I’ve always been impressed with the work over at CSS Zen Garden because it’s such a simple idea that also communicates an inherently powerful message: given the same HTML output, get designers competing to push the boundaries of what is possible, and show just how powerful CSS really is.

Wonder of wonders then, that Manchester has its very own physical event based on a similar theme in the form of CSSHackNight being hosted by Andrew Disley. Andrew, for those of you unaware, is the instigator of GeekUp and so I’m sure within 3 years this will also become a monstrous beast of an event stomping over the North of England sucking up all the good, healthy, geek meat it can.

The idea is, as with CSS Zen Garden, ridiculously simple.

Turn up at one of the leading digital marketing agencies in Manchester at 7pm one Autumnal evening with a laptop. Sit yourself down in their rather funky offices, take a look at a site belonging to a community group somewhere in Manchester, and hack away at that CSS. You have the whole night, so you’d better do something good - just adding a bit of padding (about the strength of my design skills) isn’t going to cut it.

In the process, you get to hang out with - and compete with in the healthy sense - some of the cool kids on the Manchester design scene, spend a night discovering just how badly sleep deprivation manifests itself in your aesthetic judgment, and help a community group get some design grooves going on leaving you with a little warm/fuzzy feeling inside your belly.

Actually, the warm/fuzzy feeling is probably a symptom of sleep deprivation as well, but it’ll pass.

There’s space for just 40 people apparently, so if I were you - and sometimes I wish I was - I’d get yourself registered.