Using non-standard fonts

3point7designs.com has an interesting article titled “8 fonts you probably don’t us but should’ which addresses the age old problem of having to use fonts that are guaranteed to be on the visitor’s computer. If you are willing to take the risk that a few of your visitors might not see it exactly as intended, have a look at this article. Each font reviewed includes stats on what percentage of computers have it.
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Colour palette combinations

If you are looking for inspiration when trying to pick a colour palette, this site has about 50 examples of colour palettes with a sample design using those colours.
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CSS Zen Garden

This is a great site to explain the concept of what CSS is and what it can do. When people first hear of CSS they tend to think “it’s a way to change the font used on the entire site without changing it on the individual pages” While that’s impressive enough, CSS is so much more.

In the CSS Zen garden you can select a different CSS theme and see how it affects the page. The two examples at the top are the exact same page, only the CSS has been changed.

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Colour theme web tool

Adobe has a nice color theme collection, sort by newest, highest rated, most popular or random.

The best is yet to come however. You can then modify the theme or create a new one from scratch. Click on this icon to open the editor  . Among the available modification tools are

• create a theme from an image
• HSV, RGB, CMYK or LAB sliders
• Show colors by rules:
  • Analagous
  • Monochromatic
  • Triad
  • Complementary
  • Compound
  • Shades

My favourite is the ‘create a colour theme from an image’ option. Upload an image and it will spit out a theme from it.

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Flash and Javascript Galleries

Vivalogo has a fantastic lineup of 33 different webgallery treatments for inspiration or to use on your site. One of my favourites is Lightwindow which not only looks pretty but also allows you to create galleries of all sorts including Images, Flash, Quicktime movies, Youtube movies, PDFs and much more.

There are many many more great creative galleries in the list
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Table and Column website designs

If you are looking for inspiration for your column style website Webdesignerwall.com has a great round-up of about 30 or so styles.

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Browse without clicking

Dontclick.it is an experiment in how we navigate websites. Browse this site without clicking and you will be surprised at how little you miss it. It works on this site, but I can’t quite imagine it on a link heavy site, but that’s why you create tests and experiments like this. It’s a very valiant effort and worth looking at even if just to refresh your mind

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