Designing for the Web

When I made my first website the web was very simple. HTML was at version 2.0 and Javascript was new. The dominant Web Browser was Netscape Navigator and I remember downloading it over a 2400 baud modem overnight (3 MB was quite a lot in those days, now a single photograph is bigger than that installation, but I digress...).

At the end of the day most simple websites are text. Some text is exactly what you see here. Other text describes the overall layout and behavior.

A few links for budding Website designers...

HTML Help - Oriented for beginners, with plenty of pointers to design and style guides.
W3 Schools - Fantastic technical resource for learning all of the little languages of the web.
CSS Zen Garden - Inspiring page about the flexibility of Cascading Style Sheets. The text never changes, but the variety of styles is staggering.
W3 Consortium - Formal definitions of how the web should work. Only go here once you feel you have mastered the other techniques.