Years ago, HTML tables were the standard for laying out web pages. CSS and semantic thinking changed that, and today CSS frameworks make designing relatively easy.

But they can also generate a surprising number of superfluous elements.

The 960 Grid System encourages the addition of <div> elements and class attributes, especially on complicated pages. Is...

Watercolor is such an old school element. Artists have been using watercolor for hundreds of years, and web designers have adopted the style for good reason.

Watercolor is a great way to add depth, interesting subtle textures and colors. It can really give your site an authentic, natural feel.

The examples compiled in this collection use watercolor in different ways; whether it’s for the main graphic of the site or the more subtle and faint hints that get...

Since March 9 of this year Microsoft has been rolling out their new design of MSN.com.

Backed by countless hours of testing and roughly 70,000 pieces of feedback from their users, the design has been tweaked over the last four months to its current state.

Visitors who cannot yet view it at http://www.msn.com can access it at http://preview.msn.com.

In this post,...

Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very...

Every week we feature a set of comics created exclusively for WDD.

The content revolves around web design, blogging and funny situations that we encounter in our daily lives as designers.

These great cartoons are created by Jerry King, an award-winning cartoonist who’s one of the most published, prolific and versatile cartoonists in the world today.

So for a few moments, take a break from your...

Google Buzz made a loud and controversial entrance when it launched in February shrouded with privacy issues and various other concerns.

Like it or not, it seems that Google Buzz is here to stay with many blogs adding ‘buzz’ icons to their posts. Today, we’ll make it easier to add some buzz to your posts with a free and exclusive set of icons for Google Buzz.

This set includes 24 beautiful icons in raster and vector formats.

They are completely...

Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities by David Airey is a fantastic place to start if you’re interested in creating logos that aren’t just visually appealing, but are also memorable, easily recognizable, and timeless.

The book includes a ton of real-world examples from a variety of businesses; everything from the brands of Fortune 500 companies to local restaurants and other businesses have space devoted to them.

There are examples on virtually every page, lending credence to the points being discussed. Airey’s extensive experience...

Last week’s contest from SitePoint is now officially over.

The giveaway was really successful with almost 800 entries from all over the world.

Many thanks to all of you who participated and to SitePoint for their generous prizes.

Each of the 5 winners has won a full copy of their latest and very successful book “jQuery: Novice to Ninja”.

All winners...