Daniel Marino

My Thoughts on Blueprint

Lately, there seems to be a lot of hype about the new CSS framework Blueprint. I think it’s great that Olav Bjorkoy has taken the time to create the perfect CSS framework. What makes it perfect? Every column, line-height, header, and font-size in general is perfectly calculated. It even comes with a test grid, a typography example, and a tutorial. It truly is beautiful to see it in action, and it looks really sharp.

Having said that, I don’t think Blueprint is very practical. Every website is different and I don’t see how having a CSS framework can make things go faster. If anything, I would think it would be more of a hindrance, having to rename styles, or reformat them to fit the design of the site. I’m not saying there aren't exceptions to using a CSS framework. But where CSS plays such an integral roll in web design these days, I think design needs more than a generic CSS framework, no matter how perfect it may be. I think it would be faster, more semantic, and more efficient to just start from scratch.

Nathan Smith said it best:

For what it's worth, Blueprint is very well thought out. If I ever need to put together a news oriented website on a 14 column grid, it’d be a great stating point. However, I’d rather let the overall requirements of a project dictate whether or not a framework is used, as opposed to forcing a square-peg / round-hole scenario.

If everyone starts using Blueprint, are all of our websites going to start looking the same? This would cause design and technology on the web to regress. People would no longer bother to try to break the mold because it wouldn’t fit within the universal framework. I realize I’m probably over-exaggerating here, but I think you can see my point.