What is Digg?Sponsored by Sony Pictures
Adam Lambert sings the 2012 theme song, “Time for Miracles” view!
whowillsurvive2012.com - Watch the Adam Lambert music video for the 2012 theme song. See 2012, in theaters Nov 13
96 Comments
- 0siris, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Your wish is granted
- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10red 'x' you say? You must be in some crazy dimension infiltrated with red 'x's. I see a torn page.
- shmee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13http://www.duggmirror.com/
- FrankieB078, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Wow these are without a doubt gorgeous. I absolutely love that Steve Legget guy's website. Hope this makes it to the front page.
- Cymrubeats, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Looks good....most of them are completely devoid of content though. I know that's not the point, but...
- david76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@dcbebop
It's a control issue. Designers like the proportions of various aspects of the design to remain as they intended. So, unless you make everything scale together you can really destroy an otherwise great design. And, as someone mentioned about the DIGG redesign, fluid designs where the columns of text just get wider seriously degrade readability. I find it's best to work with designers to help them understand what they can do with the technology. This allows them to design with the capabilities in mind so it's a forethought rather than an afterthought. - skrapek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Are you all friends of Steve? Because I thought his site looks like an ad for The View.
- CosmicBlend, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Wow 50 or so red x's are incredible to look at! Looks like the host was not ready for the digg effect.. I will have to check this out in a few days once everything turns normal again
- D4r7h3v1l, on 10/12/2007, -1/+82006 was also rich in cookie-cutter "Web 2.0" sites with reflections and transparency.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Flash dead? The huge success of Youtube and the thousand other wannabees strongly disagrees with that.
If anything, Flash is more alive than ever before. - sinfony, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Given how terrible IE7 still is at implementing CSS and other web standards, yes, it would be too much to ask.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Lots of these designs are based on using a lot of screen estate for displaying a large image, which looks fantastic at first but is not so nice if you want to use the site daily. How would you like to browse digg if there was a huge image taking over half of the screen at the top?
- toddhenkel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Definitely gorgeous...
But why the CSS in the headline? Trolling for diggs? Some aren't even CSS based...
CSS has a place - but stop worshiping at the alter. These sites could have been done with tables (ack!), Flash (as some are) or whatever the next technique takes the world by storm. It's about effective design and communication of content. CSS doesn't solve world hunger or bring peace across the globe... - Dracos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7These could be considered appealing as far as graphic design goes, but most of them suck ass as web designs, especially the dark ones.
The common mistake is emphasizing design over content. Too much empty space (not white space, I mean empty space for no other reason than to look pretty), large, purely decorative graphics (especially when it pushes the content below the fold), and text that is too small or text on the home page that doesn't introduce the viewer to the site.
I doubt that few if any of the designers of these sites have any practical experience with user interface design. They're essentially transplanting printed flyers/brochures to the web, and that's not what the web is about.
Furthermore, of the first 10 sites listed:
* 4 passed HTML validation
* 5 failed HTML validation
* 1 was unavailable (503 error)
(I didn't bother to look at the error counts, but one failed due to lack of doctype).
Which proves my point that style is more important than substance for these designers, who probably work with a "function follows form" philosophy rather than "form follows function", if they even realize that they're doing it. - Kiel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7speaking personally as a designer, is a readability thing. Long lines of texts are hard to read, and constrain it, can force it to be easier to read. I actually don't like that digg went fluid, it makes comments much harder to read.
- CoolHanLuke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Sure these pages may use CSS to style the pages, but the only reason they are so impressive is the (over)use of fancy photoshop/fireworks images. The article is inappropriately titled. Should be "50 websites that use a lot of images and take years to load on slow connections but look really cool".
Don't be fooled into thinking that using CSS will make your sites look this good. - awfulgrace, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"How would you like to browse digg if there was a huge image taking over half of the screen at the top?"
Yeah - but alot of those sites are portfolio or company sites that a person generally only goes to once or twice.
The website for a clothes designer and digg.com have completely different functionalities, users, and frequency of use. - rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No but it makes SEO a ton easier.
Flash can be annoying and tacky for whole websites. Not being able to copy an image to clipboard, or sometimes even copying text can be annoying. As well as the over-the-top hover links (no one cares when you hover over a link, it fades or flickers, we just want to verify that its a link, a simple underline or color change does that just fine). Flash has its benefits, but displaying ads, monitoring traffic (if the whole site is a flash object, you have to implement other ways of monitoring traffic) and compatibility with people that don't have flash installed isn't really worth it in my opinion. Also, SEO is pretty impossible for flash based sites.
Tables, fine, again, SEO is harder and you're probably serving up more lines of code, which could cost you if you have a lot of visitors. If the technology and standards are there to move away from tables.. and it is. Then why not? - BevansDesign, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Don't give all the credit to Apple. They're just riding the wave created by some truly talented graphic designers.
- soapycub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Some of these are brilliantly designed -- But a lot of them are quite slow to load considering the use of CSS.
I'm curious to know why http://foxie.ru/ not only uses images for text in the "latest works" section, but has split them into letters instead words. - king1337, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Whether or not they were CSS or validated, they were all fantastically designed, visually, IMO.
Let us work for something new and exciting in '07. - taylorscott, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@dcbebop -
Fixed width designs sie fonts with pixels (not ems or percentages as liquids do). Pixels can'tt be adjusted by the browser. Essentially, designers like fixed layouts because thay are the easiest way to control what the user sees. In addition, some designers prefer to keep columns a certain width to improve readability (wide columns aren't as easy to read. Liquid and elastic layouts leave some of the visual appearance in the hands of the viewer (such as font sze), and are generally harder to pull off with the same visual appeal. The benefit to liquid and elastic layouts is that the user can choose his font size, and the design flexes with different sized screens or resolutions. - YourMom1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Goddamnit, there is no "Web 2.0."
