CSS Naked Day

Welcome to the CSS Naked Day website!. The third annual Naked Day for 2008 has already passed, but join us next year on Thursday April 9, 2009. See also 2006, and 2007.

English, Spanish, French, Thai, Chinese, [Korean 01, Korean 02], German 01 Bulgarian, Hungarian, [Russian 01, Russian 02], Ukrainian, Croatian, Turkish
(if you translated most of this page to another langauge, let me know)

Where did my Design go?

The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good 'ol play on words. It's time to show off your <body>.

How to participate

Fill out the naked day signup form, then your website will be included in the official list within the next hour.

Then on April 9th, simply remove all CSS from your website, stripping it entirely of its design.

(Optional): Insert the following snippet of markup at the top of your page on the day of.

<h3>What happened to the design?</h3>
<p>To know more about why styles are disabled on this website visit the
<a href="http://naked.dustindiaz.com" title="Web Standards Naked Day Host Website">
Annual CSS Naked Day</a> website for more information.</p>

This option for those who feel a need to give their visitors a reference as to what's going on. This is not about getting traffic or making money. There are no ads on this site, nor will there ever be. This is about you, the people; getting naked.

When is it again?

A few folks were curious about the date of CSS Naked Day. Here's a few reasons why it's on April 9th this year.

The date should always be on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday (most highly trafficked days)
It should be near the first week of April
It should never be on April 1st (international prank day)
There should be at least five days ahead of time before the announcement

Don't think, just strip

Here is a sample PHP function for you

<?php
function is_naked_day($d) {
  $start = date('U', mktime(-12, 0, 0, 04, $d, date('Y')));
  $end = date('U', mktime(36, 0, 0, 04, $d, date('Y')));
  $z = date('Z') * -1;
  $now = time() + $z; 
  if ( $now >= $start && $now <= $end ) {
    return true;
  }
  return false;
}
?>

Use it like this


<head>
...
<?php
if ( is_naked_day(9) ) {
  echo '<!-- naked day has no styles -->';
} else {
  echo '<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="styles.css" />';
}
?>
...
</head>

Tools & Plugins

Attention Plugin Developers. Most of last years plugins are out of sync on the date of Naked Day. Take note of the changes to the function above whereby it takes in a argument representing the day of the month. If you have a Naked Day plugin for a popular CMS, please email me at

Jim Auldridge has created a nice PHP Naked Day Timer Class that has fun methods that can determine if Naked Day is coming soon, if it's over, is it now, how long until.... Thanks Jim. Very fun. Check out the API doc as well.
Aja's updated most excellent Wordpress Naked Day Plugin
Tore Darell has provided a simple Rails Helper to go naked for 48 hours
Josh Stodola has created an ASP.net Naked Day Class
Reto has created a Naked Day plugin for the LifeType Blogging platform
Tante shows us how to implement a snippet for Serendipity
Paul Anthony has a classic ASP snippet of code
And if all else fails, Marat threw together a nakedDay.js

Famous Words

This is a fun idea, fully in line with the reasons for creating CSS in the first place. While most designers are attracted by the extra presentational capabilities, saving HTML from becoming a presentational language was probably a more important motivation for most people who participated in the beginning.

Håkon Wium Lie

Drop some love to those that went nude

Final list for 2008 (randomized once a day)