In the beginning typography wasn’t really an issue, as there was no real interface for the user. However, as the web advanced typography became a bigger issue, and no longer was it okay to be left with mediocre typography and illegibility on a now very graphically based web.

In the far out reaches of the globe, a group of people were working, working on something that would change the web’s face completely. The W3C completed CSS1 in 1996, and with it came a slew of font related CSS elements. Finally, the humble web developer was no longer confined by illegibility and bad typography. He was free, free to create what he chose, and with a smile on his face, and a keyboard in his hand, he walked into the distance, ready to create a new era in web design.

Over the past few years web designs have became more and more intricate, especially for websites that don’t revolve around content but a service.

In fact, many more artistic web designers have started adding lovely illustrations and characters (mascots) into their designs to create a more visually pleasing website. Below I present over 35 designs that show this, with beautiful illustrations, or just websites that use art in an interesting way, for inspiration.

Most if not all of these CSS3 features are not widely supported by Browsers as of yet, and thus it is not recommended that you try to use them in real projects, as they probably wont work.

A lot of attention is being directed at HTML 5 and how awesome it is, but CSS 3 has just as many cool features which will make our lives easier as web developers and designers. Below I’ve outlined 8 of the coolest new things coming to a browser near you, or that has already been partially implemented into some browsers.

Email is simply a way to send mail electronically to people in text and image form, with attachments if required. Email has been called the internet’s “killer app” and is generally considered one of the first things people think of when they think of the internet.

That’s why when you want to update your users on what’s happening on your website, we use a mailing list or a subscription service where the user enters their email address, validates it, and recieves updates from you. In this tutorial we’ll cover how exactly to do that, and hopefully you’ll learn a thing or two about PHP and MySQL along the way.

Icons are a lovely way to finish a design, whether it be a web design or a user interface of some sort. A picture speaks a thousand words, and icons can help to represent easily what you’re trying to put across to the user.

Unfortunately it can be hard for those less creatively minded to make a set of icons or even an icon by itself! Luckily for you (and also for those of you who are new to creating icons) a bunch of lovely designers have wrote a tutorial or two for making icons, which will hopefully clue you in on some of the tricks of the trade. Below I bring to you 20 of the best quality tutorials on the net, on how to make amazing icons in both Photoshop and Illustrator. Enjoy!

Javascript is a pretty complicated language for beginners, and can cause even the most savvy of programmers to break down into tears when trying to make something fancy in AJAX. Luckily, jQuery allows us to do all sorts of crazy voodoo magic on a web page, without all the complexity that would be there if you coded it by hand.

jQuery allows you to do some very impressive things, and luckily for you and I, skilled developers have coded a bunch of nifty plugins for us to use. Below I present you with 25 Awesome plugins to add to your jQuery Arsenal. Enjoy.

Typography

Typography is the study or art of type, where artists use typography as a main part of their work, or make an awesome way to convey their message. Typography is a bit of a passion for me, and I love to see artists using it in their work.

Below I present you with 25 Examples of amazingly creative typography in pieces of artwork. These pieces show what can be done with a bit of text and some creative know-how, and are rather inspirational.

Chances are if you’re in the whole web development business, you’ve heard of HTML 5. It’s being thrown around as the next big thing to hit our computer screens, adding some awesome functionality to what was a pretty static language.

A lot of people don’t really know what HTML 5 will do for them, and I’m going to do a little bit of explaining as to what HTML 5 can really allow you to do. It’s a pretty impressive language, and a lot of elements aren’t supported in all browsers yet, but hopefully you’ll get the basic jist of what the web will let you do in the next few years.

Character Illustrations

Everyone loves characters. People can related to them. In times long gone by, illustrations were hand drawn and hand colored in, but nowadays with photoshop, illustrator, and what have you, things are a lot less manual. Quality has increased, and there are so many top class character illustrations out there, all across the web.

Below I present you with over 30 of the most awesome character illustrations for inspiration. Some of them aren’t necessarily concentrated on the character, using the character as a way to depict a message, but any humanly figure can help people to relate to what you’re trying to say.

There are certainly some amazing illustrations below, and I’d highly recommend you check out all of the artist’s portfolio, for more of their beautiful artwork.

Wordpress

Wordpress is well known for its simple yet intuitive plugin feature, allowing you to add nifty pieces of 3rd party software to your wordpress installation with ease. You just upload the plugin to the plugin folder, and activate it in the admin panel, making it very easy for people who are new to the whole blogging scene.

With the amount of plugins on the wordpress site, it’s hard to find ones that are actually useful to you as a blogger. Below I’ve listed 20 of the plugins that I would consider add key and useful features to your blog. Try them out, they’ll certainly add functionality to what is already a beautifully crafted web application.