Sites that show great design?

Have you tried http://www.coolhomepages.com ? It might help a little if you were more clear about what you're looking for - what type of a site design are you looking for? What type of qualities interest you? (clean, corporate, cutting edge, modern, entertaining, classic etc.) It's hard to give suggestions when the question is so broad!

to "spruce" it up, try using a dynamic element somewhere on the page that maybe changes text every 3 seconds showing a phrase, or something...image changer, mouseover buttons...if you have a color bg, try white...and manipulate your images and text to make the white look very "un-flat" (it works, i've done it)

if you really want to go "un-flat", especially since you frequent deviantart (which i do also), find one of those graphics that are abstract and spacey, ask the artist for permission, and manip. it to make your bg have depth.

even creating a different nav bar sometimes does the trick...make the buttons/menu's change color or change something on mouseover, give it some "3D" (the buttons) and check it out. but it all depends on what kind of site you are running. give us a link, and we might be able to help easier.

Don't confine yourself to the web for inspiration. I find myself looking everywhere for ideas - television, billboards, magazines. One time I even got a colour scheme from a christmas light arrangement.

I never thought I'd find myself uttering, in my day to day routines, "ooh, those colours work!"

Quote: Originally posted by Eskater05
to "spruce" it up, try using a dynamic element somewhere on the page that maybe changes text every 3 seconds showing a phrase, or something...image changer, mouseover buttons...if you have a color bg, try white...and manipulate your images and text to make the white look very "un-flat" (it works, i've done it)

if you really want to go "un-flat", especially since you frequent deviantart (which i do also), find one of those graphics that are abstract and spacey, ask the artist for permission, and manip. it to make your bg have depth.

even creating a different nav bar sometimes does the trick...make the buttons/menu's change color or change something on mouseover, give it some "3D" (the buttons) and check it out. but it all depends on what kind of site you are running. give us a link, and we might be able to help easier.

I disagree with most of this actually. I don't think it's the eye candy that makes a site great - in fact, it's the opposite. It's the little things, the attention to detail, and most importantly, doing something that's appropriate for your site. For some reason I don't think that software developers are going to be too excited by dynamic effects! (I'm assuming that's the site you're talking about.)

I agree with Megan in that eye candy can actually make a site look old/tired and I find that fresh, clean sites with enough well done graphics to give some pazzaz are the sites I like rather than fussy, cluttered ones.

Hello
I like the look of your site but there was one thing i noticed, that might help, your tables on the right have a similar colour to the center, maybe trying the same colour as the left will give the center a bit of depth, just a suggestion.
Good luck with the site.

oh i wasn't talking about content.

Quote: I'm feeling kind of flat

i thought he was talking about the way his site is presented, so i replied accordingly. of course, if you are talking content, then none of the things i talked about will help.

if its content, thats all up to you.

Right, Content is king. But I agree with taff about finding inspiration outside of the web. Lately I've been ispired by Mexican architecture and use of color....not something found on the web.

I appreciate all the feedback. The link provided looks pretty cool. Actually, I wasn't talking about devmanagers.com, although there are a few things I want to do to it.

The site I'm working on is a Nascar racing site. I'll post the link in the review section in a couple weeks as I finish it up. The site is a PostNuke community site.

Any other suggestions for sites that list other good design like the first one?

Thanks again.