1. 
   http://www.letitbleedbook.com
   

   Just when I had decided that many recording company websites are very uninspiring, this little gem comes along, beautifully themed at that. The site is supporting a Rhino Records company commemorative limited-edition book of the 1969 Rolling Stones U.S. World Tour. The plain version goes for $650, unless your champagne tastes lead you to order the deluxe edition at $950, maybe there's a discount code floating around someplace?

   The Let It Bleed site is credited to Casey Sheehan of Expo Cooperative. The EC site was featured Week #10 on MostInspired.com.

2. 
   http://blogactionday.org/

   This apropos entry and design is known for challenging social awareness issues, and this years no different. The topic of discussion for this years blog participants is Poverty.

3. 
   http://www.train-ee.com

   A big fan of Michael Boyink's ExpressionEngine resources, this site's relaunch is look-ee-n... good! Here's a holla back from one a your peeps then Mike ;)

4. 
   http://crystalheadvodka.com

   What do ectoplasm, vodka, and Indiana Jones have in common? This is no riddle just an observation to go along with this mysterious site subject. The vodka is not so mysterious, drink too much and you'll be in big trouble, but the crystal skulls are a recent phenomena, due to the latest Indiana Jones adventure on film.

5. 
   http://www.nebulaawards.com

   Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. awards site.
   Interview with the designer: http://expressionengine.com/showcase/read/tony_geer_nebula_awards/

6. 
   http://www.artofdyingmusic.com

   It seems Canada's got all the kick-ass rockbands now days (Note to self look for more kick-ass rockband websites).

7. 
   http://www.2pitch.com

   From the possibly sligthly jaded Jeff Lupien, looks like an entertaining gallery pitch.

8. 
   http://www.datedesigner.com

   Build a better date, no you don't have to be Dr. Frankenstein or a modern day Prometheus. It just takes a little planning, and with the help of this application/website you'll be a natural to be yourself, and ask out that hottie you've been avoiding. You gotta love the Swiss Army cross logo.

   This site falls under the "why didn't I think of that..." category. I'm not sure who they got to input all the locations, they've done a great job though.

9. 
   http://www.felixlaflamme.com

   Just in time for Halloween, this "Illustrator to the Rockstars" website is particularly ghoulish. Felix is responsible for the art on the Psyhco Clowns guitar picks, and other notable ventures.
   ----------------

   That's all for this week, until next time don't forget to tune in to your favorite podcasts (truth or fiction) or burn your own. Back for the attack next week with more twisted adventures of a wanna-be web developer...

Technorati : Morbid Curiosity Design, Web Standards Design, Weekly Top Standards
Del.icio.us : Morbid Curiosity Design, Web Standards Design, Weekly Top Standards

1. 
   http://islandphotobooth.com

   This retro layout is quite well done, with all of the fun stuff a vintage-retro layout should have. It's a pretty good fit for the subject matter of the website.

2. 
   http://www.onefastbuffalo.com

   Another vintage website, this one with an overall antique vibe to it, you'll want to ignore the validator on this one, that and the all caps in the description meta tags and blinking navigation elements that results from not using a sliding-doors CSS technique. I do like this website though, with it's slide-in vertical navigation and various antique ornamentation, including a menu for changing the wallpaper background of the page. Catch OneFastBuffalo before this traveling wild west medicine show moves on to the next stop on the stage coach line.

3. 
   http://thefirsttwenty.com

   A really tidy and complete 1-page grid layout, using a lightbox to load content above the current page, resulting in showing the user many pages within a one-page layout. This non-profit site is somewhat a tribute to the fireman, while rasing money and awareness for a great cause highlighting the everyday heroic efforts of firemen, and creating needed resources.

4. 
   http://www.usataxdollars.com

   A nice little interface to give you an idea where your federal tax dollars are going in the USA, via a pie chart and detailed breakdown. Kind of cool actually.

