Wow! I can’t believe October is winding down and soon we will be into November and the end of year holidays. For me, this time of year is the busiest and I can sometime have the tendency to lose focus on my initial goals for the year (have you reached all the goals you set for yorself this year?). Anyway, one of my goals for Designer’s Mind is to build the most complete list of design resouces. 

I was recently inspired by Steven from VandelayDesign who has put together an excellent list of resources for web deigners. He includes image pickers, fonts, CSS layouts, dead link checkers, color pickers and many more - 77 resources to be exact. I hope to build on Steven’s list over the next 30 - 60 days. I am hoping that you will help and contribute to our list.

Also, you may want to peak at Jason Bartholme’s blog - a great blog for resources, including a list of 70+ JavaScript Resources for Every Web Developer

I look forward to your comments…

Everywhere you look on the web there are tons of free design template directories - I think this is one of the best resources that sorts through all of the offerings.
Check out the post on Design Vitality at: Open Source Web Design Templates 

A quick note about a cool contest they are having over at Earners Forumn - they are calling it the Webmaster Inspiration Contest. I was tipped off about this contest from one of my favorite Wordpress Theme designers - Brian Gardner, you can check out his stuff at www.briangardner.com. In addition, Brian has entered the contest see his contest entry here…

A little more about the webmaster inspiration contest, prizes and how to enter if you are interested. There are six categories in which you can enter:

• Blog Success Story
  How did your blog become the success that it is? Is it highly trafficked? Is it your sole income?
• Forum Success Story
  Did you grow it from scratch? Has your membership growth been exponential? Huge traffic and/or income?
• Affiliate Marketing Success Story
  Is it your sole income? Did you have a campaign with extraordinary ROI? Did a campaign buy you a new car?
• SEO / SEM Success Story
  Are you #1 for a hot keyword? I pwn Google? Did you drive huge traffic to a new site (viral, social media, organic)?
• Rags to Riches Success Story
  Did you go from the poor house to Trump’s mansion? Did your net worth finally move in to positive numbers?
• “I Quit My Job” Success Story
  Did you quit your day job due to your internet success?

Be well and have a great day!

 No matter if your website is a personal site with a few pages or a huge corporation website, having a good design is one of the most important things. It matters a lot to visitors and can make the difference between leaving a site or bookmarking it. Here are a few tips to help improve your design:

Tip #1 — Fast Loading Pages

Pages should load fast. Most people will leave your site if it’s not done loading in ten or 15 seconds. And even if you have a fast internet connection, not everyone does and 56k modems still exist.

Tip #2 — Easy to Read Text

Text should be easy to read. The text size should be big enough, and the background should not obscure your text. If you want to be safe, use black text on a white background. If you want more color, choose very carefully to make sure it’s still easy to read.

Tip #3 — Intuitive and Easy to Navigate

Your website should be easy to navigate. Each link should be clearly identified as such and graphic navigation elements like buttons and tabs should be easy to read and use. You do not want people leaving because they could not figure out how your Flash menu works.

Tip #4 — Consistent Layout

Your layout and design should be consistent. If you switch between styles too much, you will confuse your visitors. If the design is too different, people will believe that they are now on a different website since the layout changed.

Tip #5 — Less is More - Sometimes…

Avoid music and sounds. Very few people like to have music forced on them while they navigate, especially if they are already listening to music or surfing at their job! If you really cannot do without music, turn it off by default and ask visitors to start it themselves.

Tip #6 — Pay Attention to Browser Compatability

Design for browser compatibility. Many people do not use Internet Explorer on Windows. Make sure your site is at least viewable in Mozilla Firefox and Opera (if possible, you could even try testing on a Mac). Sites that target markets like technology should be more careful, since readers are more likely to use the newest browsers and gadgets like PDAs.

Tip #7 — Screen Resolution - Still Matters

Design for all screen resolutions. You may like to surf in 1240×1080 with your new screen, but some people still use 800×600, or even 640×768! A site that looks perfect in high resolution may turn out to be impossible to view correctly in 800×600.

This is just a begining to what I hope will be a growing list of web design tips (please submit tips through comments) and one that evolves into more advanced design tips. Please provide some feedback and tips of your own so I can get a better sense of the level of our readership.

 PS - I am toying with the idea of adding Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Categories to Designers Mind.  Let me know what you think…