Let’s take a moment to discuss web design. Now, there are pretty much three variations of web design in my mind, with a special fourth sub-variation to each one.
- Designs that just plain suck frog balls. You know the ones I mean. The kind of 1988 designs that make you want to rip your cornea out. Animated gif buttons, badly tiled backgrounds and hideous color sets.
- Good designs that are seriously slick. These are the ones that look like the future. These typically use fixed size displays and make a fair number of assumptions about the end users system. The reason? To maximize the impact of the site for the intended audience. This is a lot like making a movie that is intended to look good in [[wp:HDTV]] but may not look so good in [[wp:NTSC]].
- Good designs that are functional and ‘standards adept’. There are a growing number of these types. The are usually clean designs that are very minimalist. They typically use [[wp:CSS]] for the layout as well as the text formatting.
- Ignorant elitist assholes of #2 and #3. There are lots more of them who prefer #3 actually. These are the sort of idiots who think Microsoft ruined the internet and thing all websites should work on a 240×160 pixel browser that only has text modes. They assume anyone who uses a fixed width site is a moron and the concept of “design” as differentiated from “standards” is beyond them.
Anyway, I am not going to launch into a huge rant… I am just going to supply some links to help you if you want to try to do a #3 type site and give you some insight into the people from #4.
- Slashdot – When will 1024×768 Replace 800×600 for Web Design
- css Zen Garden – the Beauty in CSS Design
- Elastic Design- A List Apart
- Elastic Design Demonstration – HTML Dog
- HTML and CSS Tutorials, References, Articles and News – HTML Dog
- Sons of Suckerfish – HTML Dog – cool special effects using CSS
- The Redesign – HTML Dog Blog – HTML Dog – follow a redesign in detail