Website Ideas/Design Issues

I've been going through books and tutorials on HTML and CSS, and have a pretty fair knowledge on how it works. The problem that I have is coming up with an idea/design of a website. I'd like to be able to apply my knowledge of coding into something creative that I'll be satisfied doing, knowing that I actually accomplished something.

Maybe I lack all the necessary creativeness to design, but if someone could give me some ideas or help me out it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Start on paper first. Draw up your designs & ideas, maybe based on anything you like - other sites (header from site a, menu from site b, main body from c etc), photos, magazines. Then you need to work out the code framework you're going to build to accommodate that design.

Alternatively you could work on a design package like fireworks or photoshop and draw up a grid for your layout, pasting moveable blocks into it and embellishing it as you go along.

I hope that kickstarts your design process

 

There are many inspiration galleries like this one. Maybe they will help.
http://www.webcreme.com/

 

Thanks for the responses. I think one of the problems may have been that I was trying not to copy another website's design and going for originality. I'm not saying going for originality is bad, but odds are there is another website out there that has a similar design even if you haven't seen it.

Thanks.

 

I totally appreciate you going for the "original" idea, but for development purposes it's always a good exercise to try and replicate sites just to understand the efforts involved. You might also be inspired to improve the design and do it better.

Take a look at http://www.csszengarden.com and run through the different styles for inspiration. And it's all CSS My favourite... http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=199/199.css

 

You don't have to copy one website. You could take elements you like from various websites and mix them together along with your own ideas. Who knows what you could come up with!

 

WebCreme is a very good site,

There is also CSSCLIP

and CSSREMIX,

Google "Web Design Inspiration"

Regards

 

look up for some css design template and mix em up.
Nowadays, web 2.0 is in. go here : http://www.templateworld.com/free_templates.html
for some ideas on site design. they have a great eye for design.
test and implement. That's the way to go.
You could also learn photoshop designing and slicing.