- david76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4A good design is a good design regardless of the implementation mechanism. That said, it's great to show off what can be done with CSS.
- CrimsonBlur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I'll just preface this comment by saying that this list really isn't all that great to begin with... but it isn't terrible.
One particular part of this collection really hit me hard: I absolutely hated every single one of the designs in the "Dark Designs" category. Even after writing the previous sentence, I went back and looked over them to see if I could pick one that I thought looked the best, and I honestly couldn't make a decision because I hated them all so much.
The "Vibrant Designs" were by far the best. I think he should have just labeled that one "Best Designs". There are a couple that are... less than original, but I guess you can't completely eliminate that element when there are millions of Websites being designed and redesigned every day.
From there, rename "Dark Designs" to... well, actually, just get rid of that category altogether because I honestly just can't stand really dark designs. I know some people will disagree, but for my personal tastes, I find 99% of dark designs are unoriginal and just plain boring. Black and other dark colors make objects look sleek and almost all of my electronics are black, but when it comes to graphic design, more often than not, it's used as a way to try to look artistic and edgy when in reality the designers were just being lazy.
"Light Designs" can be summed up with "Bland and/or Derivative".
I would say my favorite is probably Foxy.ru. Great use of color and texture and a refreshingly original concept for the design of the site. I'd say my least favorite is WallopCreative.com. I honestly can't figure out why that site is even on the list. - nesquik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4http://smashingmagazine.com.nyud.net:8080/2006/12/19/50-beautiful-css-based-web-designs-in-2006
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For sites where a visitor will be more infrequent, I think a large image would be OK - but I agree that a lot of space is taken and you have to carefully think about usability of the site over looks if you want people coming back at all.
- billydisaster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Disagree. I love the sites with the photographic look. If your target market has broadband why not make the page look better? The wait time should only be a few seconds if their servers are working properly.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2thanks for that, now im overwhelmed by a sense of jealousy for those websites
but kineda's always been a favourite, both for design and content ;) - hobgobbler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3that was fast.
- theadvinci, on 07/01/2008, -0/+2Oh yes... some great designs there.
- n3rrd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't understand the readability argument. If designers are so obsessed with "readability", why do they insist on using outrageously small font sizes and low contrast? Font size and contrast are two of the more important factors in "readability", and they all miss the mark.
Sites that force certain things on a user which can restrict the viewing experience are poorly designed, IMO.
I personally find that, with a reasonable font size, using seventy-five to eighty percent of the browser window for text, and the last twenty to twenty-five percent for navigation (if side mounted) is clean and usable/readable. - billydisaster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Right, why on earth should a website about design feature strong graphics over copy. Much better to have loads of text yeah?
Almost all of those dark sites are about design/fashion/colour/images. You see, all visual stuff? A website that sucks ass is one that doesnt do the job its designed for. Those dark ones work. - BitBurner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Bryan Bell Did Joyent He is amazing. http://www.bryanbell.com
- NeoRicen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah they look great but it's not like they'd look any different if done without CSS.
- TheIconoclast31, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3A couple of those are Flash based (olivier danchin, for example), but I'm not complaining.
- NikZ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some nice sites in that list (and some not so). I've always admired Veerle's site, very sleek (and content rich). In fact, all of the 9Rules member sites seem to have rather tasteful designs.
- mathew_bug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, no. Not all of them. Some are table layouts.
- kevinold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If you haven't checked out Rik Catlow's site (http://www.rikcat.com) you should.
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@soapycub: Yeah, that is annoying. They could have made it a lot easier on themselves, and their host, if they just made one set of the alphabet transparent on white PNGs or GIFs. So each letter is hollow. Then to change the font color, all they need to do is change the background color of the span/div.
- tybris, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yay, designs are actually getting better. Now maybe 2007 will be the year in which people will finally stop using humongous headers completely.
- gerkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Beauty, alas, is in the eye of the beholder without a doubt. Most of these sites I see less as beautiful and more as design challenged (design is about MORE than the way the page LOOKS). Lots remind me of when Fireworks first came out in fact.... just how many images can you use in a single page? ;)
- junk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Different strokes for different strokes. I didn't care for the dark designs much either but I thought foxie.ru was the least appealing on the list. It was slow as molasses to load, the navigation is a mess and to top it off the layout is table based, so I'm not even sure what it is doing on a CSS design list in the first place.
- s0l3x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1They probably use the text because it is a unique font.
As for using single letter images, it may end up being faster... once one "s" image loads, all the "s" images appear... Whether or not this method is actually more efficient, I'm not sure. (Since you have to take into account the extra requests that have to be made to the server to get the images.)
EDIT: Also, they can really easily add new text content and then just use a script to replace the letters with images. - ojk007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@headswine
because they're raw html styled with CSS - danklogix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2http://www.duggmirror.com
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I aspire to design this elegantly
- Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The point is to basically use a LOT of CSS, not just one little style to make the scrollbar all coloured. A "CSS" site should use CSS for the whole design, the layout etc. Many sites do not yet do this. One example that comes to mind, though it's not a site, is vBulletin. It sucks in terms of HTML.
- JoshuaStrebel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks for mention.
joshua at obuweb.com - bloobloo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Basically, these are selected from http://www.flickr.com/photos/splat/sets/981332/ as featured on digg a while back.
-
Show 51 - 99 of 99 discussions
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is