The CSS Zen Garden is a Web site that demonstrates how Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be the foundation for powerful, flexible sites. Hundreds of Web designers have taken the Zen Garden code and, varying only the CSS style sheet and the images, made distinctly different sites.

The results have been so beautiful and instructive that they spawned a book, The Zen of CSS Design. In this excerpt from the book, you'll see how Ryan Sims used subtle colors and quiet typography for a site (dubbed "Oceans Apart") that's as soothing as a beach at sunset. The detailed instructions on CSS type are just what you need to control this often-overlooked aspect of Web design.

We've posted this excerpt as a PDF file. To open the PDF file in your Web browser, click "Zen Type." You can also download the PDF to your machine for later viewing.

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Pages 162-167 excerpted from "The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web" by Dave Shea and Molly E. Holzschlag. Copyright © 2005. Used with the permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and New Riders.