A selection of websites that i admire….

Here are some examples of websites that i think are cool, read on to find out more….

Ive recently been looking at plenty of portfolio style sites as i am approaching the time when i need to create my own. When looking at these sites it is sometimes easy to be impressed by the content of the site rather than the site itself, seeing as i’m giving examples of websites i like ive tried to steer clear of that trap in this post.

Web Designer Wall – www.webdesignerwall.com

This is web designer wall, a site that features articles and tutorials on web design. It’s a great resource for inspiration and knowledge. The design is well layed out and visually appealing, the elaborate illustration used for the background image works very well and the rest of the content is expertly structured using css and xhtml. It strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and detail.

Emes Style – Portfolio Website – http://www.emesstyle.com/index.php

This is the portfolio site of Matthew Soriano, i love the way he has used photography of denim and integrated it with the rest of the graphical elements. It gives the site a feel of something different from your usual plain backgrounds and provides a great frame for the content. This site is a great example of a good portfolio, the content does not overshadow the site, they complement each other perfectly.

Stuff and Nonsense – http://www.stuffandnonsense.co.uk/

This is the website of leading web designer Andy Clarke. I was alerted to it after reading his book ‘Transcending CSS design‘, as you’d expect from such an accomplished designer his site is top notch. Styled using CSS and structured using XHTML, this site is a perfect example of how using web standards creatively can lead to stunning designs. I particularly like the way he has an image in the centre of the page with the text sitting around it. This is not something i’m used to seeing, usually the trend is for text to be centred and images to be either side of the text or beneath it. This approach is a refreshing change and shows that breaking away from the norm isnt a bad thing, its a very good thing in fact!

So those are just a few sites that i like, they are very much at the level i’d like to be at one day and they are a great source of inspiration for a young (kind of) inexperienced web designer such as myself.