Links

Good Examples

 
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream
A great example of a site that maintains the company's branding without being 'in-your-face' about it.
 
Family Tree Legends
This is an elegant site, which is important because it gives the user a taste of what is different about their software. Most genealogy applications are ugly, amateurish, and difficult to use, but theirs is elegant in appearance as well as functionality. The website does an excellent job of hinting at that elegance.

It also has the remarkable capacity to appeal to a wide audience: The colors and photographs remind us of the traditions of our ancestors, while the fun and unconventional use of icons and the application-like boxes at the right remind us of what's happening with computer technology right now.
 
Girl Scouts of the USA
This site does a wonderful job of appearing substantial and important but still warm and welcoming. They have also done a good job of organizing the large amounts of information so that it is not hard to find your way around.

Notice that they have created a separate site just for girls and teens, which is much more animated and fun; this is possible because the secondary site doesn't have to worry about what adults think of it at first glance.
 
New York Public Library
The beautiful thing about this website is not so much that it is attractive, but that it truly fits the organization for which it was built.
 
CSS Zen Garden
This site exists to showcase the capabilities of stylesheets to change the way a page looks. You can see a wide variety of designs, most of them very high quality, using the links provided on the page. It is truly amazing how many different ways there are to display the same information!
 

Important Articles for Website Owners

Who Should You Hire to Design Your Web Site?
You need to hire someone to design your Web site. What should you look for before signing on the dotted line?
 
How to hire a Web Designer
An informative article about how to figure out what you want from your website, and what you want in a web designer.

Useful Software

Mozilla Firefox
Better and safer than Internet Explorer, this browser is free to the public. It does not have as many critical security holes as Internet Explorer, and it also prevents sites from hassling you with those irritating pop-up windows.
 
iTunes
A free mp3 player that makes it easy to purchase music legally, for only $0.99 a song.