actually is wrong with horizontal layouts?
• how on earth can they get away with using so many images everywhere?
• why not use that many images?
  
• the web is a highly visual medium, is it not?
  

i don't have any solid conclusions to those questions, except a very hopeful yesto the third, but maybe, as the ongoing process of webdevelopment continues, answers will come up. or at least further questions will get asked about it. probably both.

the css zen garden seems a great way to learn about stylesheets, so i will probably keep it in my bookmarks for quite some time.

some of my favourite zen artifacts:
. mnemonic . port of call . rpm . centerfold .
. pret a porter . contemporary noveau .