5. 
   http://billyhughes.oph.gov.au
   

   Considering some of the government websites out there, this site should rate very highly! The site put up as a support site for an exhibition of past Australian prime minister Billy Hughes, who held the office from 1915 to 1923, when the country was enduring the horrors of the first world war. Marvelous little site, especially if you don't know much about Australian history.

6. 
   http://www.headconference.com
   

   Another web developer event to add to your calendar, October 24-26, 2008. This one is global and all you need is web access and $99 bucks. With some big names and major players, it looks like a pretty big deal. Check it out, the site credits are in the footer on the homepage.

Technorati : Website Gallery, Weekly Top Standards
Del.icio.us : Website Gallery, Weekly Top Standards

1. 
   http://www.cesserdigital.net
   I recognized the work of Miguel Ripoll (link to an English translation via google), almost instantly! I don't think there are any other designers or firms that I can so positively identify. This design enterprise agency is one to watch for sure.

2. 
   http://jobs.webdesignerwall.com/
   Looking for a new design gig, or just more opportunity to spread your designer wings? Check out Nick La's new design jobs board, you gotta love Nick's work!

3. 
   http://www.kindledinme.com/
   Love the hierarchical use of colors in this design and the slow scrolling javascript slider on the homepage. The rainbow colors look splendid on the dark earth tone background.

4. 
   http://www.august.com.au
   Another spectacular use of fade-in flash backgrounds. S;otting flash backgrounds a while back, I've forgotten to try and incorporate the technique into my own website designs and redesigns. The idea of flash backgrounds really resonates with me, I'm not big on flash as an interface and full-site means of navigation usually.

5. 
   http://www.almalatina.info
   I don't speak the language, but this looks to be a great ballroom dancing site maybe, and you know what they say about ballrooms, especially in Italy?

6. 
   http://www.thelippincott.net
   The mixed nostalgic, newsprint, and grungy graphic elements of this design, along with outstanding typography and a loose grid layout combine to create an old world flavor that makes me hungry for more, marvelous site.

7. 
   http://www.classicwfl.com

8. 
   http://www.mukustudios.com
   Amusing Flash interactive portfolio, some talented illustration works.

Technorati : CSS Gallery Blog, Web Standards Websites, Weekly Web Standards
Del.icio.us : CSS Gallery Blog, Web Standards Websites, Weekly Web Standards

1. 
   
   http://milesdowsett.com

   Overlooked this site in last weeks picks. Quality stuff running on ExpressionEngine. A screenshot thumbnail for portfolio navigation is kind of the norm, but this portfolio page utilizes mini 25x25px icons for each site featured, and the user-interface there along with the pages info-architecture and hierarchy make for easy viewing. Great stuff.....

2. 
   http://jasonsantamaria.com

   The new redesign of rockstar designer Jason Santa Maria seems to be built on EE this go round. Jason has authored a few resources on Web Standards and the like that I find myself referring to repeatedly. His portfolio contains some notable sites, such as HappyCog, AlistApart, and Dictionary.com to name a few. The layout, to coin a phrase -is a multi-columned news-style layout. Here's a link to Jason's blog post on the redesign.
   Pretty cool for EE fans, that is all from this "Paparaz-ee".

3. 
   http://www.arcinspirations.com/kobe/

   An increcibly adepth sliding navigation and website. Many of the sites resources are downloadble PDF menus, so they don't have too many problems with the box layout not resizing to accommodate for text. The creative uses of jQuery on this one have been hit squarely out of the park! Also another use of a flash animated background technique to produce " sparks" behind the active page link in the main navigation. For an even more indepth look at how this site is put together, check the SmashingMazagine post on useful coding solutions 1st one on the list.

4. 
   http://www.sroown.com

   An innovative portfolio solution, a lot of content presented tastefully in a one-page layout, using the prototype-scriptaculous duo of javascript libraries, amongst other resource.

