Styles Conference — Where It All Began
One of my very first project, built alongside Shay Howe's beginner e-books.
Every developer knows that one moment when the penny drops — when markup stops looking like noise and starts looking like structure. For me, that moment came while working through Learn to Code HTML & CSS by Shay Howe.
Styles Conference is the project that runs through the entire book — a fictional conference website that introduces selectors, the box model, positioning, and typography in a way that actually makes sense. For the first time, these concepts felt less like rules to memorize and more like tools I could reach for.
What I love about Shay's approach is how deliberately he builds one concept on top of the next. By the end of the beginner book you have a real, multi-page website — not a collection of disconnected snippets. Those first "aha" moments are the reason I stuck with it.
If you're looking for a solid, well-written introduction to frontend development, I can't recommend these two books highly enough:
- Learn to Code HTML & CSS — the beginner book, perfect for getting started
- Learn to Code Advanced HTML & CSS — the follow-up, covering transitions, animations, performance, and more
Both are available free online and are among the best-written technical tutorials I've ever come across. When someone asks me where to start, this is still the first thing I point to.
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