What are absolute units? What are the differences between relative and absolute units, and how do we create accurate sizes on the web? In this article, Elad Shechter explains why CSS absolute units aren’t so absolute.

by @dfadeyev

The varying viewports that our websites encounter on a daily basis continue to demand more from responsive design. Not only must we continue to tackle the issues of content choreography — the art of maintaining order and context throughout the chaotic ebb and flow of the Web browser — but we must also **meet the expectations of users**.

Michelangelo once said, "The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself." Translate this to the world of Web design and you might say, "No matter how great a designer you are, you’re only as good as your content." While the reality of client work sometimes makes it challenging to gather and produce content prior to starting the design, this is now widely accepted as being necessary.

This article tries to show how developing a process for Web design can organize a developer's thoughts, speed up a project's timeline and prepare a freelance business for growth. First of all, what exactly is a 'process'? A **Web development process** is a documented outline of the steps needed to be taken from start to finish in order to complete a typical Web design project.

There are tools that make our lives much easier. However, finding those obscure time-savers which would save time in every single project isn't easy and requires a lot of time. At Smashing Magazine, we are regularly looking for such useful tools, gather them, review them and eventually prepare for a truly smashing round-up. Such posts are quite lengthy and extensive, but they are always worth checking out.

Israel is a young country with an old heart. It has been quickly built up over the last 60 years as an independent democratic Jewish state and is shockingly cutting edge for a country so new. What’s unique about Israeli web design?

I had the opportunity to work with some very talented and highly experienced designers who all had made the jump from other design fields to the Web. It was there, as part of that training, that I learned about **critiquing**, both giving and receiving, through regular design reviews.

“Mathematics is beautiful.” This may sound absurd to people who wince at numbers and equations. But some of the most beautiful things in nature and our universe exhibit mathematical properties, from the smallest seashell to the biggest whirlpool galaxies. In fact, one of the greatest ancient philosophers, Aristotle, said: “The mathematical sciences particularly exhibit order, symmetry and limitation; and these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.”

Planning and communication are two key elements in the development of any successful website or application. And that is exactly what the wireframing process offers: a quick and simple method to plan the layout and a cost-effective, time-saving tool to easily communicate your ideas to others.