Comments on: Show me your site…

By: marie

marie — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:13:54 +0000

# Why do you visit showcases?
Inform me about last techniques and inspiration.

# Where will showcases go next?
??

# Are there too many showcases?
No. But maybe too many with the same criterias.

# How would you make showcases different? (layout/usability/interactivity/content)
improve it with public bookmarks, offer to everyone to make their own selection of beautiful css websites.

# Which one is your favourite? (And why!)
don’t have a favorite…

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:18:24 +0000

Where will showcases go next?

I meant “how will they change in the near future?”

Hope that’s cleared up.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:38:21 +0000

I love checking out these pages for inspiration. However the real purpose of a lot of these css pages seems to be traffic generating.

Check out the amount of Google ads on a css news/showcase site next time you visit one.

*I still love these pages btw.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 13:53:02 +0000

I don’t know if there are too many showcase sites but so many of them showcase the same sites. I’m not saying that the featured sites don’t deserve to be there but the showcase sites themselves need to do something different from one another.

I’m a big fan of W3Csites.com. While they do feature showcased sites any designer, no matter how good or bad, can be on display for a month. There are a lot of really great designs that never see a showcase.

By: Veracon

Veracon — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 14:28:26 +0000

I initially started css thesis to make it a directory of sites I like. However, due to an overwhelmingly popular start, I was ‘forced’ to being accepting submissions. This actually made it all a bit harder, probably because I had to read through a load of submissions everyday - not just being able to feature a site I saw. Because more traffic means people want more - more quality. This is why I started nearly nice - where I don’t care if the sites are unsemantic (as long as they’re not overloaded with tables - contradictory, I know), and I don’t care if people look. It’s still nice for myself to be able to look there and say ‘wow, those ARE some nice sites!’ So while it’s not intended to be a popular site, it can store bookmarks that are only nice designs - and believe it or not, it’s faster to add a site to there than it is to bookmark one (due to some javascript magic).
So, with my totally biased mind, here are my answers:

# Why do you visit showcases?
Because they’re fantastic inspiration.
# Where will showcases go next?
That’s a hard question. I’m feeling that many showcases will extend to more than they currently are. (Yes, I have plans for css thesis.)
# Are there too many showcases?
In fact, I don’t think there is. While there very often are duplicates of entries on one site and another, there usually pops something unique up - and I believe that no showcase would be as big if the others hadn’t been there - precisely because showcases DO ’steal’ from each other.
# How would you make showcases different? (layout/usability/interactivity/content)
Not really sure - maybe have more democracy as in ‘people have to elect a site as beautiful’ before it’s entered (opens Emacs and notes down). I don’t know.
# Which one is your favourite? (And why!)
The ones I visit daily are Stylegala, CSS Vault, CSS Beauty, Screenspire and CSS Import. My favourite is probably Stylegala in that it doesn’t just have a gallery. I just love looking through those public ‘news’.

By: Pascal

Pascal — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:23:02 +0000

I have mixed feelings on this subject; -everyday i look at a lot of these “showcases” and the featured websites.. sometimes getting really inspired by it
-but everyday i see more of the same!
Although some trends are pretty, a lot of the designers seem to be nothing more than fashion-victims! (sometimes me included)

Its almost like a contest for the most featured site.

By: Nathan Smith

Nathan Smith — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:52:07 +0000

Originally, when I was first learning CSS, I would visit showcase sites to see the nitty-gritty of how they did their code. Now though, most days, I don’t bother to check the code, and just trust that if they’re being linked to, they have good CSS.

So, when I visit gallery sites now, it’s mainly for visual inspiration, like “Wow, that can be done with CSS?” I also enjoy ScreenSpire.com quite a bit, even though it’s not a specifically CSS site.

By: Phil Renaud

Phil Renaud — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:23:43 +0000

I have mixed feelings on this subject; -everyday i look at a lot of these “showcases” and the featured websites.. sometimes getting really inspired by it
-but everyday i see more of the same!

That’s what fad.tastic is here for. Trends are fun to monitor, if you view them from a large enough big picture. :)

By: Markus

Markus — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 18:57:43 +0000

# Why do you visit showcases?

Just love too look at beatiful sites.

# Where will showcases go next?

Good question.

# Are there too many showcases?

Yeah, I only visit a select few. Some seem to let in ’so-so’-sites just for updating.

# How would you make showcases different? (layout/usability/interactivity/content)
—

# Which one is your favourite? (And why!)
Stylegala. Really good sites, not just webdesigners own sites or all the 9rules-sites and so on. Plus, there’s a lot more than just the showcase. The forums and the news, for example.
CSSBeauty. Beatiful sites. That’s it.

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 19:49:50 +0000

Not sure if this link has been posted, but, it does contain quite a few of the above listed sites. Also, it may be a good idea to pass along to the maintainer of this link the links in the article.

Web Developers Handbook

And I agree, the showcase sites are awesome for inspiration.

-Josh

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 20:00:57 +0000

Thanks for all your opinions so far. It seems inspiration is a big draw to the showcases. Keep the answers coming. :)

Does anyone visit to:

a) critique fellow designers’ work?
b) see if your designs are showcased?

By: davidbisset.com » Website Showcases And Galleries

davidbisset.com » Website Showcases And Galleries — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 23:01:21 +0000

[…] Nice collection of all those css “inspriration” gallery clones. […]

By: Khairudin Lee

Khairudin Lee — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 23:06:56 +0000

you missed this one:

http://smoothoperator.strund.jp/

The way i see it, the only ones that really matters and reputable is web standards award’s and stylegala’s.

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 07:32:18 +0000

you missed this one:

http://smoothoperator.strund.jp/

Check again! It was on the list. :)

The way i see it, the only ones that really matters and reputable is web standards award’s and stylegala’s.

And why, may I ask? Just curious.

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 12:57:15 +0000

There’s a new showcase system over at:

http://www.dark-i.com/

By: Michael Hay

Michael Hay — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 18:32:33 +0000

Thanks for the plug Andrew. I hope the site helps keep the debate alive. I’ll be interested in hearing what your readers have to say.

By: Ji31

Ji31 — Sun, 16 Oct 2005 20:31:19 +0000

I think this is another one very good:
http://www.wordstudio.wz.cz

By: Andrew Faulkner

Andrew Faulkner — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 15:31:56 +0000

I think this is another one very good:
http://www.wordstudio.wz.cz

And see who’s in there… ;)

By: Tom Parson

Tom Parson — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 10:05:07 +0000

Where will showcases go next?

I think they’ll probably be some sort of AJAX/Flash system going, wherein a user can tweak and edit other people’s designs and then post up their edited version for comments, to suggest improvements etc.

Might invade the author’s privacy a little, but they could check an option upon entering their site / confirming their site for entry not to allow this I suppose.

By: Tom Parson

Tom Parson — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 10:05:37 +0000

Argh! Sorry about that, don’t know what happened there (above).

Apologies.