Speakers: Christopher Schmitt

Session

Designing Around CSS

CSS radically changes the way we can alter the presentation of our documents. As designers, though, we sometimes limit our designs by taking CSS properties at their face value. In this session, walk through how to take various strategies for working with CSS to create a rich visual presentation out of everyday markup.

Bio

Christopher Schmitt is the founder of Heat Vision, a small new media publishing and design firm. An award-winning Web designer who has been working with the Web since 1993, Christopher interned for both David Siegel and Lynda Weinman in the mid-90s while he was an undergraduate at Florida State University working on a fine arts degree with an emphasis on graphic design.

Afterward, he earned a master’s in communication for Interactive and New Communication Technologies while obtaining a graduate certificate in project management from FSU’s College of Communication.

In 2000, he led a team to victory in the Cool Site in a Day competition, where he and five other talented developers built a fully functional, well-designed Web site for a nonprofit organization in eight hours.

Author of numerous Web design and digital imaging books, including CSS Cookbook and Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites, Christopher has also written for New Architect Magazine, A List Apart, Digital Web, and Web Reference. At conferences such as Web Visions and SXSW, Christopher has given talks demonstrating the use and benefits of practical standards-based designs. He is the list moderator for Babble, a mailing list community devoted to advanced Web design and development topics.

He is 6′7″ and does not play professional basketball but wouldn’t mind a good game of chess.