The concept of designing Web pages using only a Web browser is popular these days. It’s easy to understand why: browser developer tools make it simple to make a real-time change to HTML, CSS, or even JavaScript, see its effect immediately, and save the result back to the originating file. Furthermore, there’s a certain symmetry in building for the Web using the same tools that others will eventually use to experience your work. Unfortunately, this approach has a limitation of which would-be browser-based designers need be aware.

In an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, author Nick Hornby stated, “the limit placed on the limitless actually does spark the imagination”. This is true of Web design, as well as writing: the scariest thing to many people remains a bare canvas, empty text editor, or blank sheet of paper. In-browser design provides this limit, as we’re constrained by the rules of the technologies on which we rely. Content must flow linearly, and appearance must be described only with a set of predefined rules. In a way, though, designing in a browser is a bit like coloring a placemat at a restaurant: you have some outlines on a sheet, and three (four, if you’re lucky) colors of crayons. Though one can certainly make art in this medium, it’s severely restricting.

On your next project, instead of jumping straight into the browser, take a few minutes and look at the bigger picture. Don’t get bogged down in shoe-horning your content into the correct series of tags, or finding the perfect border-radius right away. Step away from the browser and do some sketching. Let your ideas flow onto a piece of paper, whiteboard, or tablet. Don’t concern yourself (yet) with making pixels line-up just so, and see where the freedom of your imagination takes you. border-radius will still be there when you need it.