Surround Yourself With Beautiful Things
November 6th 2007
Your environment rubs off on you.
Want to be a better photographer? Browse Flickr.
Want to write better? Read great authors.
Want to be optimistic? Hang out with optimists.
It's a simple principle, and it applies to design as well.
Want to have better taste in design? Surround yourself with beautiful things.
There are hundreds of sources of inspiration surrounding us every day, but for a web designer, the most obvious are simply other web sites.
CSS galleries feature some of the best looking CSS-based designs on the web, and the good news for us is that the vast majority of those designs are blogs. Following a gallery will let you continually see great examples of design. Over time, your sense of what good design is will get better and better.
The more immediate impact of course is that when you do spot a feature you like, there's no reason not to attempt something similar on your own blog.
8 CSS Galleries Worth Following
- CSS Mania - The gallery I'm subscribed to, largely because of how it updates. A batch update of around 10 designs every 2-3 days. Makes it easy to flick through, and never time consuming.
- CSS Remix - It's built from WordPress. A great example of what can be achieved from the "blogging" platform.
- Best Web Gallery - Run by Nick La, who also writes two fantastic design blogs; Web Designer Wall and N.Design Studio. Talk about qualified...
- CSS Drive - Beyond the usual gallery, CSS Drive give special focus on menu designs.
- CSS Reboot - For site redesigns. CSS Reboot is based on a voting system (Like Digg), making it a little more social than usual.
- Nice Stylesheet - The new kid on the block was started up by Deron Sizemore, and based on his blog, you can bet it will be a great gallery.
- W3Csites - The biggest standards advocate among the galleries.
- CSS Beauty - CSS Beauty run a couple of great services for designers. The gallery isn't their strongest though.
There are hundreds of other galleries out there, but these would be my recommendations. Subscribe to one, or to many, and let the good examples rub off on you.
Do you follow a gallery at the minute? Which one?
Twitter
November 6th at 12:31 pm GMT
Comment #1
I'm following MostInspired, because it's an aggregation of all wellknown CSS Galleries, however there's a crux within those showcases: usually a good site popups in each of the galleries.
And while some of the showcased styles/websites are looking very interesting, their usability/loading time might not work for everybody.
November 6th at 2:41 pm GMT
Comment #2
the 8th of the list is not CSS Mania, it is named cssbeauty
November 6th at 3:25 pm GMT
Comment #3
Thanks for listing NiceStylesheet here, I appreciate it.
I've already received a great response from you listing it.
November 6th at 4:28 pm GMT
Comment #4
I don't really follow CSS galleries too much, well for the simple fact that I don't do too much web design anymore. But the moment I start working on something again it's definitely something which I do, it's a great way to get an impression of which things others have been doing and such, getting ideas on what you could use yourself, etcetera.
The only downside though is that as you already mentioned there are tons of them out there, by now you can already nearly start getting CSS galleries listing sites or something :P.
November 6th at 5:31 pm GMT
Comment #5
Those are some great sites!
Personally, I'm an avid participator over at DesignSnack (as well as NiceStylesheet). I think both of them are great showcases.
Personally, I'd reccomend checking out DesignSnack. I have talked to the designer of DesignSnack, and they have some great new bits coming to their showcase that are not like any other I've seen.
In order to vote on DesignSnack, you have to be a registered member. Through that, visitors can earn points and move up in ranking. (I am currently ranked #3) And this winter, that points system is going to get a lot more rewarding. Monthly point competitions will be held for prizes, points can be traded in for advertizing, and more unknown features as well.
I would highly reccomend checking out DesignSnack. We have a great community, good submissions, and a lot of great stuff in store!
November 6th at 5:33 pm GMT
Comment #6
I don't know much about CSS at the moment, but I do hope to be able to spend some time learning the basic stuff. Thanks for the list
November 6th at 5:44 pm GMT
Comment #7
I am surprised you didn't mention Stylegala. It's one of the oldest and most beautiful.
Great list nonetheless. Stumbled!
November 6th at 7:19 pm GMT
Comment #8
Milo - I've come across a few of those as well before. They're good sites, if you want to get a lot of updates.
Daniel - Thanks for spotting that. Updated now!
Deron - No problem. Pity I could only write a line or 2 in the post. I wanted to rave about how cool the logo is!
Slevi - I do that as well. At the start of a project, it's great to spend a little time browsing through pages and pages of good designs to get you in the mood.
