CSS: A Really Simple Introduction

Sometimes, before you get into the intricacies of a subject, you just want a really simple, conceptual overview of what it involves.

This video provides a really simple, absolute beginner-level introduction to the concept of CSS and how it works. It is part of a series. You can view a list of all the videos on the “Really Simple” Series page.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/embed/o6tF-T0Z6ms?rel=0

Shownotes

Here are some links to useful resources that complement this video.

Online CSS Resources

The following sites provide useful beginning information about CSS:

• Learning resources by HTML Dog
• Lessons and tutorials by the Mozilla Developer Network
• SitePoint’s CSS Reference

Books and Courses

Here are a few books and online courses worth checking out:

• Introduction to CSS by Treehouse
• Getting Started with CSS, an online course at Learnable
• Head First HTML with CSS and XHTML, a book by O’Reilly
• Stylin’ With CSS, a New Riders book
• CSS Mastery, a book by Andy Budd

Other resources

These are some useful links relating to color:

• For an explanation of colors in CSS, read this simple post on ways to set color in CSS
• Color Scheme Designer (mentioned in the video). Other similar sites include Kuler, Kolur, ColorExplorer and ColorSchemer
• These are a few of many online tools for assessing the accessibility of your color combinations: Vischeck, Check My Colours, Contrast-A, Juicy Studio’s Luminosity Colour Contrast Ratio Analyser, Colorblind Web Page Filter and Snook’s Color Contrast Check.