Comments on: Galleries Are Dead, Long Live Galleries

By: CSS Galleries With a Focused Inspiration » Inspiration Bit

CSS Galleries With a Focused Inspiration » Inspiration Bit — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:58:54 +0000

[...] There are hundreds of CSS galleries on the Web and each one claims to be unique. Although everyone has already noticed that most of these galleries repeat each other showcasing the same websites. Several articles were written about how pointless most of these galleries are, how everyone is tired of viewing the same average or similarly looking sites appearing in most of their collections. “A word to the wise, css galleries are over”, asserted Devlounge; CollyLogic wrote about “the end of CSS showcases”, and Wisdump wisely concluded that “they really ended a long time ago when everyone decided they would start their own showcase”. [...]

By: Nick Dunn

Nick Dunn — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:54:39 +0000

As an aside, and some blatant self-promotion, I have just launched my own project in an attempt to index and aggregate the plethora of CSS galleries out there in Webland.

http://css-galleries.com

I completely agree with the thoughts above. I’ve spent a good deal of time sifting through these showcase sites, and you can certainly tell the differences in standards between, say, CSS Mania who feature dozens of sites per week, and Screenspire who are very selective.

But you’re right, I would like to see the criteria raised above the bar of “nice design” or “uses web standards”, or incorporate the entire package. After all, that’s what makes a “good” website.

By: Scrivs

Scrivs — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:05:33 +0000

Hmmm, I still don’t think under the hood becomes that important to xhtml/css coders once they know what they are doing. Sure it might be helpful for the backend guys to get a sneak of the code running the site, but besides that…

Of course learning is a continual process so maybe that’s how you are looking at it.

By: cpawl

cpawl — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:48:09 +0000

Design showcase gallery? Dude, you do have Google right? There are plenty of website with an “artsy” view galleries out there… especially for Flash based sites. I personally see no reason for CSS galleries to die. There existence heavily influenced design trends, brought the idea of web standards to more, and ARE well designed websites.

Yes code is important, but above the hood matters more to the end user than under the hood.

At the same time I highly doubt end users go around looking at design galleries (ask your mom how many she has been to) but you know who does… other designers and developers… coders… where “under the hood” is the most important of all.

By: Montoya

Montoya — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 01:48:34 +0000

Wow, I'm a bit ahead of you guys (www.cssliquid.com)

By: Thomas SilkjÃ¦r

Thomas SilkjÃ¦r — Wed, 31 May 2006 21:39:06 +0000

I run a webdesign showcase (webdesignbook.net) and it focuses mainly on the code in the first round. All submitted sites that is valid coded gets listed, and its up to users to get them voted into the next round, where 150 of the best webdesigns (where look and code matters the same) will be picked out for a book.

I have tried to move the focus away from just picking sites out that i like to look at, because what looks good in some peoples eyes, looks bad in others. This means that many of the sites listed, isn’t listed in other showcases – variaty. Look at stylegala, cssbeauty, cssvault etc, and you will find that most of the designs are listed all the same places.

By: Chris Griffin

Chris Griffin — Wed, 31 May 2006 20:35:34 +0000

I actually have an idea for the next generation of css galleries. Though, because of the overly saturated state of the current market I don’t know if I want to implement the idea at this moment…if at all.

The problem at this point is no new galleries will get any respect from the community because its “just another gallery.” Regardless, I think galleries have some importance. Good design and code deserves attention and merit.

On a sidenote, One thing I find funny is when you see a website posted on one of the big galleries (StyeGala, CSS Beauty, CSS Vault, or any decent size gallery), it quickly filters down to the wannabe galleries. I’ve witnessed this happening to my site as I saw all these galleries show up in my stats. So basically, its a gallery of sites they grabbed from another gallery.

By: karmatosed

karmatosed — Wed, 31 May 2006 19:35:06 +0000

I agree with Mark’s idea of having a section based site. When it comes down to it yep the tables o’ tables evil evil chants will be there due to the movements of web standards and css showcases that seemed to be developing like a rash for a while and having the same kind of multiplying as gremlins and water. A change of the beast is definetly the only way to go if we are to see any showcase sites and not just chalk them down to history.

By: franky

franky — Wed, 31 May 2006 19:26:32 +0000

How many sites will be launched due to this article? One problem tho : it might/is be harder to register ‘design’ TLDs.

You should have made the showcasers’ life easier and released/authorized the XHTML showcases. Easier to find TLDs. ;)

By: Julian

Julian — Wed, 31 May 2006 19:26:02 +0000

Oh, yea… the good old CSS Vault days… *dreamin*