Oct 20, 2009
The History of CSSDrive
I’m going to take you on a journey, a ride through time to see what CSSDrive once was, how it evolved and what it has now become. You will experience a great deal while reading this article, everything from nausea, thanks to the 2005 March redesign, to joy when George decided to bless us with a somewhat minimalistic redesign around February of 2006. Lots of highs and lows, and highs and lows, and some more lows thanks to this latest redesign, but all that aside this just shows you how much CSSDrive has done for us a readers, as a community.
Let’s start off with the 2004 CSSDrive design…early September (is the earliest I could get a hold of), while George the owner of CSSDrive was constantly attempting to find new members, sometimes offering ‘free gMail accounts - those were the good ol’days’ - this popped into existence;
Yes, I screamed out in horror the first time i saw it too, but it really does bring a smile to my face. George is a great guy, and to think he came from that, to having a site that now ranks among the top 12,000 sites in the world on alexa is great, just inspiring. But, with every high note there’s a low one and when you thought that CSSDrive could only get better, ouch. It somehow managed to shake that year or so of online evolution and sink back down to an all time low…with this monstrosity;
I know, so it wasn’t as bad as made it out to be, at least he had a proper navigation now, and…this just meant that CSSDrive could only do better here on in! And they did, it only took George around 8 months or so to realize the crime he had committed against humanity was unacceptable, and after having bricks thrown though his window, his mothers pet cat lit on fire and their homes chimney stuffed with 4week old diapers, he got rid of the hideous design, and came out with this soon after;
Things were starting to look, as much as they could, and it looked like CSSDrive was slowly but surely picking up pace, growing, evolving into what would come next;
and then shortly after;
Which might honestly be one of my personal favorites. CSSDrive should have stopped evolving right there, and instead, gone on to adapt to the changes, it didnt in my opinion need another overhaul, I mean look at it. Simplicity at its finest. Sure it might have needed a new logo or at least a cleaner one, nip and tuck here and there but it looked solid. And I can’t say it got much worse, but in late 2007, yes, CSSDrive went ahead and transformed, again;
At this point, you have got to stop and think, bloody hell, it’ll looking alright but it’s had far too many face lifts, or has it? 7 or 8 in all its years of being online can’t be too much, right? Well, Jocelyn Wildenstein wouldn’t think so either. Today, this is what CSSDrive looks like;
That screen cap does it justice. Anyway, I’m not even going to get into what I personally thing of the redesign, as you can see, I doubt it will be the last, I just hope George gets it redesigned before his chimney starts filling up with 4week old diapers eh? 
Oh and I found this along the way, I have no idea what year this is from but I don’t think it was up for long;
Ive been a loyal reader of CSSDrive for years, a loyal contributor for a few years too, and I will remain a friend to George, and a loyal member to CSSDrive for years to come. Ride is over, get gone now, that’s it.
2007 design was a 100x better than this new one. they should go back till they finish a new redesign but it’s kind of cool to see how it changed over time. great article this one toni.
The second one isnt that bad lol
It’s better than a few sites out there today
I don’t know why so many people hate the new design, it’s really busy and there’s so much going on but I think it’s unique. It’s a little girlie but it’s nice.
Mint read, the site has come a long way but i always thought sites were better designed back in 2004 maybe it’s because the site was more of a cms than anything. Anyway i love these kinds of articles man keep up the great work
I still check the news feed over at cssdrive and i’m glad you’re back to posting regularly to spice things up a bit. George has done a great job, I think I’ve been using cssdrive for just over 3years now.
The site is good but I’ve been trying for years to get sites I design to be featured to no avail. It’s frustrating to put into action what you’ve learned as a result of this site and it’s not considered to be showcased. Instead of the daiy visits to this site, it’s now twice a month ordeal that I hardly enjoy. I think it’s the beginning of the end for this web site, it’s manage to offend a lot of it’s loyal visitors. Don;t worry I’ll be at your burial.
wow. nice article. Not too ‘indepth’ but other than pointing out that George has a goat fetish, I dont really know what kind of indepth reporting you could have done!
true, the current layout sucks ass, i mostly stay away, i’ve adblocked most of the site layout so it just looks like a plain text site..kinda like this! (which I love, leave it alone,lol)
it would be really interesting if you could do a story on FAIL REDESIGNS… what goes into the heads of the bosses who sign off on those things? what makes them stick to it even when the FAIL is blatant? very interesting..
kelly, i don’t HATE the redesign, i just thing it’s bad. It’s not at all professional in any way and tbh there are too many things wrong with it to see the one or two decent tweaks…
Sincejan, i’d love it if you could link to some of the sites you’ve designed in the future. CSSDrive gets tons of daily submissions so it’s hard moderating them, checking to see if they’re unique and inspirational enough to post etc. Having said that, link me to some of your designs, please
byron - glad you like my blogs design, and thanks for the idea, i’ll definitely think about an article on Failed Site Redesigns. If you have any input on which sites i should include then drop me an email to t[at]tonizova.com anytime mate.
@admin - what defines professional? Aside from being “busy”, cssdrive looks fantastic…in my opinion.
I’m nowhere near a pro graphic designer but I am curious as to the flaws/issues you mentioned. If for no other reason but to avoid them myself in the future
Tim, appreciate the comment.
Besides being ‘busy’ you have to put the user before anything else. Will a new user be able to make out what’s going on within the first few seconds of scanning the site. The ‘color search/search site’ section is almost camouflaged, the Registration section is god awful in terms of color and design, i mean look at it you know?
The news section isnt divided, i mean there’s not even enough white/neg space between that and either column on the left/right. So it all mrges in as one big section with the content dumped in there to fill up the section.
Entire template seems to be left aligned…if a users screen res is 1680×1050 or anything over then there’s so much wasted space to the right and that right border isnt exactly well designed tbh…
there’s a ton more, but you get my drift i’m sure
Nice to see the evolution of CSSDrive. I’ve not been a regular visitor of CSSDrive, but only through the second last.
CSSDrive rocks.
Cool Collection
That’s funny! Never noticed the “color search” until you mentioned it was camouflaged - I went hunting for it…took me a sec to find it.
my point exactly
it’s all about the users, if you have functions, that’s great, if your users can’t use them or don’t know they exist, then what’s the point?