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Today WebM.ag are speaking the master of CSS… Mr.Chris Coyier! Chris works out of Chicago, IL and is responsible for CSS-Tricks as well a number of other projects. Chris also is a frequent blogger, tweeter, author and speaker.

WebM.ag: Welcome To WebM.ag Chris, Tell our readers a little about yourself and what you do?
CC: I am a web designer for a small design company out of Madison, Wisconsin.

WebM.ag: You have a few projects on your hands, do you want to tell us more about them?
CC: I work during the day, and then most of my extra projects time right now goes to finishing my book, Digging Into WordPress. We are in the final design and fine tuning stages, which is great. There is the blog that goes along with that as well. And of course CSS-Tricks takes up a good amount of time.

WebM.ag: What would you say was the most challenging part of your job?
CC: Clients are really great at throwing you curveballs for requests. Things you never expected you’d have to do, now you are scrambling to do. That happens to me all the time, which is sometimes great in that it forces me to learn and adapt and get good ideas to write about. Sometimes it’s very stressful though.

WebM.ag: CSS-Tricks is massive, there is no other way to describe it! But has the site followed your original plan or has it changed direction somewhat?
CC: It has stayed fairly true to what is always has been, a website about web design. What has changed over time is that it has grown into be a larger community. The discussions are livelier in the blog and there are forums for people to truly converse. The biggest change since day one has been expansion. Of course the name is kind of misleading too, I don’t just write about CSS, I write about really anything web design related.

WebM.ag: CSS is fantastic and has done wonders for web design and development, but is there anything about it that bugs you?
CC: There are always things you wish it could do that it can’t. Personally I would love variables in CSS, but I’m aware there are some pretty strong arguments against it. I wish you could set an anchor point for positioning background images. I wish you could do simple mathematics like 100% – 20px.  But most of all, I wish CSS3 was ready to rock and every person in the world started using browsers that supported it over night.

WebM.ag: If you had to be remembered for one piece of your work, what would it be and why?
CC: CSS-Tricks is a teaching site, so I get a lot of emails from folks thanking me for helping them get into web design. I feel like if I am to be remembered for anything, it will be that. I think that’s great!

WebM.ag: What advice would you give to a newbie starting out in web design or development?
CC: Build websites. A lot of them. It’s just like any other skill.  If you want to be good at rock climbing you got to climb a lot of rock walls. If you want to be a good violinist you’d better be in front of sheet music for a lot of hours a day. If you want to be good at web design or development, you need to build websites.

WebM.ag: Sorry! I must ask your thoughts on CSS3, are there any stand out features for you? And what’s you thoughts on the various browsers support for it?
CC: I’ve actually just started to be really stoked about transforms and transitions. A lot of this stuff you can already do in with JavaScript libraries, which is awesome, but I’m even more excited about pulling off stuff like color transitions with pure CSS. My #1 CSS3 feature: multiple backgrounds. Hat tip to the WebKit people, who are leading the CSS3 charge.

WebM.ag: Outside of the web what other interests do you have?
CC: I like me some college football. I play the guitar, banjo, and mandolin and I really love old time music. Honestly I need to get back more into it because so many of my hours are going to web design stuff lately I need a break!

WebM.ag: Your predictions for design in 2010, what will be “The Next Big Thing?”
CC: Fantastic web typography! Right now, there is an insurgence of great tools for this and we are going to see lots of great typography stuff in 2010.

WebM.ag: So what can we expect from you going into 2010 and beyond?
CC: Oh I’m just going to keep plugging away on my projects and trying to become a better designer. I’ve come a long way as a designer in just a few years and I really want to keep at it, keep working on fundamentals, and get better and better.

Quick Fire!

Music Of Choice? Old time
What are you reading? The Road
IE6, love or hate? It’s time for us to stop caring about it
PC or MAC? Mac
Facebook or Twitter? Twitter

A Big Thank You To Chris!

Thank you for taking time out to chat Chris, we at WebM.ag are really excited about your book release and upcoming projects, keep us in the loop! You can contact Chris via his website: http://chriscoyier.net or give him a shout over on Twitter: @chriscoyier

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