Themes and Page Layout you own this product

prerequisites
intermediate CSS
skills learned
Using custom properties to set theme colors • Using a media query to set a theme based on user preferences • Color contrast checking and accessibility-related concerns • Using :where() to apply a rule to multiple selectors • Loading and configuring a variable front using @font-face • Creating fallbacks using @supports
Martine Dowden
1 week · 2-4 hours per week · INTERMEDIATE
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Look inside

Any web developer worth their salt needs an eye-catching portfolio site—and so your boss at Consultants Inc. has told you you need to make one! In this liveProject, you’ll experiment with delivering both light and dark themes for your site using CSS, custom properties, and a locally hosted variable font. Remember, web design is about self-expression—so don’t be afraid to play around with your code to help it fit you and your personality.

This project is designed for learning purposes and is not a complete, production-ready application or solution.

project author

Martine Dowden

An award-winning CTO, UX/UI designer and developer, international speaker, and author, Martine focuses on web interfaces that are beautiful, functional, and accessible. She approaches user experience from both art and science perspectives, drawing from her degrees in psychology and visual communications. She has worked as a developer, artist, educator, and consultant since 2005. To stay active in the industry she writes articles, leads workshops, and speaks at conferences and meetups worldwide. Her favorite topics to present are frontend web development, CSS, user experience, interaction design, accessibility, and Firebase. In recognition of her work in the community, she was awarded and still maintains the Google Developer Expert (GDE) status and the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP).


In 2015, she published a children’s book, Programming Languages ABC++, of which the workbook edition sold over 20,000 copies in 2016. She then went on to write Approachable Accessibility: Planning for Success, which was released in June 2019, and Architecting CSS: The Programmer’s Guide to Effective Stylesheets in 2020.


Currently, she is the CTO at Andromeda Galactic Solutions where she continues to learn, work on, and share her passion for frontend development.

prerequisites

This liveProject is for frontend developers looking to learn the new features of CSS. To begin this liveProject, you will need to know the following:


TOOLS
  • Intermediate CSS
  • Intermediate HTML
  • Beginner npm
TECHNIQUES
  • HTML elements
  • CSS box model
  • CSS cascading

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book resources
Get full access to select books for 90 days. Permanent access to excerpts from Manning products are also included, as well as references to other resources.

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