Tiled Background Designer is just a small, useful tool to create patterns. Experiment with pictures, colors, textures and transparency to get best result.
posted on Jul 17, 2008 - View this thread

Web Designer Wall is the personal weblog of Nick La who is N.Design Studio. He talks about design ideas he has, design tutorials from Photoshop to CSS, etc., and trends in modern web design. (see previous)
posted on Jul 3, 2008 - View this thread

The Employable Web Designer ― Andy Rutledge at Design View constructs a list of suggestions to help aspiring designers better craft their own preparedness and, if necessary, adjust their degree plans toward a more effective and responsive result in the web design field. (previously)
posted on Jun 28, 2008 - View this thread

Family Tree of the Greek Gods is a site using a visual organizer (now in beta) called Spicy Nodes. They call it a "natural and inviting" way to present information in "nuggets" that move in virtual space as you view them one by one. Another example: Daylight Savings Time.
posted on Mar 8, 2008 - View this thread

What did the Internet look like in 1996? "...very few web designers had even the most rudimentary of aesthetic sensibilities, and nearly half of them were clinically retarded."
posted on Jan 26, 2008 - View this thread

CommandShift3 is like Hot or Not. Except, instead of clicking on hot babes, you click on hot websites. It's actually a pretty nice way to check out good design on the web.
posted on Dec 11, 2007 - View this thread

Best Web Gallery is an inspirational gallery site where we collect a wide range of quality design websites (Flash & CSS). What is quality design means to us? Quality Design = Visual + Technical + Creativity. Also, Best of CSS design for 2007.
posted on Dec 3, 2007 - View this thread

Jeffrey Zeldman on what web design is and isn't.
posted on Nov 21, 2007 - View this thread

MakeMyLogoBigger Cream is a clinically proven formula which embiggens your logo, gets rid of annoying whitespace, adds SEO magic crystals and reams of powerful marketing text! See Also.
posted on Oct 30, 2007 - View this thread

If Google was designed for Google.
posted on Oct 16, 2007 - View this thread

Design Patterns, Reuse, recycle, but don’t reinvent the wheel unless necessary. This collection captures findings of consistent, unique or interesting interfaces and design flows from across the web. One of the many tools, tutorials etc. from Smashing Magazine's list, Best of September 2007.
posted on Oct 10, 2007 - View this thread

Vernacular Web 2: Two years ago I wrote an article titled "A Vernacular Web", in which I tried to collect, classify and describe the most important elements of the early Web – visual as well as acoustic – and the habits of first Web users, their ideas of harmony and order. I’m talking about everything that became a subject of mockery by the end of the last century when professional designers arrived, everything that fell out of use and turns up every now and again as the elements of “retro” look in site design or in the works of artists exploring the theme of “digital folklore”: the “Under Construction” signs, outer space backgrounds, MIDI-files, collections of animated web graphics and so on.
posted on Sep 4, 2007 - View this thread

Web Sites Accessible for Everyone is a fairly comprehensive site, offering a variety of resources for anyone interested in website accessibility. I've found the AJAX and Accessibility section particularly interesting. Thank you University of Washington.
posted on Apr 12, 2007 - View this thread

It’s not too hard to create an eye-explodingly ugly site on MySpace. It’s rather more difficult to elicit beauty (or at least good taste) from the MySpace beast. But coder Mike Davidson has succeeded. You can find out he did it--and how to do it yourself--here.
posted on Aug 23, 2006 - View this thread

Unfortunately, MeFi blue didn't make it on to the Web 2.0 Palette. I never liked MeFi Link Yellow, anyway. via.
posted on Apr 3, 2006 - View this thread

Meet the new New York Times. After five years, the most popular newspaper on the web has gotten a facelift. Joining a recent web design trend towards optimizing for wider screens, they've gone for no fewer than six columns on the front page. And while I wouldn't look for a wiki any time soon, they seem to be giving a nod to the web 2.0 crowd with javascipty scrollable image bars and prominent links to recent video (hello, YouTube) and current rankings of their most popular, most emailed and most blogged articles (hello, Technorati). The new Times Topics aggregate articles (and multimedia) from across the site, along with background info (hello, Wikipedia). All the more impressive, considering the head of their design team (who also redid The Onion!) was hired just three months ago. Of course, Mickey Kaus will still see this as proof that Sulzburger should be fired.
posted on Apr 3, 2006 - View this thread