Brian - Looks like a good site. I hadn't seen it before. Extra features like that will definitely be great for the community.
Pelf - No prob. I was considering writing a quick primer on CSS here. It wouldn't be an in-depth guide; more of a kick start into CSS (So that you'd know enough to be able to edit your blog template easily enough). Would you be interested in a post like that?
Mohsin - That's the name! I could picture the site in my head (The layout is very distinctive) but I just couldn't remember the name. How long have they had that PR7 directory ad for though?? xD
November 6th at 8:17 pm GMT
Comment #9
Thanks a lot Michael. Glad you like the logo.
November 6th at 10:34 pm GMT
Comment #10
Hey Michael, Great list. I haven't heard of Nice Stylesheet gallery before; I have added that one to my rss feed as well as Deron's blog. I just discovered another one - CSS Designed gallery.
Thanks!
November 6th at 10:38 pm GMT
Comment #11
Anna - Thanks for sharing it.
November 6th at 11:15 pm GMT
Comment #12
Personally I follow both http://www.inspirationking.com/ and http://www.portfoliobase.com/, seeing as they are my own. But I also really enjoy CSSMania, and StyleGala (when they update). Cheers!
November 6th at 11:25 pm GMT
Comment #13
Those galleries are great Alex. Inspiration King definitely focuses on quality, and Portfolio Base is a great niche.
As a sidenote, I absolutely love Portfolio Base welcome box at the top right. Fantastic.
November 7th at 1:28 am GMT
Comment #14
A very nice list. Personally, I also often check on Stylegala.com Their gallery is not updated that often, but they do post some nice links as well.
November 7th at 1:34 am GMT
Comment #15
They do, and they have a good forum on top of it all.
November 7th at 2:03 am GMT
Comment #16
Nice, I hadn't seen most of them.
I only really look when I'm looking for inspiration on something specific (as opposed to "following"). I usually check out Web Creme and I like DesignShack, which was already mentioned.
I often wish Web Creme had a more extensive search/category system though.
November 7th at 3:39 am GMT
Comment #17
Although it's not updated often, I have used http://www.csszengarden.com.
I have also checked out css beauty from time to time.
November 7th at 3:51 am GMT
Comment #18
Haven't subscribed but probably would. It would be good to learn a thing or two especially if I am keen to tweak my website's look
November 7th at 5:36 am GMT
Comment #19
Of course I would! I love posts that teach me tonnes, and at the same time save me lots of time searching through the internet
*yeah, pelf is lazy*
November 7th at 11:03 am GMT
Comment #20
CSS Designed for the win!
/blatant self promotion
November 7th at 3:34 pm GMT
Comment #21
Interesting post and so true!
In real life, I like to surround myself with paintings and natural objects like plants, seashells, and geodes and rocks. I don't like to be in an environment that doesn't pique my wonder and feed my soul!
November 8th at 8:55 pm GMT
Comment #22
Kristarella - That's fair enough. Times like that are definitely when it's most useful.
Dave - That was a good one to bring up. The Zen Garden was a fantastic site, and a real flagship for CSS design, but I think it has had its day now. There is no longer a need to prove that CSS design beats table design, and as a gallery, it has a few great styles, but on the whole, I don't think it's the same quality as some of the site showcases here.
Pablopabla - If you're not sure, you could try out a less frequently updated one. The odd design each week couldn't hurt.
Pelf - Sounds good! I'll defs do it then.
Ash - lol - Looks like a good gallery, so I don't mind.
Lynda - Real life inspiration is invaluable. Nature is a great source (I quite like cities and their architecture as well).
November 11th at 9:04 am GMT
Comment #23
Thanks for sharing these sites, I appreciate it! This is a very helpful resource so I'm including it in this weekend's roundup on my own blog. Keep up the great work.
November 11th at 5:02 pm GMT
Comment #24
Thanks. I'm glad you found it useful.
November 11th at 5:46 pm GMT
Comment #25
Hey Tay - I'm not sure if you're see this, but I tried thanking you on your site, but it didn't work. And then when I tried your contact form, that didn't work either.
Maybe it was just me?
November 12th at 10:48 pm GMT
Comment #26
Good css resources.
November 24th at 3:11 pm GMT
Comment #27
Gee, I knew just 4 of them. Nice to stumble upon articles like this.
Cheers.
December 10th at 2:43 am GMT
Comment #28
Great resources !
thanks ;)=!
December 10th at 4:14 pm GMT
Comment #29
Welcome.