Web Design Tips and Tricks

A Selection of Links

General Topics
Background info and tips for starting to plan your site.

Design Concepts
Why some things work and some things don't

Web Graphics
Good sources for graphics.

Other
Miscellaneous design help.

Design Tips
Tips to use after you start working on your site,like guides to tables.

Design Tools
Web-based tools to make design easier, like color charts.

Good Examples/Bad Examples
Real-world samples of good and bad design on the Web.

General

• How to Create a WWW Storyboard

• Planning Your Site& Web Site Architecture

• Writing HTML Code, HTML Style Guides  Free: HTML Validators

• HTML 2.0 Example

• Visual design for the Web. Help with HTML color. Free page templates for people who don't know where to start.

Design Concepts

• Yale Style Manual: A comprehensive resource on Design Concepts

• Documents discussing "Design strategies"

• Web graphics - elements of Web design by builder.com

• useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's site (Usable Information Technology)

• Design Graphics from webmonkey

• Typography, Embedded Fonts, & Commercial Type Foundries

Web Graphics

• Working with Images

• Instruction manual and links to Web graphics sites put together by a former J50 TA

• Iconbazaar.com. Wide selection of graphics, backgrounds, etc. Higher quality than most free stuff on the web

• GraphxKingdom.com. Big collection of clip art

• webclipart.miningco.com. Free graphics sorted into categories, helps you find what you are looking for.

• NicksFonts. A good source for free fonts and graphics

• 4yeo.com. A nice assortment of Web themes, buttons and other graphics

• Moyra.com.Click on jewel mines to find a wonderful collection of Web theme sets.

• ScreamDesign.com’s WebVault of free animated gifs,images,web design,flash animation,photoshop tips,html,icons.

• best.com. Great assortment of background textures.

• ArtToday.com. Allows you to sign up for a free three-day membership. Wonderful selection of art searchable by key word.

Web Design Tips

• A selection of pages that offer advice about Web design.

• Design tips from Webmonkey, a top Web-building site.Includes info on fonts, graphics and Site building.

• Web Graphics and Design - Building a better interface

• killersites.com. Creating Killer Web Sites.Tips about gif compression, color selection, etc.

• How links work. Example sites that use links well.

• Working with Tables

• Working with Frames

• Web Design tips from CNET, with helpful instructions for avoiding scrolling text, indenting the easy way and more.

• wpdfd.com. Web Page Design for Designers. Great resource for all sorts of web design tips and strategies.

Design Tools

• A J.50 resource for Web design tools.

• Special Characters, Paragraphs, and Block Formatting

• A Guide to Working with Forms

• Stylin' with Style Sheets

• Links and Shareware

• will-harris.com. More web design tips--good examples

• Great selection of design links from Earthlink--easy to follow instructions

• Ditto, with an even wider selection of topics.

• iconbazaar.com. A nice color chart of web-safe colors

• hidaho.com.A wonderful tool for developing color schemes. Let's you preview them on an actual page.

• godigitalstudios.com. Another good tool for picking color schemes. Gives you color palettes of 16 colors that look good together.

• A table-making tool that takes some of the guesswork out of putting tables together

Good Examples and Bad Examples

• Creating Killer Web Sites--Example Sites

• Web Pages That Suck -- learn usability and good Web design by looking at bad design

• Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

Other

• Downloads: Free Fonts & Utilities