Patent squatters Eolas decide to break a significant portion of the websites in the world. (Previously)
posted on Mar 20, 2006 - View this thread

Google Pages is basically Geocities 2.0. You get a wysiwyg editing interface, a bunch of templates to pick from, and the ability to make as many pages as you need. Time will tell if this revolutionizes the web the way Geocities did (aside from all the obvious crappy pages from Geocities, it did give thousands of new writers and designers a place to start), but it's certainly a cool set of tools to do something mundane like start a website. [via waxy]
posted on Feb 23, 2006 - View this thread

Tools for Web Developers. Yahoo gives away some free stuff for people who want to get into Ajax Development. This seems like a nice addition to the other libraries already available.
posted on Feb 14, 2006 - View this thread

A literal cornucopia of online web design resources to help you keep on top of specifications and sites related to CSS, accessibility, graphic design (color tables and theory), DOM, typography, and much, much more...
posted on Oct 29, 2005 - View this thread

FEMA fudging dates? (scroll down a bit). That's their screenshot, and then the current google cache, and the current page.
posted on Sep 4, 2005 - View this thread

How the Onion Got a Facelift , and in the process offered their full news archives from 1996 to the present available online for free. The Onion A.V. Club also finds a new home.
posted on Aug 31, 2005 - View this thread

Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications. From our own JJG, a look at the next big thing in web app interfaces. Link via some guy named Matt. Time to start studying XMLHttpRequest.
posted on Feb 21, 2005 - View this thread

Billy Harvey's Music.
posted on Jan 6, 2005 - View this thread

Follow the Rhinos Weblog tracking two white Rhinos as they travel next month to the Phoenix Zoo. Nice looking site (via CSS Vault). In related news, poachers have killed about half of the world's population of wild white rhinos in the last year (more here).
posted on Aug 19, 2004 - View this thread

When Wired News redesigned as nearly standards compliant xhtml in fall of 2002, it was cause for a great deal of celebration. Since then other prominent sites like ESPN and PGA have jumped on the standards bandwagon, as have countless personal sites. Today the SF Examiner launched a new site design which does validate as xhtml. More interesting to me are their category archives and date archives, which mimic a weblog's simple and useful layout. Heck, I even love the story pages which feature large leaded text (space between lines - the amount of "double spaceness") which is also blog-like, and makes for comfortable reading. As far as I know, SF Examiner is the first, but will this start a new wave of bandwidth-saving, well-designed newspaper redesigns? [via veen]
posted on Aug 2, 2004 - View this thread

Where are the women in web design?
posted on Jul 9, 2004 - View this thread

My Tiny Garden. (Note: Flash; via milton.)
posted on Jun 16, 2004 - View this thread

netdiver, a new media design portal and digital culture magazine. If you care at all about webdesign, you should see this. (Though I found it through random surfing, it was also an answer to an old question of mine.)
posted on Jun 14, 2004 - View this thread

300 images from 1800 sites. Ro London sifted through icons from Fortune 1000 company sites, major online retailers, well known blogs, top advertising, publishing, and design agencies, technology and software industry leaders, & the very largest online news publisher and created a collection of the most interesting, unique, and beautiful formations of pixels to display. [via svn]
posted on Jun 14, 2004 - View this thread

the biggest website rip-off of them all
paid for with your tax dollars. the CPA rips the excellent brookings institution. via the sleuths at tpm
posted on Apr 21, 2004 - View this thread

Sure, we've all seen bad web design, but sometimes one finds a site that's really worth a second look, and this is certainly one. It's not so much bad web design as a veritable county fair of bad web design, complete with a ring-toss (try to click that link!), a booth extolling the modern wonder of air conditioning, another exhibit about the wonderful world of the future, and, of course, misguided hero worship. But wait, there's more, including a visit from famous basketballer Michel Jordan. Really, one could spend hours and hours exploring the many nooks and crannies of The Retreat's website, and still not find all of the many, many gems that it contains. Don't forget to ask about the monogamous weddings!
posted on Apr 12, 2004 - View this thread