5. 
   http://www.gianmarcolauriola.com

   An urban grafitti layout, can you dig it?!#! There's a bit of an Easter Egg if you load the site in IE6 you'll see this lovely message alert box. I couldn't manage to track down where it was being served up in the stylesheets? The IE6 warning replaces the RSS feed and welcome message in the upper right... nice... that should turn some heads.
   

Technorati : Web Design Gallery, Web Standards, Website Picks, Weekly Top Standards
Del.icio.us : Web Design Gallery, Web Standards, Website Picks, Weekly Top Standards

1. 
   Upstruct.com
   Interesting and trendy concept portfolio site, with Prototype and Scriptaculous as the javascript libraries of choice.

2. 
   AlexBuga.com
   One from my favorites, this one has some very interesting script features using mootools and some other "stuff". The green hanging lamp slides back and forth on a slider and produces a realistic light effect. The PNG image of the lamp includes the shining light that is a transparency effect using white for the light. (Note to self: start doing cool stuff with png or else!).

3. 
   Dgscreative.cz/en Something resembling creativity, and it doesn't hurt to have creative in your sites domain name either. The 3D Create logo is spectacular. Another fine detail is the sequential "Loading" animation when viewing portfolio pieces in the lihgtbox overlay.

4. 
   Albertlo.com
   Movable Type CMS, Jquery and some nice plugin work sliding the portfolio thumbnails on the homepage amongst other great features.

5. 
   Maddetective.com
   This website anticipates the UK release of the film "Mad Detective," in which the protagonist can see people's multiple personalities manifested in multiple people. The site is designed to look bruised and beaten, as the main character is in the early scenes.

6. 
   Digitaldesign.cherrypickpeople.com
   A vibrant but simple color palette at work here. The large photographic headers add some visual interest on the different site pages also.

7. 
   Gomediazine.com
   This looks to be a fresh redesign of this site and I'm liking it. Straight from Cleveland, Ohio home of the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum". They are stacking up a pretty good content lineup as well as continuing to offer graphic resources, freebies, tutorials and their usual tasty arsenal of vector packs. Keep GoMedia on your radar.

8. 
   Adhamipenderarchitecture.com
   A new design trend on the horizon, very tastefully done here, is animated flash backgrounds. This subtle fractal animation strikes me as a poignant addition to this architect portfolio site, that is a minimal layout in rich color tones... Magnifique!

9. 
   JonRawlinson.com
   My leisure pick of the week, this video producer's website has some great travel footage from all around the world. Take a break, and have a look. This one's utilizing Wordpress folks.

10. 
    Current.com
    Leisure pick number two. Having not delved too much into video and tv content type sites. The user-interface (UI) for this beta site is pretty well developed. The player was in use on the previous Jon Rawlinson site. Check out the schedule page for a flash nav gizmo, really nice stuff.
    
    Let me know what some of your favorite sites are for something more than youTube video shorts.

Technorati : Web Standards Picks, Weekly Top Standards
Del.icio.us : Web Standards Picks, Weekly Top Standards

1. 
   Growldesign.co.uk
   Freelance portfolio of Hertfordshire, UK's web designer Jenna Smith, a well rounded code specialist with all of these in her skillset; PHP, MySQL, XML, XSLT and jQuery -"yea-a open source!"

2. 
   Awayback.com
   One of my favorites this week, Freelancer - Amrinder's site, who's self-described objectives include building "technically intelligent, visually impressive and freely creative websites"!
   If the portfolio site is any indication, then yeah I'm feeling the "visually impressive" bit, nice work.
   Note to self: start using some sIFR, it looks just excellent here in the headings.
   Typography overall very nice.

3. 
   Phunkn.com
   Phunky-funky, talented Creative Director -Jason Chieng's site.

4. 
   NickHand.net/
   Graphic design from the far North of Alaska, Nick's site utilizes an expansive grid and some Flash header treatments. The flash is a bit sluggish here, and as a result not very smooth tweening action, but it could just be my machine. Anybody have a 1Gb chip of old sdram laying a round, give me a yell ;) ...

