Learn about web design layouts

I have this one and it's pretty good:
The Principles of Beautiful Web Design

What I would do is basically search the internet. Find sites you like. Then tell yourself why you like them? Are they easy to navigate etc etc etc.


That is one that is nice about the web, there really isn't a "way" of doing a site. Yes there are some basic designs that alot of people and companies use but then on the flip side there are sites that break the mold and are just as good.

Here are some sites that I like to go to because of there design element etc.

http://brown.edu/
http://www.danyboy.com/
http://www.addition.com.au/#longuevilleSS04
http://www.asterikstudio.com/work.php?type=Print
http://www.bigspaceship.com/archive/nikeair/
http://www.theovenreinvented.com/
http://www.neuarmy.com/neus/naneus.htm
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/160/160.css&page=3
http://www.alvinlustig.org/
http://www.damnengine.net/index.html
http://www.interact10ways.com/usa/the_barbarian_group.asp
http://www.dopeawards.com/
http://blog.iso50.com/
http://www.metadesign.com/index.php#section:ourwork
http://www.myactivedriveway.com/
http://www.thefwa.com/
http://www.tradar.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75&Itemid=122

Look how the sites are laid out, the feel, the colors etc.

If you don't want to buy the books you can always go to your local library and check some out. I haven't read the one book that is mentioned but it seems to have some pretty good reviews of it.

Also I would head on down to your local book store barnes & noble, borders etc and check out the magazine section. There are a couple of magazines that deal with website design soley. They are pretty good but can get expensive.

The couple of books I have read and own are the following they are somewhat old but they served there purpose:

http://www.amazon.com/Project-Creat...41/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1211058538&sr=11-1
http://www.amazon.com/Project-Creat...41/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1211058538&sr=11-1
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Art-Colle...0X/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1211058701&sr=11-1
http://www.amazon.com/Web-Art-Colle...0X/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1211058701&sr=11-1


Alot of them like I said are old and can be had for cheap. They are a bit dated also if you are looking at web 2.0 etc. How ever I think they have some pretty good designs and you can take those design ideas and apply them to your own.

Hopefully between my post and the post above you should have a pretty good start!! Good luck and let us know if you need anything else.

I have some interface design books that have some good principles of design. They're more focused on software than web sites, but the principles work the same. The books are at work so can't give their specific names, but they tend to talk about the same principles, just from different angles. There's also news feeds that will have good articles talking about design so you can Google for those.

You can look at design from a pattern perspective. Wilie has a good site for that. There's plenty of stuff out there. Even Apple's Human Interface Guideline has a lot of information that can be applied to web site design.