The goal is to balance pure information with an aesthetic that not only complements the message but becomes part of the voice. Take control of the trade-offs letting the Web's limitations sharpen your focus rather than ensure your downfall. Know Your Code Build pages manually for more control and compatibility. Graphic text is not accessible to search engines and readers, and does not scale well. Think like a hacker HTML 3.2 did not provide layout capabilities so designers hacked tables to lay out their pages.
Style sheets let designers break through the rigid display rules of each browser.
You can change entire sites automatically by changing one style sheet. You can offer your content in different styles based on the client type. WebTV, print, hand-held, all can be addressed. CSS2 allows exact positioning, so designers can layout pages without tables. Test your pages widely.