Do you recognize a good design when you see it? What makes a website stylish? How do you most effectively get your message across? There is many different opinions on what makes a good design. The bottom line is, the best design is the most appropriate way to display content for visitors.

How does one get “the eye” for design? Be active in fresh, booming websites. Generally you should track popular websites, since these are obviously the ones that work. However, just because a site is more popular does not necessarily mean it has a better design. Look out for new websites growing at fast rate.

Know what’s hot on the web. Use tools like delicious to see what’s new. Like all forms of art, web design evolves over time. What may have been a good idea for a layout 5 years ago may not work with today’s internet. It’s very important for designers to keep up-to-date with the latest innovations on the web.

You can build your design skills by working with pre-made templates. A good place to start is blogs or forums. Find pre-made templates you like and tweak them as you see fit. Get feed back and see what people like. This is the most important skill: building for your audience. Great web developers always build their sites for the casual browser.

Once you’re familiar with templates, start making your own. Spend lots of time with colors and don’t worry too much about images at first. Try different layouts and see what makes the best use of space.

Building up your own design skills will give you the edge on what works in web development. You will be able to spot a great design and create amazing websites using the latest online trends.