Color Scheme Adjust Hue, Brightness, Saturation, Scheme and considerations for Visual Anomalies.
posted on Feb 29, 2004 - View this thread

Webmonkey to close down
Ave, Webmonkey, old friend. You were a great source of new tricks for self-taught old dogs.
posted on Feb 29, 2004 - View this thread

Microsoft to crush MikeRoweSoft - a high school student's part-time web design site. Throw away the key, boys.
posted on Jan 18, 2004 - View this thread

A collection of the god-awful news-art that CNN churns out for its front page.
posted on Nov 30, 2003 - View this thread

When Web Designers Reproduce We've all seen web pages announcing new arrivals, and I have thrown up my own minimalist attempts using bare bones html. But I found this link a fascinating example of what happens when one applies a particular web aesthetic to an important life event. A new genre is born!
Is your infant w3c compliant? (no Flash required)
posted on Nov 11, 2003 - View this thread

R.I.P. Bay Area Transit Information Page, 1994-2003. The site, started by two Berkeley students, provided quick access to transit information in the San Francisco Bay Area, who later received funding for their efforts in 1996. Instead, it gets replaced by this abomination of web design. On the other hand, it is very unusual for a web site to keep the same user interface over the span of almost a decade. Already, there have been user interface rants, complaints about not finding information, sarcastic commentary, and a brief eulogy delivered from one of the original creators, and it hasn't even been the first day. Is content over style dead or are information sites like this (flash) the wave of the future?
posted on Nov 4, 2003 - View this thread

WEFAIL - funky, surreal flash, a design collaboration from martin-h and sofake. Click everything. (sound alert & possibly nsfw).
posted on Oct 16, 2003 - View this thread

MCCXIII is an excellent club in DC. But the reason I link their site is because I am in absolute awe of their web design.
posted on Oct 8, 2003 - View this thread

This interface displays a preview of the fonts active on your system. Could be useful for a quick check on what's what.
posted on Sep 13, 2003 - View this thread

Don Mueller's interests include single women, video production and radio/TV announcing. The fifty-something Colorado bachelor is "secretly famous" and a member of Mensa. Don debates why he's not attracted to fat women, takes lessons in flirting and provides statistical proof as to why he's still single. Don even hits a first date home run with the help of Old School Hollywood royalty! In the days of well-designed and well-written weblogs, this is one of a disappearing breed of personal websites that will be missed (albeit in an ironic kinda way).
posted on Aug 15, 2003 - View this thread

The French Flash Festival website provides an introduction to many francophone flash treats such as a visit to the surreal Rolitoland, the fun sound experiments at Audiogame, the endearing Plok! or the strange goings on at Incorect. Lots more to explore on the festival site (click on 'preselections' for the shortlist)
posted on Jul 2, 2003 - View this thread

Looking for a design for your next website? Open Source Web Design is a site that offers tons of free web design templates that you can take and modify for your own needs.
posted on May 30, 2003 - View this thread

Looking for a design for your next website? Strange Banana is a generator that randomly produces XHTML transitional, CSS-layout-driven webpages. Hit "refresh" repeatedly, and find that one layout that matches your inner web designer's dream. (Found on Zeldman's Daily Report.)
posted on May 30, 2003 - View this thread

Weaving a web of support around the globe. This site matches web designer volunteers with non-profits around the world. Seems like a good way to bulk up a portfolio while making a difference.
posted on May 13, 2003 - View this thread

CSS Zen and the art of motorcycle website maintainance; a stunning demonstration of what can be accomplished visually through CSS–based design.
posted on May 10, 2003 - View this thread

New York City's official website has been revamped. What are the good, and bad, models of a municipal site?
posted on May 5, 2003 - View this thread

Visual Relationships at Amazon.com - Here's an interesting visual implementation of the Amazon API. It's almost like flipping through books on the shelf. What's next? A 3D bookstore rendered on the Quake engine?
posted on Mar 3, 2003 - View this thread

BLUEDANIEL: DJ, jazz drummer, animator, and Blair Witch website designer Dan Karcher's webpage, a true gem, is particularly timely right now. Great site design, great Flash/MX, great music. (More inside.)
posted on Feb 26, 2003 - View this thread