More than 360 Web professionals from across the world simultaneously launched CSS and Web standards-based redesigns of their Web sites this past November 1—another successful CSS Reboot.

The idea was heavily inspired by an unassociated event called May 1st Reboot. While that reboot displays some great work, its fatal flaw is that every submitted site is either entirely Flash, table-based, or flat-out inaccessible. That event seemed stuck in 1999. And in 2005, I didn't think that was very practical.

Now with a couple Reboots under my belt, I've noticed a few trends and thought I'd share.

Hot or Not?
As far as the quality of the Reboot submissions goes, I think it's higher this fall than it was earlier in the year. There are, of course, standouts from both, but this time if you sort by rating there are screenfuls of great designs to browse through. I think designers have finally started using CSS and standards-based design as a given in everything they do and it really shows in their work.

Skipping CSS2 support in IE7 is wrong. Click here to read more.

With this fall's Reboot submissions, the first trend I noticed is that fixed-width, centered and drop-shadowed layouts with tiled backgrounds still reign supreme. There are plenty of creative tweaks on the old standard, such as deus62, ribic and andio.net, but its ubiquity remains. Maybe next year great looking fluid designs, such as The Watchmaker Project will take advantage of the entire screen. Maybe.

The second most obvious trend would be the "Web 2.0 look"—gradients and big, colorful text. Done well, like 45royale and 9rules, I think it can really add something. Done poorly and, well, you know the types of sites that come out of Web Design 101 classes at the local community college? Right then.

The last trend I noticed is stock icons. Whether they're paid icons like the various sets from Dan Cederholm or free icons like those from famfamfam – designers have found a new love for plugging pre-built icons into their designs. It saves time and looks good but when everybody starts doing it, you can bet they'll quickly go the way of the iframe news section.

More Money, Less Design?
Of the 957 designers signed up for the reboot this go 'round, only 367 designers successfully rebooted.

Why the low percentage? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the money's back in the Web and everyone's busier than ever. I actually had one person who used venture capital as their excuse for not rebooting! And several others who were just too bogged down by client work and prior commitments to find time for personal redesigns.

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Tips For Your Next Reboot

CSS Reboot Spring 2006 is just around the corner and if you're already starting to think about your next redesign here are a couple of tips:

• Don't look at the same site for inspiration more than once. If you do there's a good chance that you'll be too heavily "inspired" and then, when you're done with the design, it won't feel like your own.
• Start a couple months ahead and do a little at a time. No one has enough time to work on their personal site but do a few hours of work a week for a couple months and eventually you'll have a finished product you're happy with. The deadline of the CSS Reboot helps a lot with this little by little approach.
• Get into the CSS and HTML as soon as possible. Don't mockup yourself to death. The sooner you get started with an actual working site the tighter your markup and CSS will be in the end.