5. 
   SpaceColorado.org
   Space exploration from the mile-high city Denver, Colorado.
   

6. 
   Indent.co.za
   Innovative bold geometrical layout, with a sci-fi futuristic console vibe.

7. 
   ConsiderOpen.com/
   A Seattle web design portolio, further proof that "Seattle still Rocks".

8. 
   http://www.tourtracker.com
   A new AOL brand website hit the streets this week, this one a great new music and concert resource TourTracker offers a whole host of original content and user submitted articles and inside-scoops about your favorite recording artists, as well as Tour Dates and ticket information for huge national tours as well as the pub down the street, incredible.
   
   Mubs confides in me he was instrumental, no pun intended, in java programming for the backend on this one, spending some time in Manhattan, NY the past couple of weeks. Thanks for turning me on to this one Mubashar, it Rocks! Everybody get out and catch some live music, you know you want to.

Quote of the Week:

"Believe in your dreams, for they can only take you to a place once unimaginable ... "
-Jason Chieng's site

That's about it for this week, happy Independence Day to anyone residing in the United States, Mubs in NY, and David B. from over at LogoPond down in Cajin country N'awlins, Lous'iana, and Simon across the other big pond at the reins of Stylegala. Shout-outs to all my friends scattered across the "Creative Planet" also, and enjoy the weekend, you know I will.

Peace out!

Technorati : blog, freelance, gallery, site of the day, web design
Del.icio.us : blog, freelance, gallery, site of the day, web design

Color resources for an upcoming blog article for Logopond.com/resources/blog.

The topic of the series is not primarily about color theory or even color, believe it or not. I guess I've already leaked the topic here on my Liveblog. Designing around client expectations.

-ty

Color Resources:

http://www.colourlovers.com

My profile tzColors

http://www.colorjack.com

http://www.colr.org

http://beta.dailycolorscheme.com

http://www.somacon.com/p142.php - Grab a quick Hex color value for your stylesheet.

Firefox Color Tool Add-ons:

Palette Grabber

Web Color Names

Colorblind simulator

FireColour

Colour Contrast Analyser

Font Finder

Technorati : Color Resources, Color Sites, Web Colors, Web Design Colors
Del.icio.us : Color Resources, Color Sites, Web Colors, Web Design Colors
Zooomr : Color Resources, Color Sites, Web Colors, Web Design Colors
Flickr : Color Resources, Color Sites, Web Colors, Web Design Colors

If implementing a design hacked for IE6 is limiting your abilities as a designer, especially if there are time constraint issues, the better alternative is campaigning IE6 users to upgrade, and only implementing the graceful degrading bits you have the time for. After all something less than graceful is now called for, beings that IE6's failure to comply with many web standard features has long been known.

If on the other hand a client is cognizant of the compromises you as a designer are faced with, and is willing to lessen the impact of the design and user interface, by sacrificing certain features for all site visitors, then maybe that is the better route than providing any progressive enhancement at all.

What it boils down to is you don't fail a design idea, because IE6 just can't make the layout work, or that the hacks would take so long and still may not be workable and you just don't have the man hours to attempt a solution for IE6.

BrowseHappy.com

Internet Explorer 6 message that can be seen on http://youlove.us if you are unfortunate enough to be running IE6
-- or -- if you have IE6 on your machine and want to load it just for kicks.
The folks at YouLove.us have done a pretty good job here of preserving the content that they could for IE6, the point being cutting-edge websites call for at least leading-edge browsers.

Friendly Warning Text:
Unfortunately, due to the restrictions of such an old browser (Internet Explorer 6 is now almost 7 years old!) you won't be experiencing the full goodness of this web site.

We strongly recommend upgrading your browser to a modern equivalent such as Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 or Safari 3, not just because you're missing out on some great design possiblities, but also due to the fact that Internet Explorer 6 is rather a security hole.

| |

http://browsehappy.com/badges

SaveTheDevelopers.org (STD)

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/25/save-the-developers-stop-using-internet-explorer-6/