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  • Sustainable Design
• A Sustainable Web?
  • A Foreign Concept
  • Glossary of Terms
• Design Concept
  • The Importance of Visual Design
  • Design Impact
  • Potential Harm of Good Design
  • Getting Started Designing
• Material Treatment
  • You Are How You Treat
  • Naming Files and Folders
  • Naming for Indexing and Clarity
  • Naming for Versioning
  • Mistreating Your Images: 7 Deadly Sins
• Document Structure (XHTML)
  • The Concept of a Markup Language
  • A Brief History of HTML
  • Basic XHTML Rules
  • XHTML DOCTYPE Declarations
  • XHTML Tag Types: Block and Inline
  • The Basic XHTML Tag Set: Block-level Tags
  • The Basic XHTML Tag Set: List Tags
  • The Basic XHTML Tag Set: In-line Tags
• Advanced Document Structure
  • Working with Classes and IDs
  • Classes in Action
  • IDs in Action
• Document Presentation (CSS)
  • Introduction to Cascading Style Sheets
  • Some CSS Vocabulary
  • CSS Selectors
  • CSS Properties: Text and Font
  • CSS Properties: Margin, Padding, and Border
• CSS for Design and Layout
  • Background Images
  • Image Replacement Techniques
• Introduction to PHP
  • What is PHP?
  • Repeating Content Across Pages

The Importance of Visual Design

The visual design of a Web site matters. Far from being just pretty decorations for content, site design dictates organization and interaction. Additionally, visitors to your site make a judgment about its quality based on its design—and they do so in about a twentieth of a second, according to some Canadian researchers.

Getting Inspired

A common concept in any design field is inspiration—seeking out material to help you develop your own designs. Below are a list of some of my favorites (though be forewarned that some of these sites showcase non- or sub-standard use of Web languages and/or user-submitted sites of sometimes questionable quality).

• The CSS Zen Garden: One of the most commonly-sought sources of inspiration, where the page's XHTML markup never changes; different style sheets are applied to each page.
• CSS Beauty: Another CSS showcase site, although this one comes with commentary and typically links to the actual sites employing the designs (which means some sites may no longer function).
• CSS Vault: Pretty much the same as CSS Beauty, plus articles on design and programming.
• May 1 Reboot: A yearly event in portions of the Web design community, where Web designers launch a new design for their sites. This particular site showcases primarily Flash designs, but there are many interesting things to look at. From the current Reboot site, you can follow the History icon, or click here to see the gallery of 2005's rebooters.
• CSS Reboot: Built on the May 1 Reboot concept, CSS Reboot offers Reboot events in both May and November.
• 9 Rules: A site that claims to showcase the best designs on the Web; also offers lots of tutorials and articles.
• Kaliber 10000: A huge warehouse of design articles. Attention to standards is still fairly lacking.
• AIGA Design Archives: Massive gallery of everything from graphic to product design hosted by AIGA, "the professional association for design."
• Cool Home Pages: Probably best looked at from the perspective of where Web design has been, rather than where it's going. Still, there are some visual treats in their massive gallery.
• miniml: One of the only remaining sites out there dedicated to minimalist Web design. Mostly Flash (which seems contradictory).
• Design Observer: Quite possibly the very best blog about design on the whole Web.
• A List Apart: More techspeak and design writing than showcases of design. Still good, and Web standards are a central focus. Also worth checking out is their collection of articles on design.

Updated on Sun. Apr. 16 2006 at 12:34PM