Have you ever wondered how an actual website is being created? For those who don’t know, all it requires is knowledge of HTML and CSS to create a simple website.
Coming to our today’s agenda, keeping this in mind, today, with the help of this article, we’re going to share some of the most fascinating ways of learning CSS in just 21 days. However, you may get the insight hands-on experience by opting for CSS Foundation – Self Paced and surely it will help you for the best experience. Besides this fact, this article will help you to understand its foundation right from its root and will provide a clear path to understanding how you can start with CSS to create a fascinating website.
Now, before we move ahead let’s understand the basics of CSS with a short introduction.
Table of Content
Introduction of CSS
Abbreviated as Cascade Style Sheet, developed by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) in 1996. Developers use CSS to describe the presentation of any web page that includes layout, color pallets, fonts, etc. These features help in making a solidified structure of any website and also help in attracting users. It was designed with the motive to make style sheets for the web. On the other hand, it’s independent of the other relevant language i.e. HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language), and can be easily used with any XML-based mark-up language.
Prerequisite Knowledge: Basic computer knowledge, how to work with files, how to execute them. and HTML.
Reference to study HTML
Now, moving ahead, we are now going to discuss a thorough curriculum or roadmap that you need to follow to learn CSS in just 21 days!!! Let’s check them out.
Start with the “Basics” (Day 1 – 5)
If you’re at the beginner’s stage, it is recommended to get some basic knowledge of HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) first for more clarity on this. The basics will start with the introduction first, then its use cases, syntaxes, basic styling, etc. Take a look at the modules in sequence:
- CSS Introduction: This section will drive you towards the basic introduction of CSS, its usage, some examples, etc.
- CSS Comments: How and where comments are to be placed and how to implement them inside code have been explained in this section.
- Types of CSS: To begin your journey with CSS, it is a must to know its foundation, especially its types and other basic details of CSS. This section will cover all three major varieties of CSS i.e. Inline, Embedded, and External.
- Margin and Paddings: This section will cover how to create a space including (length, width, margin calculation, etc.) inside as well as outside an element.
- CSS Height and Width: Any element of a website needs to have a defined height and width and to set those adjustments you will be required to see how this can be done with this section that also includes an example.
- CSS Box Model: A toolkit that is used to create any elements of a webpage (including boxes, elements, margin, etc.) will be explained in this section.
- CSS Selectors: An explanation that defines which HTML elements should be selected to have the CSS property values inside the web browser.
Move Up to the “Intermediate” Level (Day 6 – 10)
When you’ve finished with the basics, by now, you must have understood the basic elements of any website. Now, all you need to do is keep a strong grip on the fundamentals of CSS and move up to prepare for the next “Intermediate” level. This section will cover a wide range of topics that includes adding the animation, changing border patterns, adding gradient effects, and much more about any website. Let’s take a look:
- CSS Properties: This section specifies the appearance of any element inside the HTML page and also defines its style
- CSS Functions: Functions are generally used to set the properties of the styling elements and all of the 12 functions are explained in this section for best reference.
Beginning of “Advanced” Level (Day 11 – 15)
Once you’ve gone through the “Intermediate” level, now is the time to explore some of the “Advanced” levels in CSS that will make things clear while designing any website. This section will cover a brief intro about RWD (Responsive Web Design), SASS, etc. Following are the lists for the same:
- Grid Layout Module: This section offers a grid-based layout system, including (rows and columns), that helps in making it easier to design web pages without challenge.
- CSS Flexbox: It helps users in designing a flexible responsive layout structure without using float or positioning inside the webpage.
- Gradient: It helps a developer to transit in different shades of color
- Responsive Web Design: How to create a website that is compatible with all devices being covered in this section.
- Media Queries (for Responsive Web Designs): This section will guide in bringing out mobile-first design and responsive web design in web applications.
Explore the “Expert” Level (Day 16 – 21)
After reaching the expert level, there are certain things to cover up to end the journey of learning CSS and by the end of the 21st day, you’re good to go and you can start applying for job openings. The last section will cover pseudo-class, elements, properties, and handpicked the best course to get the best hands-on experience. Let’s find out.
Projects Based on CSS
- Website Layout: It enables developers to design the layout in rows and columns, and has other features that make building complex layouts a much simpler way.
- Add a Login Form to an Image: As you might have seen on certain websites how they place a login form above the image and that’s what has been explained in this section along with some examples.
- Design GeeksforGeeks logo: It explains how to create any logo using CSS and HTML, you may also find an example for best reference.
- Meet the Team Page Design: This section will elaborate on how you can create a basic structure for the “Meet the Team” page by attaching the icon card of members who will add a button.
- Tribute Page Design: You might have noticed a specific section in any website (in general), where websites do dedicate a section for tribute as a courtesy. This section will explain exactly how you can do the same.
- Design a web page: The required elements in any website (header, navigation, menu, main body, footer, etc.) and their placement has been explained in this section and you can get all the desired outputs while learning this section.
- Contact us Page Design: Any commercial website needs this section so that their targeted users can be contacted when required and to build this page, the required elements, and their placements have been explained.
- Create an Email Newsletter: To create a newsletter structure and its supporting elements can be observed in this section.
- Create a Portfolio Gallery: This section elaborates on how to do the placement of grids in what format so that the user will understand its structure while visiting the webpage.
- Create Image Lightbox Gallery: It is used to view the gallery images in detail whenever any specific section is triggered by the user.
CSS Frameworks for Responsive Web Designs
- Bootstrap: It is used for creating responsive websites and web applications.
- Tailwind CSS: Basically works for UI interface on any website that runs on HTML and CSS.
- Bulma: This framework is based on the CSS Flexbox property and helps in creating a responsive design.
- Foundation: It lets developers design a fully responsive web application that also includes other functionalities.
- Primer CSS: The foundation of the basic style elements such as spacing, typography, and color are explained in this section.
- Spectre CSS: It solves many problems that we had once like the cross-browser compatibility issue and can run independently on any platform without interruptions.
- Materialize CSS: It helps in building a unified user experience for cross-platform.
- Onsen UI: It is designed to offer pre-built CSS components for fast designing versatile and appealing user interface layouts. This enables developers to work on other elements effectively.
- Semantic UI: It is widely used to make any website look more charming and all you need is a CDN link for semantic UI and just put it all together.
- Blaze UI: This UI helps developers to create a scalable and responsive website fast and efficiently with a consistent style.
- Pure CSS: Developers need to know how they can build faster, more responsive web pages that can support mobile devices too and that’s what Pure CSS will do.
- Tachyons: Tachyons enable developers to style a whole website that is faster and lightweight too.
Practice as much as you can if you want to enhance your skills and implement all these applications in real-life scenarios.