Best sites (graphically) you ever seen

[Bridge of Clay]

I'm assigned to create my church's new website. This year, we're celebrating it's 25th anniversary and I wanted to create something new and cool.

I decided the theme must be silver, but I'm out of ideas for the lay-out. A friend will help me with the coding, it will PHP based...

What are the sites you know that have kick-ass lay-outs???

I dunno if I create one on CreedFeed's style (top banner, menu on left table and the content on the right) or like this one:

www.bradesco.com.br (I dunno if this style accepts php)...

[Steve]

For abunch of cool designs check out www.coolhomepages.com

[aussiecreeder]

there is this creation science site www.answersingenesis.org which has a very cool layout and is user friendly.

[Mulletman]

You said this was for a church so I dont think you want to go all out on this design. I fully understand that it will be available to the entire world, but you have to understand your audience - which in your case will be local. When I built my site, my latest design uses CSS styles. Steve has just barely understood the power of CSS, which is why he dropped PHP on the new AlterBridge website. This is my website's design, MULLETMAN.NET, all done with CSS and HTML. Actually the true heart and beauty of it relies on CSS, the actual HTML is nothing more than what you can learn in your basic high school class. I dont have the CSS style sheet available for download because I dont. No one ever asked and I just never saw a reason to distribute it. But if you are very interested in CSS, which you should, check out this site - CSS Zen Garden. The actual content of those websites does not change. What does change is the graphic design and that is what can make and break a website. Also remember, sometimes simple is better, specially got the com'fuser' impared. You dont what to create this work of art that NO ONE will be able to navigate.

[Steve]

Just a note: I still use PHP on AlterBridgeRocks. PHP isn't a design tool - it's the tool used to program the "behind the scenes" stuff, like the discography, tour archive, news system, etc. What I did was scrap the HTML tables for desiging the new site and used solely CSS to form the page layout. (actually I still used some tables, but not for the main layout).

[Mulletman]

whatever, i got my point across. CSS still rules

[Steve]

[Bridge of Clay]

thanks, Al. Very insightful since I do know about the power of CSS but never learned how to use it and create CSS styles. I gotta try that.

As I said, I want something clean, but graphically nice (un-poor!), modern but at the same time it's not wild like eye4you.com ... if you can get the idea.

Last night I scratched a design on paper and if everything goes well, a friend will help me with the PHP code for the "news system", which is one of the main things I want in the project.

Thank you for your inputs and I'll certainly post it here when it's done to get some feedback.