If you’re working with a web designer for marketing on your website, you need to know whether your designer is formatting your website with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This is important because a website can be designed on one computer yet appear totally different on the next. This is a browser and operating system issue as well as a display issue.
The most dramatic differences can be seen if you look at a website on a PC versus a Mac, use Internet Explorer version 6 versus 9, use Firefox versus Chrome, or view on different monitors. Consistency, though, must be a key element when branding your site, and CSS is the common thread that allows that consistency to be maintained.
Among other things, using CSS helps ensure that
Larger fonts don’t appear too large
Smaller letters don’t come across as unreadable
Text and other elements have a consistent look on every webpage
Rows and columns appear the same width and height
Spacing between images and text is the same
Border colors and thickness are identical
If you’re not interested in designing your website, that’s fine. Just share this information with your designer so that, together, you can plan for the appropriate CSS components to help every page of your site appear visually consistent, no matter what type of computer, monitor, or browser people use to view it.
Many designers do not have the programming expertise to migrate their own web designs into proper CSS styles. Expect the possibility that you may need to pay an additional helper who’s more specialized in programming and CSS coding to finish the job when your design is complete. As the web gets more complex, the use of multiple specialists on the same project is becoming more common.
