Valhalla Island

Reuse, reuse, reuse! If your stylesheet is 500 lines long, you’re doing something wrong and it’ll show in your design. Website design, or design in general should use consistent presentation for different kinds of elements. CSS makes it easy to make sure elements are perfectly consistent. I’ll often use the exact same set of properties for 6 or 7 selectors.

Of course there’s situations where 500 lines of CSS is legitimate - an extremely complex design will require more because that’s just how much it takes - anything by Matt Brett or the NY Times for example.  But I’ve found CSS not only gets harder to physically manage as you’re working but consistency is lost and the design becomes unnecessarily complex. When you’re working with a small stylesheet, constantly reusing properties, you’re guaranteed consistency and hopefully a better looking website.