I submitted an entry to the Sitepoint CSS Design Contest yesterday. They have a pre-made HTML page that you add your own CSS and graphics to. At first, I glanced at the HTML page and thought this would be an easy contest – there wasn’t a whole lot of HTML. Once I started working on it however, I realized it was going to be harder than I thought.

SitePoint had intentionally made the HTML a little – shall we say – difficult! They had imbedded img tags inside of h1 tags, div’s with the same class name imbedded within each other, very few tags to work with, etc.

Man! Trying to get everything to go where I wanted it and to line up evenly was an incredible challenge – but fun! I really enjoyed doing this design. One thing is for sure – this contest for hand-coder web developers only (which I am, of course!). It separates the boys (WYSIWYG designers) from the men (hand-coder designers). This is a great example of why you should hand code your sites. I encourage all web designers to participate – it was a good challenge.

Here is my contest entry.

I doubt I win, but that’s not the point. Each time you enter a contest like this, it exposes more of your work and builds up your portfolio. Not only that, but it might draw in a few potential clients if they like your design! Add into this the fact that you are getting hits to your website when people view your contest entry, thus increasing your Google page rank, and it’s hard to find an excuse not to enter the contest.

So have at it! I challenge all you hand-coders out there to enter! Its good practice and good marketing!