Thoughts and tips on using CSS Frameworks

I used to know how to design well. Until I realized I’ve been too confined with my own self-discovered processes.

Here are my thoughts and tips on using of CSS Frameworks and tools like Compass, Blueprint CSS, 960 GS and many others:

• To design with confidence means to learn new things without discarding old concepts or even old tools like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks.
• Frameworks should help you focus on innovating rather than fixing bugs that is why I think “CSS Frameworks” are aptly called as such because they help you speed up your work and focus on communicating functionality (backend) issues with your client instead.
• If you are a lone developer like myself, it’s best to figure out ways to reduce redundant processes.
• Make code readable. Type less: use HAML. You’ll never worry about closing tags or not having valid markup.
• Useful tool for Linux users: GMate
• Useful framework for Ruby developers: Compass
• If you don’t like the 24-column grid, you can use a grid generator. There are several grid generators written in several different languages. Notable ones are: Blueprint Grid CSS Generator and BlueGrid AIR

You may check out my blueprint css experiment here.