Jabberwocky

Background info

Lewis Carroll is an American author. He is known for a little book called Alice in Wonderland. He did, however, write more than just that. Notably, he wrote a sequel to Alice in Wonderland under the title Through the Looking Glass. Within that sequel there was a little poem called 'Jabberwocky' included in it. To most who read it, it will make no sense and sound like nonsense... which is exactly what it is. It makes little sense. As the poem is in public domain, I'll go ahead and give you an excerpt from it:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

 Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; 

All mimsy were the borogoves, 

And the mome raths outgrabe.

 "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! 

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun 

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

This is just the first few stanzas, and it is a bit longer. But this was a good little taste of how little sense the poem actually makes. So my goal in all of this: create a website with pre-coded html that I couldn't edit to make a site based around the Jabberwocky. 

No HTML Change?

I was given pre-made html code and had to go from there to really see the power of CSS. This idea is based off of a website called CSS Zen Garden  where multiple people do just that; make a unique website without changing ANY html. It isn't as bad as you'd think, actually. You just need to learn to think outside of the box. 

The Pre-Stage

I didn't go into the project with just guns blazing. I had to plan out what I wanted to do. To the right is the sketch of what I wanted the website to look like. I really enjoyed the idea of having a sword be around the menu of the entire website. While things changed a lot during production itself, it was still a good starting point and let me experiment with what I can and can't do. It took quite awhile to realize how to do things that I would have considered simple if I just messed with the html. However, once I did learn, I realized it was usually easier with CSS!

Making the Website 

This website took a lot of work and I had to make a lot of mistakes and changes to the css until I could finally get what I wanted. From my original website sketch, I will admit... I did end up changing a lot. But that isn't a bad thing at all! It let me see what could and couldn't work in CSS as opposed to just what I can do on paper. The final product is something that I can say I'm proud of. To finish my website, it maybe took me a total of about 7 hours. Of course there was a lot of changes in that time period. My original website when I thought I was "done" looks completely different from what I have now. It was tough and a lot of trial and error, but I learned the real power that css has. 

Wanna see the website in action? Check it out here!