Modern HTML & CSS Guide for Artists
A craft-focused, two-part guide covering modern HTML and CSS fundamentals for artists and other creatives.
Dania Rifki
Table of content
A craft-focused, two-part guide covering modern HTML and CSS fundamentals for artists and other creatives. No prior coding experience assumed, no frameworks required. We'll cover only the most important parts, taught so you can design and build your own portfolio site from scratch, using skills that carry over to any other site you build afterward.
What you'll learn
Across two parts, you'll learn enough HTML (Chapters 1-8) and CSS (Chapters 9-20) to create a simple, durable portfolio site for your work: pages for your art, an about page, navigation, images, typography, color, layout that works on any device, and how to structure your code so it holds up as the site grows. The two guides are designed to be read in order, but the HTML guide stands on its own if you're not ready for CSS yet.
The Living Document
A painting or a print has a fixed form. Once it's finished, it stays finished. A website is different. It's a living document. Content gets added, removed, and rearranged. Pages grow. Features change. The work is never truly "done" in the way a finished piece of art is.
This means that as changes compound over time, structure and organisation matter more than they might in a static medium. But structure isn't just a practical concern. It's a craft in its own right. The way you organise your code has its own aesthetics: the rhythm of well-named elements, the satisfaction of a layout that accommodates change without breaking, the elegance of a system where every piece has a clear reason to exist. Learning to see and appreciate that structure is part of becoming good at this.
These guides focus heavily on that craft, because getting it right from the start is one of the most valuable things you can do.