With the rise of Flash and CSS in 1997, three web design philosophies emerged. David Siegel advocated for 'hacks', Jakob Nielsen kept it simple, while Jeffrey Zeldman combined flair with usability.

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Three influential web design philosophies emerged in 1997 as CSS and Flash gained popularity. David Siegel promoted HTML 'hacks' and visual aesthetics, Jakob Nielsen advocated for simple, semantic designs focused on usability, while Jeffrey Zeldman sought to balance design flair with web standards compliance. The article traces their careers and approaches, showing how Zeldman's pragmatic philosophy of combining standards with creativity ultimately prevailed in the web design community.

The 3 Gurus of 90s Web Design: Zeldman, Siegel, Nielsen