Jim Fanale Design - Web. Print. Style.

It should be an obvious statement that, as a designer, one of your top priorities is to keep abreast of what is going on in the design world. The fastest way to do this? The web! There is certainly no shortage of sites and weblogs out their that can help you accomplish this, but the following are the ones where I find myself spending the most (often too much) time checking out.

SMASHING MAGAZINE

Smashing Magazine is probably my favorite design-oriented site out there. Not only is the content consistently top-notch, but the actual layout of the site is extremely inviting. Easy to navigate, utilizing a ton of guest writers and covering everything from design inspiration to advanced web development, Smashing is a wealth of information that shouldn’t be overlooked by any designer.

NOUPE

Noupe.com is a weblog for designers and Web developers on a ton of subjects. They cover a crazy range of design topics including CSS, Ajax, Javascript, typography, advertising and basically anything else for which you could ask. If you are looking for consistently up-to-date information, this is a great place to start.

SIX REVISIONS

While it may not be as easy to navigate or as “pretty” as Smashing Magazine, the content provided by SIX REVISIONS is right up there with any competitive weblog. Their categories cover everything that is relevant to a designer, especially their blogs on project management. While there aren’t many management posts available, yet, the topics they cover are really informative.

DESIGN REVIVER

Design Reviver was created by designer Henry Jones. I was a HUGE fan of Jones’ portfolio site, and it was his work that got me really excited about the potential of WordPress. He outdid himself with Design Reviver. For example, when other weblogs give you 10 free photoshop brushes, you can head over to Reviver and find 400+ FREE PHOTOSHOP BRUSHES. His expansive library of resources and tutorials will give any designer a leg up on the competition.

A LIST APART

There’s not much I need to say about A List Apart that you can’t conclude yourself with just one visit to this exquisite site. Comparing ALA to the other sites on this list is like comparing Mozart to Led Zeppelin. Each have their genius to them, but ALA offers a classic professorship approach to its cutting edge ideas and coverage of what is going on in the web development community.

Take their latest article as an example:

“Return of the Mobile Style Sheet” discusses the importance and difficulty surrounding mobile specific CSS. Who’s the author? Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, who has been working for the W3C for the past eight years, and is now responsible for the Mobile Web Initiative, W3C’s focus efforts on making the Web on mobile devices rock.