Curb-control, Ian Kilpatrick:
Plan your site. Take months to plan it, how it will work and what it will take to maintain it. Embrace change. Set your standards, and don't lower them. Be careful in who you choose to be apart of your site. Don't copy other sites. Set goals, a purpose for the site, and don't lose sight of them. In fact, write them on a piece of paper and tape it to the side of your monitor. Don't make eye candy, unless you have done something that no one else has ever done. Package your content well. When people write to you, write them back. When people want to interview you: either agree, and follow through, or don't agree. Be patient with people when asking them to do something for your site. Make sure that whatever you put out is interesting and not just another zine! I think that's it.



Computerlove, Christophe Martin:
Do it!




www.digitalthread.com (screen shot)


Digital Thread, Filip Stoj:
My advice would threefold: 1) Get into TV design 2) and leave us older web designers alone, 3) but keep your homepages set to Digitalthread.com.



Digital-web, Nick Finck:
Plan, plan and plan. Before you even open Photoshop to design a comp, figure out who your audience is, figure out if you want it to be a profitable site or a non-profit site, figure out what your audience wants from you and build your content and design around that.

Once you know your audience, start planning ahead. Do you want this to be a yearly, seasonally, monthly, weekly, or daily publication? Who is going to do the editing? Are they going to get paid or will it be volunteer work? If it's volunteer, what kind of compensation will they receive... recognition? linkage? free hats and t-shirts?

Ideally you should have enough content to publish two or three issues before you even think about publishing your first issue. Editing and organizing authors, cover artists, columnists is a lot harder work than you can possibly believe (unless you have had prior experience as an editor of a publication). You have to live and breath your publication — it will take up some of your time — don't expect it to publish without your full attention. Don't allow your content to go stale, the readers will stop coming once they see it hasn't been updated for a year or more.

Most importantly, be kind to your colleagues. Believe it or not, it is a small Web out there... you are bound to run into the same people more than once. Treat them like dirt and find yourself with a cold shoulder when it comes down to you needing something from them. Sure, you will get the bad email every once in a while, when someone doesn't agree with what you said, know how to handle that and prepare for it.

Never forget why you started your publication. And never, never, abandon your readers. Understand that you will give your readers your blood, sweat and tears... and never expect anything in return for that. It's part of the job. Lastly, have fun — love what you are doing, love the focus of your publication, love interacting with your readers... if you want to really produce your publication for years to come you have to really enjoy what you are doing. I know I do.



Design is Kinky, Andrew Johnston:
GO FOR IT! But think about it first. Don't just throw something together that is already being done, and expect it to be an instant success. Find an idea or area that is not really being looked at and then work on that angle. And give it time as well. just because your not getting thousands of hits straight away doesn't mean it is not popular or worthwhile. Stick at it and it will grow!



Experimental Magazine, Rares Dragan:
When it comes up to design and styles, it's just about you, no one can give you answers — just try to be original. Regarding concepts and content: try studying the discussions in design forums for a while. People will let you know what is wrong about the current state of the design community, and how they see evolution in the field of design and visual arts.






Halfproject, Drew Europeo:
Always explore and experiment. We all have our favorite designers, and we admire their work sometimes to the point that we are being influenced by them too much. Inspiration is OK, but in terms of implementing your own work it's really important that you express whom you really are. "Copying" is not a shortcut to stardom. Competition is healthy, but the most important thing is competing with yourself and not with others. Because it's highly important your reach to excelling in your field. Do whatever you think is fun, and because you're doing it just for the sake of having a site — it's not worth it. In other words, LOVE your work! In order for your site to be recognized, first of all it should have originality, great concept, and make sure that when visited the audience will have a wonderful experience browsing the whole site. It should communicate to your audience, affect the way your visitors are feeling, and above all it should provoke reactions from your audience.



Inertia, Peter Hamza:
Don't imitate, innovate. K10K and Surfstation are great sites because they are both "unique." There's no need for imitation versions. Try to create a site that fills the gaps and represents your style and thoughts. And don't try to take on more than you have time for.




www.australianinfront.com.au (screen shot)


INfront, Justin Fox:
You need to write up a manifesto to remind yourself of just why you are working on your site every day. You need a group of close, like minded friends to share the journey and workload with you. You need to be confident, patient, and always keep trying and never stop creating.



Infourm, JD hooge:
Keep it real. Push yourself. Listen to lots of music.



K10k, Toke Nygaard:
Don't overwhelm yourself with ideas. Don't try and implement as much as possible in your work. Kill your darlings, and remember that good ideas are never wasted. They can often be re-used or spawn into other brilliant ideas. One strong idea is what you need. Work with others. Working partners keep your ideas fresh, inspire you, and help you get on with it, i.e. once you start getting bored.



Linkdup, Rob Corradi:
Experiment, yet be prepared that someone has very probably already done what you're doing, but don't let that demoralize you. Believe in the idea of the collective consciousness, i.e. just because another site looks a lot like yours it doesn't mean they ripped you off. Give a damn about your work, but don't give a damn about what other people think of it. Be passionate about it, but don't feel you need to shout about it, people will find you, the web has ways...

