I've done some looking around, and found some stuff, but does anybody know of place where you can find the best looking web sites by category, like flash, menus, clean looks, business, ect... I've been looking for nice menu templates to pick from. Usually I know what I like when I see it. Thanks in advance for any suggestions. If you have favorite web sites feel free to post them here too. I always like looking around at beautiful designs whether clean or artsy.
http://www.were-here.com/forum/tt.asp?forumid=5 This is a forum for web development (mainly Flash), this forum is for people to post sites that they think are cool. Since it's a site mainly for Flash development all the sites that get posted are use Flash heavily. http://www.habitat.net/uk/main_uk.htm A site for a furniture store in Europe. It's a great example of a site that uses Flash for more than eye candy.
http://www.flashkit.com/ Granted this site shows mostly flash stuff, but you get some nice stuff done by graphic designers. I know a lot of web designers that use this site constantly, just for ideas and for some tutorials on flash stuff.
http://www.tworoadsmedia.com/ Jeff's website itself is nice, plus you can look through his portfolio.
YOUR site in 2 years. Nothing is as beautiful as something you made yourself without looking at someone else's design for ideas.
I beg to differ... Being in the graphics design biz, nothing feels better than jacking someone else's idea and making a few bucks out of it... Seriously, the best way to design a site is really to check out the sites that you like and use it as inspirations. Use those ideas and make it your own and make it better.
Great thread, great timing! I will be launching my own business hopefully next month and I'm just now looking at different web site designs. Two I like: www.campari.com www.perkinswill.com
It's a recruiting company. I think I'll handle the web site design myself but I might actually need some help designing my logo. A logo design thread next week maybe?
[crybaby text] Not much of a fan of "templates" or template-selling sites. Do you really want to risk having your company's site look like someone else's who also bought the same template? This is like someone handing you a resumé that is the "Professional" template from Word, then having 10 more applicants give you the same template as their resumé. One thing I particularly don't like about the CF.net main page and most of the other tworoadsmedia web sites is the way in which the width is restrained to what the designers think should be your screen's resolution. If you have a different resolution or you don't always have your browser window maximized, there will ALWAYS be dead space on the right or left, never accommodating to the browser's width. Granted, sometimes whitespace is good, but don't restrain your reader to always have the same width. GOOD example: sbc.yahoo.com (it accomodates to ANY resolution). Also, why do some sites start MUSIC on their site when their site has NOTHING to do with Music? They can warn you that there will be music, too, but they decide to start the music or the background tune when you're not ready, and what if you're at a place like a library or somewhere where sound is forbidden? At least Warn-A-Brother, man... I can accept that from a MUSIC site, but if they add music just because their FLASH menu has a 'ding' every time you put your mouse is over an item, that's no good, baby. Another thing I hate about these designs is a "splash" page or a "intro" page. I could understand if there were two choices, one with a HIGH-END high-speed choice and the other with a low-resolution low-end choice, OK. But just to say "Welcome to my dog's site: click here to ENTER" ??? That's no good. GOOD example: removing the flash intro at CF.net Last point, the "you must view this site with Xyz browser" and "you must view this site at AxB resolution." WTF is that? I have to change my resolution in order to see your site? Nonsense. GOOD example: any website without those restrictions. The BBS here doesn't make ANY of those mistakes. Hopefully your designer doesn't, either. I hate it when the clients INSIST on putting something I hate or is just plain BAD for their website. [/crybaby text]
Ironically, nothing is life is done without templates. Not even life itself. And yet, all appears original. Strange thing that is. And that's the whole reason I think copywright law is one of the most limiting things is our entire society..
It looks like you have confused centering a website's content with accomodating any resolution. sbc.yahoo.com does not do anything different than clutchfans or any of the Two Roads Media sites that use fixed-width that you may be referring to. sbc.yahoo.com has a set width of 750 (as opposed to clutchfans' 777), so instead of "dead space on the right or left", they have dead space on the right and left... and like all fixed-width websites, it does not accomodate very well the resolutions below that fixed width (in this case, 640 x 480). If you want a good example of a site that does not restrain width (aka "liquid" design), try Wired News ( http://www.wired.com ). It's not that difficult to do if you know web design, but your design will have to be flexible. If you are delivering any kind of text content, I personally don't recommend it. Most want their articles and content to remain consistent and professional in appearance and not to fluctuate by a user expanding and shrinking their browser widths, which is why just about every news outlet (CNN, CNNSI, ESPN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Fox News, Yahoo!, etc.) will use fixed-width. It is all user preference though ... just don't confuse any one user's preference with what makes up or does not make up "good web design".
I agree with you for the most part, but it is based on the users' preference. From my experience, people who purchase "templates" are the ones that doesn't think a web preference will benefit their company much. They just want to toss something in there just to say that it is there. It is my opinion that every business can benefit from having a solid web presence. Granted, the existing business model would definitely change if they have to support sales or display information on their website, the overall change is for the better. Also, the cost difference between a web template and a custom form is pretty negligible when the business start getting business leads.
