One of my favorite web designers that I draw inspiration from is OMSH (Oh My Stinkin Heck).  She wrote this wonderful article called “Throwing reason to the wind is..” which succinctly puts into words  what I have so often encountered when designing websites for clients.   She hits the nail on the head when she says to clients that a website “is an investment of yourself.”

Putting Time and Thought Into Your Website

A designer designs based upon the information provided by the client conveying their ideas or vision for their site.   Sometimes a client will want a website but will not have put any time or thought into the goal of the site, what they want to say about themselves,  their site content, or have any idea of what their  sense of style is.  They just know they  want one.   It’s a good start!  But, if you don’t provide the designer with any information for your desired site the designer will likely design a site that appeals to the designer and not the client.   In order for a designer to project your ideas for your site you need to pull together information and provide them with what best describes the essence of  what you want for your website.   The more information the better.  Information such as providing links to other websites that appeal to you and convey a sense of your style.   Other methods  have been conveyed to me by clients showing me imagery they created on their laptops.  Some have provided spreadsheets, others  have shown me ideas hand-drawn on paper or in written detail.   Providing the designer with a sense of direction to go in will eliminate the unenviable position of them having to become mind readers spending unnecessary and costly time guessing a clients wishes.

Backgrounds, textures, patterns, and seamless tiled images can really make a website come alive and compliment your site content.  Many sites offer royalty free images and have a tremendous variety to choose from but I also like to scout out images on freebie sites as well. Below you’ll find links to just a few of these sites:

Texture Vault – You want royalty free paper, paint, dirt, mud, glass, concrete textures? They have it, plus some.
BG Patterns – Create your own tiled background – fun and free!
The University of Texas at Austin – Historical maps, maps of the world, countries, cities, states and more in the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Most of them are for use in the public domain.
Texture King – Grunge, dirt, plaster and more – free!
Bit Box – Lots of textures,  the site owner  calls himself a “Freebie Maker” and he likes to give away only the best quality stuff to help designers – free!
Outlaw Design Blog – Vectors, wallpapers, grunge, icons, fonts, and more – free!
Pattern Wall – Seamless patterns – free!
Wallpaper.net – Wallpapers and stock images – free!
Veer – A large selection of royalty free images, illustrations, typefaces and motion images.
Punchstock – Over 2 million royalty-free photos and illustrations from Jupiterimages, Getty Images, Corbis and over 50 other brands, all in one convenient search.
Urban Dirty – Textures and stock photography – free!
Morgue File – Large public image archive for your creative work – free!
Dreamstime – Royalty free and free stock photography
Tartan Maker – Generate seamless tartan patterns – free!
iStockphoto – One of the largest royalty free stock photo, audio, photography and motion image repositories on the web.
The Inspiration Gallery Many lovely textures including some outstanding damask images – free!
Stripe Generator – Generate seamless striped background images – free!
Stock.XCHNG – Large selection of stock photos – free!
Fotosearch – Search 5.3 Million Stock Photos, Stock Footage Video Clips, Royalty Free Images, and Illustrations
GraphicRiver – Royalty free graphics and illustrations. Launched in February 2009, the site focuses on premium design components like Layered Photoshop Graphics, Vector Illustrations, Icons, and Adobe Add-ons like Brushes, Patterns and Textures.

As a web designer I’m always looking for the right color scheme combinations to incorporate into site design. I’ve seen some beautiful color palettes that look great at first glance but when applied into a site can have a completely adverse effect. Having an “on the fly” visualization of what those colors would look like on a sample test page would be handy and save a lot of time. I happened to be reading through Mashable and while sifting through their ‘Web Design Toolbox” I came across a vast array of web design tools for graphics and color management. One particular link caught my eye and it took me to an online color creator tool called Color Scheme Designer. After playing around with it I found it relatively easy to use. Just plug in a hex code and it displays some wonderful color combinations in mono, triad, complement, tetrad, analogic, and accented analogic variations. But what I was looking for, they delivered, by incorporating “on the fly” tabbed previews of what the colors would look like on a sample site in either a light or dark variation including text.

Finally, a place where I can preview various iterations of web fonts and grab the CSS. Great idea! “TYPECHART lets you flip through, preview and compare web typography while retrieving the CSS.”

Here’s a site out of the UK called Favourite Website Awards

It awards and provides links to some of the most fantastic and inspirational websites.

So many themes, so little time.