Moluv, Maurice Wright:
Be passionate about design and be passionate about people. Without that energy to maintain your path — it comes through the passion in both of those aspects, or else you'll keep bumping into a wall of mediocrity. Secondly, it's rare to come across someone that can get their design right the first, or second, third, or even on the fourth try. So, don't get discouraged if you've created a site and it doesn't get linked at the places you want it to. Get some feedback, keep improving your technique, and keep building your skill set. As you progress, your talent will eventually be noticed.

One other thing to keep in mind is that since I began book marking cool sites way back when, the community of design conscious web-gawkers seem to have grown a lot! I have a sneaking suspicion that the best web designers from a few years from now, can make up a brand new set of pop-culture-icons. Kind of like when graffiti artists and DJ's first started making names for themselves in their communities, only now it's global.





Media Inspiration, Phil De Paulis:
I would tell them to design a site that's relative to them: something they have a passion for, something that they will want to improve and expand on, something that will end up improving them. At the same time, its crucial to never lose your focus and who you're designing for. The real key is to identify your audience and design accordingly.




www.netdiver.net (screen shot)


Netdiver, Carole Guevin:
The web is yet to come — MAKE it happen! I believe younger generations will be completely at ease with a virtual and technologically supported world. Surf till you drop. Do research now, do research tomorrow, try to reproduce what you like, fail, try again and persist until you succeed. As designers we synthesiz ewhat we know, in our case what we've "seen." See little, do little. See a lot, you will DO a lot!

Pixelsurgeon, Richard May:
Less talk, more do. Just get on with it, and don't be dissuaded by fools. If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.



Surfstation.lu, Thomas Brodahl:
I can only tell them what worked for me, and that is to just keep working. I think my biggest strength is the fact that I love to design. I spend 10-12 hours a day just jamming away on all sorts of different things, and when you keep yourself busy like that something good will inevitable come of it. It's like a digital practice session, and you constantly keep in shape, and when the big game comes up, you are ready for it.

I think a lot of people design for a couple of months and then decide "hey I should make a design-portal!" Take your time to develop your ideas, get together with a good group of people, and spend a long time just thinking about what you really want to do. When we started surfstation, we spent 4 months discussing back and forth before we ever opened up Photoshop to design.


Superbe, Stefano Mazza:
Hey, I'm still young! Well, you know...I'm the king in my small reign, but I'm not sure if I can go beyond. I mean, everybody is learning day by day how to manage the Internet. I.e. how to keep going, how to stand up, how to communicate themselves. I think that anyone can teach you exactly the "how to do" process. I can just say the following: "If you can — solve a problem, or better, create a need."



The Best Designs, Angela Rohner:
Go with the feeling inside of you and create from within. Be unique, and don't let anyone tell you that you can't do something. If someone ever does tell you that you can't do something, use that as your fuel that will push you further. If there is something that you want to accomplish, and if you want to accomplish it well, focus on each step that will get you there. And take one day at a time. With hard work, determination, and creativity; I believe that you can do anything you put your heart and soul into.

The Designers Network, Gavin Laking:
Don't try to be too many things at once. You might like the idea of having a massive sprawling site that has sections for everything, but you will find that you neglect certain sections more than others, and soon you'll start to hate your entire site because you can't manage it.
Look at others and learn. There's loads of popular sites out there. Look at how they create their sites, note the good bits, and how they work together; and note the bad bits to what doesn't fit in?

Don't try to be original. You'll fail. Thanks to the way this so-called "design community" works, you'll get slagged off and compared to somebody, and that will hurt you and you'll feel bad. Instead, do something that you like. Keep producing work that challenges you. You don't have to be brilliant in your image processing package; but if you are creating work that helps you to learn and hone your skills then who cares what the others think?

Update often! You have probably been told that a thousand times, but honestly, nothing is worse than a site that has old news. If you can't produce content for it each day, or each couple of days then don't date your work. It happens on my site — I don't update for a week and I feel terrible because all week my visitors have had the same links to look at. How boring! So, don't be like me, update often!

Finally, for God's sakes, have fun! The web is an evolving medium. Don't get bogged down with standards, with usability issues, with marketing and wondering if you'll be popular or not. Treat the web as something new. Although, don't forget that graphic design has been evolving for centuries, some of the rules apply to all design, breaking the rules is one thing, and understanding why they are there — is another.



The ZINE, Cassiano Saldanha:
Advice? Well... Study. This media is so young to people who think they know everything about it. Doing a perfect site needs perfect communication, technical, operational, and quality design abilities. If you just want to do a great site, study, read, navigate... Learn from different visual content around the world, on the road, on Playstation, or even on soccer plays. Everywhere. In fact, we have to stay open to the future that will be associated with internet media. E.g.: Information (content as important as visual); usability for tomorrow technologies (cells, PDA´s, Interactive Tv, connected tamagochis, etc); communication (subliminal and rapid moves that media provides); among other influences such as news, functionality, forms, architetural styles, art...etc...hehehe.