As designers and developers we should always be looking to increase our skills and creativity. A great way to keep motivated and push yourself as a designer is to look at outstanding work by others. I don’t know about you, but when I see an awesome site I want to inspect it and figure out what they did or study it visually to see exactly why it’s effective. This helps me become a more well rounded designer and constantly keeps me on my toes.
Smashing Magazine issued a challenge for 2010 called Design Something Every Day. Could you imagine how much your design skills would improve if you designed something every day? Another way I find inspiration is through looking at other peoples work. Enter the CSS Gallery. Here are my top 10 galleries that I visit most often. These sites are listed in NO particular order.
1. CSS Awards
The CSS Awards site is very busy, but I love the rating scale they use for the sites. Some of the other galleries don’t get voted on by a panel of designers which is why I love this one!
2. Site Inspire
siteInspire is the exact opposite of #1. It doesn’t have a public panel, or a real busy site, but it continually brings high quality inspiration to many designers around the world.
3. Designshack
Design Shack not only has a great CSS Gallery but they put together some awesome blog posts from various authors. It also has a cool feature that allows you to search their gallery by color.
4. CSS Mania
CSS Mania has been around for a while and it went through a branding change not to long ago. I like CSS Mania because of the high quality work and it shows the color scheme of each selection.
5. CSS Drive
CSS Drive also went through a re-branding process and completely revamped their website. They did a good job on adding new features and keeping the overall experience of browsing the website pleasant.
6. Bestwebgallery
Technically BestWebGallery isn’t just a gallery for CSS, but it’s still one I frequent because of the inspiration it offers. It also gives you the ability to sort by tags such as CSS and Flash to narrow it down further.
7. CSS Remix
CSS Remix is about as simple as you an get. It’s a great site to bookmark if you need quick uninterrupted inspiration.
8. CSS Beauty
CSS Beauty is another site that has great resources regarding CSS not just a gallery. I recommend you spend some time on this one.
9. CSS Nature
CSS Nature was actually a new one to me, but I was inspired by it’s layout and ease of use.
10. CSS Line
Looking at this logo alone inspires me to be a better designer. Not to mention the high quality work they output. This is also a new one to me but I’m glad I found it.
Get Inspired
Now you have 10 sites you can visit frequently so there is no excuse for a lack of inspiration. It’s out there, now do your part and go seek it. If galleries aren’t the way to go for you find something that is. Take a walk around your neighborhood or local park. Do something to get yourself inspired.
“I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning”Peter De Vries
9(unknown*no*no*1)&guid=ON){kind=small}
