When I first came to the internet I was a late bloomer. All my friends had been on it for years and it took me to move out from my parents’ house to get it.
I soon became fascinated with two things… online Gaming (FPS gaming, not poker…) and Design. As it became apparent that I wasn’t very good at online gaming, I stuck with the design and made the websites for whatever team I was with that season. This escalated when I went to university when I ended up quitting gaming all together and focusing on my degree (Animation).
From here I started freelancing for web-design parallel to my degree, but I couldn’t have got to where I am today without the aid of some of these websites.

Now I feel I should pass my “design bible” on to the masses…

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

http://twitter.com/smashingmag

Smashing Magazine covers a multitude of design elements and is top of my list! It blogs about all elements from; Graphics (Wallpapers, Icons), Inspiration (Photos, Showcases) Coding (CSS, JS, WordPress), Design (Photoshop, Fonts, Freebies), Work (Software, Tutorials) and occasionally other treats.

I find it useful for not only keeping up with the latest in web software but the latest trends in design. With well over 89,000 followers on twitter and over 179,300 RSS readers, Smashing Magazine has a lot of credibility on the web and is a good lead to follow.

My Tip to anyone reading this, +1Fav to smashingmagazine and check back daily as there is nearly always new stuff being published!

FYI - The rest follow no particular order.

http://www.webdesignerwall.com/

http://twitter.com/nickla

Webdesignerwall, “A wall of design ideas, web trends, and tutorials”. I discovered this site whilst i was at my first design job. Nick La, who runs and maintains webdesignerwall.com does a wonderful job in keeping us upto date with a more illustrative approach to design (as well as other trends and mediums around).
Whilst its not a daily update like some of the others, its ALWAYS a wonderful read and filled with informative snippets of gold in the web design world. Nick La also somehow finds time to get the latest freebies and competitions for all sorts of brilliant products; from passes to web design conferences to designer beanbags and muffins! webdesignerwall.com also hosts “design jobs on the wall” where companies and freelancers can post paid jobs.

Check it out!

http://www.andrewsellick.com/

Andy Sellick is a “Lead Interactive Developer”, his website has but one purpose, and that is to show us what he has discovered / seen that happens in his day job and tell us about it. Its not updated all that often but there are some really good articles on their and real diamonds of scripts and software, all you need to do is look!

http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/

http://twitter.com/umutm

webresourcesdepot.com, “free web resources everyday”. As the title says, this daily updated site offers a selection of the “best of the web” on all aspects of design, development and geek!

It offers many resources… (

)… and is very much my first port of call when I know what I need quickly that is open source.
Umut Muhaddisoglu is one of the bloggers from the site and offers more tantalising titbits that don’t appear on webresourcesdepot.com via his personal twitter http://twitter.com/umutm he is well worth the follow.

http://www.hotscripts.com/

hotscripts.com, “46,133 Resources Listed in Over 1,000 Categories”. Well as the title says, there is more resources here than you could ever imagine needing… but every time I have needed something in the past, Hotscripts has had a version of it and helped me tremendously. I check back to Hotscripts a little less than I should really, but I have never been left wanting when I have returned (occasionally it’s a little more advanced than I need but it always has something along the lines of what I need!).

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/

dynamicdrive.com, “dhtml scripts for the real world”. DynamicDrive is a wonderful place filled with magic and pixie dust… it may not look it but, once you go searching you can get lost in there for hours! With working editable versions of the scripts on the page (side by side with the source code) you can end up playing with everything, changing and altering… it’s definitely both noob and pro friendly! Any aspiring designer or developer should have this on their favourites and check back regularly!

Script Categories

Again, whenever I visit DynamicDrive I am not found left wanting!

I do hope that this list is able to help you no matter what level designer / developer you are.

thanks