Best Practices - CSS Theming

Question

Quite often when I design a website for a customer, I design his website with one (or multiple) CSS files that makes up the entire presentation layer. The thing is, usually, the

Answer 1

Good Question. +1

I think for simpler layouts, where you can get away with theme changes based only on colors defined within CSS, then it makes sense to separate your CSS files into a core 'structural' file and several themed versions.

For more complicated themes, where images are imported as key parts of the layout or theme, it's better to completely nest your resources under a theme. You can see examples of this by exploring the directory structures of Javascript packages like Dojo that allow you switch between multiple themes. If you look through "Tundra" or "Soria" directory structures within the Dijit library, you'll see which 'best practices' they employed in dividing up their CSS files.