Dec 05
Best of CSS Design 2008
Last December, I posted a list of the best designs in 2007. Now, it is time for — Best of CSS Design 2008 (a new list of 50 websites hand-picked from Best Web Gallery). This year, more designers are using the large background technique and utilizing Javascript frameworks (such as jQuery and MooTools) to enchance the user experience. I also came across a few designs that mixed Flash with CSS; perhaps a new trend we should look for in 2009?
Let It Bleed
Big bold visual images make this website stand out from the crowd.
Vermont Coffee Works
Good use of Flash mixed with CSS.
Digital Mash
Good
Good visual and content-focused design.
Wilson Miner
DrupalCon, DC
Future of Web Apps - Miami 2009
An excellent mixture of big font and grungy effects.
Housing Works
Nice use of large background on the homepage. Large background web design is very hot lately.
Future of Web Design - NYC 2008
Another nice example of large background design.
Tennessee - Fall
I have to admit, Tennessee’s sites are one of the best series — Fall, Spring, Summer, and Winter.
Tennessee - Spring
Tennessee - Summer
Tennessee - Winter
Five Runs
Branded07
Cappuccino
A very origanized site with great usability.
LightCMS
LightCMS incorporated some pencil/sketchy effects, yet maintained its corporate feel.
The First Twenty
Nicely designed one-page site.
YouLove.Us
Great implementation of CSS and Javascript (jQuery).
Luke Larsen
The aquarium themed portfolio of Luke Larsen demonstrates great use of jQuery’s Scrollto plugin.
Design Disease
Wavy and rounded shapes make this site look fun and interesting.
Adaptd
Although the design style reminds me of ISO50 (Scott Hansen), but it is worth to mention.
Jason Santa Maria
Electricurrent
Notice how Electricurrent used the background image technique to display the portfolio images?
Training by Collective Idea
MacAllan Ridge
Good visual design, easy navigation — two thumbs up.
Pikaboo
A cool design that combined CSS, Javascript, and Flash technology.
Mochi Ads
Fling Media
eWedding
Viget
Viget did a great job on branding their image by maintaining the consistency throughout their series of blogs — Inspire, Advance, Engage, and Extend.
Viget - Inspire
Viget - Advance
Viget - Engage
Viget - Extend
August
An awesome design that used Flash scalable image as the background (resize your browser to see the scalable background).
Car Freaks
This blog frequently change their homepage background photo to provide refreshing feel.
Go To China
Here is a perfect example that uses high resolution photos for website’s background. Notice the background image is scalable based on your browser size (done by Javascript CSS).
Jesus Christ
Billy Hughes
Free People
FreePeople is my all time favorite design (love the collage style).
Mouse to Minx
Retro and sexy.
Dara’s Garden
Design Sponge
The scrapbook design style is a perfect match for the site’s content.
Ma.tt
The Lippincott
Hot Meteor
Love the hot retro font!
Fortyseven Media
The Old State
It is rare to find such a beautiful black and white theme.
Exporting and Importing WordPress Fonts and the Web
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157 selvakumar
January 6th, 2009 at 6:56 am
Nice Collections!!! Thanks
- Selvakumar
http://www.dsignzmedia.com
156 Skracanie linków http://b39.cal.pl
January 6th, 2009 at 6:24 am
Luke Larsen +1
155 Catalin http://www.adaptd.com
January 5th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Thaks for including AdaptD in your list. As for ISO50 i am familiar with his work and i must say other that both being vintage i don’t see much in common.
I love the Viget sites and am amazed of how they produced 4 different, inspired and original designs for the blogs.
154 Cher Stewart http://cherstewart.com
January 4th, 2009 at 2:04 am
I agree about a lot of these sites, but it would be nice to have some reasons why each design is considered “the best”. Visit China uses a giant image in a table, which has little to nothing to do with CSS. Setting its height/width to 100% isn’t clever at all. I agree that the rules can be broken, but going backwards in standards is not the way to do it.
153 Education in India http://www.nmgroup.org
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:21 am
all css layout very nice and attractive
http://www.nmgroup.org
152 sky
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:11 am
between these best-of posts and your WP tutorials, you’re my new favorite resource — thanks for bringing us some real value.
any way you can point me to the technique ringvemedia (go to china) used for their scalable background? i’m having trouble pinning it down.
thanks again.
151 Miss Blossom http://www.blossomgraphicdesign.com
January 1st, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I just have to say that I love sites like dara’s garden, mouse to minx and design sponge, but some of the more chunky (some would call them clean and graphic) sites I can admire, but they really don’t appeal to the girls, which I suspect they are not meant to.
I do find some of the sites a bit “tricky” or trying too hard to use funky tools rather than communicate, but overall a great collection to sum up the design of the year.
Di
150 Zsolt Vajda http://www.volll.com
January 1st, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Hi everyone, volll.com speaking,
We are deeply sorry about that malware/spyware thing which resulted our link removal, it seems our site has been infected/hacked/whatever by someone/something (im just a designer - i dont know how this stuff works). But it’s all cool now, and I hope we’ll get our link back
149 publicitate online http://www.promovare-site.net
January 1st, 2009 at 5:17 am
Best css design collection
Thanks!
148 Mrinal Mahanti http://www.mindxstudio.com/
December 31st, 2008 at 1:03 am
Thanks you very much for such good collection of best css design.