Interview
be. It’s so much more straightforward
than a lot of the hacks that we had to do
in the past to build web layouts.”
Chen was also hooked by the different
mindset that CSS Grid requires. “You have
to relinquish control, which should be the
way that we build things on the web,simply because your content could be
viewed in so many different contexts. It’s
impossible to control. In print you come
up with a really beautiful design, send it
to the printer and then it comes out at a
certain ratio, gets stuck to a certain wall
and people walking by look at it that way.
On the web somebody could view your
design on a 70-inch television screen or
on a tiny 3-inch budget phone screen. So
Grid and Flexbox came out because the
spec editors thought we should have a tool
that enables us to cater for this very
uncertain canvas that we’re building for.
I can’t think of any other medium that
functions the same way and challenges
us – designers and developers – to
simultaneously consider all the different“You have to relinquish
control, which should be
the way we build things
on the web because
content can be viewed
in so many contexts”
post that gained traction. Everything
previously had pretty much been for my
own reference. I was just documenting
my notes from my own learning.”
Chen became friends with Simmons,
kept blogging and co-founded Talk.CSS,
the first meetup in Singapore around all
things CSS. Her passion for CSS led to
Mary Lou from web design and
development publication Codrops inviting
her to continue to build up a CSS reference
started by Sara Soueidan (tympanus.net/
codrops/css_reference). One of the
properties she covered was CSS Grid. “I
had heard about it from Rachel Andrew,”
Chen recalls. “It sounded interesting but
until I actually used it and built stuff with
it, I didn’t realise how powerful it couldPh
ot
o:^
Im
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