With the amount of blog reading that we do, we wanted to share with you our top picks. We read from these blogs every day in order to stay on top in the industry, and to hone in our skills.

1. Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine has the most interesting and up-to-date (in our opinion) information in the industry. Their posts are always educational and informative. What’s great is that they mix it up with a few educational articles, and then freebies or how-to’s helping you further yourself. If you haven’t given Smashing Magazine a chance, try a few of their articles — you won’t be disappointed.

Smashing Magazine

2. A List Apart

A List Apart is one of the top blogs for in-depth coding and web design. Their posts cater to validation, generally the correct way to do anything web design. Their articles are in-depth so plan on more than one cup of coffee, but also plan on expanding your knowledge and become a better web designer in general.

A List Apart

3. Noupe

Noupe offers tons of free goodies with great tutorials as well. Browse around and you are sure to find something that you have been looking for all along. They even post links to other sites regarding industry news which is refreshing.

Noupe

4. You The Designer

You The Designer is a great site for getting inspiration, tips, and freebies as well.

You The Designer

5. Doug Williams

Doug has great information whether web design, graphic design, search engine optimization, and even business help. His blog will help you become familiar with the industry as a whole — a blog you don’t want to miss.

Doug Williams Blog

Well that just about does it for now. Although we do read many more blogs – and there are many other greats, we feel these are the most important to share with you. If you keep up-to-date on these blogs alone, you will have more than enough information to keep you at the front lines of the industry and expand your knowledge to become a leader in your niche.

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2. Website Design Basics: Usability
3. Website Design Checklist

When designing a website for your client you need a checklist. This consistent approach allows you to not only gather the right information, but better estimate the costs associated with the development of the website. It can save both you and your client valuable time, while also help everyone to stay on the right page.

1. What goal to you have in mind for your website?

This can reveal some crucial information for the design and overall feel for the website.

2. Describe your organization in a sentence or two.

This helps reveal the mission statement and the organizational culture that you need to recreate through their website. Asking this question can work wonders, especially when limited to a couple of sentences.

3. What sets your company apart from your competitors?

This question allows you to hone in on your clients most valuable possession, while alerting the world about it as well.

4. Do you have a logo?

Generally clients will let you know this, but it is a good idea to ask this from the start. Sometimes you can start developing, finding out later that the entire color scheme and look was supposed to mirror their current logo — that you forgot to ask about.

5. What is your budget for this project?

This is a must ask question. If your client can’t afford your services, then it’s better to find out now — rather than finding out that just the first draft consumed their entire budget.

6. What is your deadline for completing this project?

This can help both parties know exactly what they are up against. If they need a website in two weeks, and you have ten other clients saying the same thing, well you get the point.

7. Please tell me five other website that you like and admire.

This leads both of you down the same path. Otherwise you can create twenty drafts, and later find out that you could have made one in order to go to the next step.

8. Do you plan on selling any of your products and services online?

This can change the playing field as creating an e-commerce website can be entirely more in-depth than a general business website.

9. Are there other services that you would like to implement? (Newsletter, Blog, Forum, Classifieds etc.)

Once again, helping both parties.

And lastly…

10. Who is your target market?

Knowing this information and creating user persona’s can help everyone know what they are up against — and how to help bring those visitors to their website.

The questions from this blog post were inspired by Free Lance Switch’s post How to Extract the Facts with a Web Design Client Questionnaire

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Here are a few goodies that my fellow web designers will appreciate and add to their toolbox — if they haven’t already.

Creates word clouds and also doubles as a great SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tool.

Creates custom buttons.

Quickly edit text and recieve the CSS style for it.

View your website from multiple browsers in a matter of minutes.

Tons of free textures.

Great custom background generator.

An open source website tool that allows you to view your hot and cold click zones.

Web 2.0 badges generator.

Allows you to create custom 3-D boxes.

Choose your favorite loading gif.

Create great looking backgrounds.

Find popular buttons.

Quick and easy css tabs.

Create creative text wrappers.

Great color palettes.

Free fonts.

Turn your images into a favorite icon.

Helps you find an html character entity.

Generate HTML and CSS for rounded corners.

Look up Whois information.

Custom stripe backgrounds.

Great CSS grid builder.

Search and find great icons.

Making up words to help with your domain name.

Easy form creator.

Create custom menus quickly.

Upload your image and reflect it.

Lastly, TL Box features a ton of tools for web designers, programmers, and system administrators.

Enjoy!

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1. Great Blogs for Web Design, Graphic Design, and Business