A few months ago, my sister discovered myspace. Well, maybe that was when she first discovered the customization potential of myspace profiles. In any event, she contacted me about a makeover for her myspace profile.

With my experience in web design and my familiarity with myspace, I said, "Anything for my little sister," and jumped right in -- little realizing just what a morass I was diving into!

Myspace web design, as experienced web designers have amply noted, is a mess. I found a couple informal tutorials, spent a couple hours piecing together the typeface controls in the myspace style sheet, organized this as much as possible, and gave up. Fortunately, there are others who have not been so quick to throw in the towel. And some are even making a small fortune tricking out -- if not exactly civilizing -- myspace.

I myself have had a myspace account from very near the beginning (back in 2003) which I had more or less abandoned not long after setting up. I always thought friendster the superior product, but the vagaries of the market being what they are, myspace triumphed. It's probably not a coincidence that myspace gives you much more control over your profile, however perverse and convoluted those controls may be. And as cynics like to say, with freedom come the greatest opportunities... for chaos.

Simplicity is likely out of the question. But the goal here is to build a sensible, reusable, civilized myspace stylesheet. One that even my sister could use.

This blog will be styled using my blogger stack template.

See the references section at right for some of the guides and tutorials that have lifted me on their shoulders.