AJAX - miniajax is a showroom of nice looking simple downloadable DHTML and AJAX scripts. A great resource for those uf us that sometimes lack the time and/or experience to develop these things ourselves. Beauty - the dailyslurp is a daily updated collection of beautiful websites that people submit to the site. A great reference to go to for an instant shot of design inspiration. Heck perhaps you’ll even learn something new from a site you find here. Web Standards - w3csites is a collection of web sites created by designers that conform with the W3C standards. We all know it can be difficult to design and develop according to these standards but it really is worth it in the long run. The site even lists what about the site is standard compliant like CSS2, tableless and HTML 4.01 Check them out!

Here’s another list of websites I feel are inspirational in thier magnificence. These sites range from a crisp cleanliness and attention to details to an in-your-face graphics intense design but they all have something in common, my admiration. Give them a look-see and let them know what you think about their awesome sites… Grapefruit Tetsoo Production Thanea TokiDoki New Ezra

Absolutely loving all the links over at http://www.kayodeok.btinternet.co.uk/favorites/webdesign.htm. It seems that some were broken when I tried but all in all another great bookmark resource!

We’ve always been told that you can find the beauty in and draw inspiration from anything. Well here’s one interesting place, Japanese Manhole Covers displays tons of simply beautiful manhole covers. Another resource to draw inspiration from is Speak Up’s Word It. According to them Word It is…

your opportunity to express in as many words, and as many other graphic elements as you need, what best describes each monthly topic. Each month we will choose a specific topic, idea or theme. For example: the first theme was “inspiration.” So you would go home, or do it at work, and find words, images, artwork, whatever that best describes what inspiration means to you. It could be anything: music, cats, chocolate, museum, love, laundry. Anything that reflects what inspiration is to you. You can do whatever you want to it: vectorize it, photoshop it, scan it or build it and then send it to us.

All you webdesigners out there know how hard it is to find a nice free plugin or program that saves .ICO files for your website fave icons. I’ve found a pretty kickass reference for that and seemingly tons others at Telegraphics. There’s literally dozens of resources over there for Photoshop and Illustrator so go for it!

Thanks to the guys at Creative Bits for sharing this little nugget of information. I thought it was pretty cool, never knew it was possible…

Many people find this tip out completely by accident, but many never knew about it, so I thought I would share. When using the Drop Shadow layer effect, rather than entering numbers over and over into the X and Y box until you get just the right position for your Drop Shadow, you can simply drag the shadow around in the image window until it’s right where you want it. The numbers in the boxes adjust accordingly. This tip also works for textures, bevel & emboss, patern overlay and satin layer effects.

Here are some random portfolio sites I’ve come across…. http://justdesign.org/ ::graphic design http://www.timmarrs.co.uk/ ::illustration http://www.junkdrawer.s5.com/ ::graphic design, illustration, painting http://www.cquit.pt.vu/ ::illustration, sketches http://www.justinkrietemeyer.net/ ::illustration http://www.antigirl.com/ ::photo, collage http://www.subdisc.com/ ::cool site, photo, cool ass layout http://www.peterfunch.com/ ::cool site, interesting nav, photo http://www.jardemar.com/ ::pretty site, photo http://www.systeme-d.com/ ::high-res photo, cant figure out the nav tho http://www.loop-land.co.uk/ ::cool site, illustration http://www.soppcollective.com/default.htm ::flash, illustration, design…very cute http://www.180red.com/ ::retro design, cute simple site http://www.eccentris.com/flash.htm ::pimp site, great photography, boys will like this http://www.16kdesign.com/ ::digital media work of all sorts http://sueleland.com/ ::photography, nice site http://www.notbent.com/notbent.htm ::photography, cool nav http://www.t-michael.com/ ::cool flash site, fashion, photography http://www.deli.naive.it/ingdeli.htm/ ::cute girly illustration http://www.fcukstar.com/ ::get a listing of many sites here ….this is enough 4 now….I’ll keep adding