Css Showcases – The Designer's View

I was reading a great trilogy over at Colly's and I thought maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to tell the same story – from our (designer's) point of view.

Introduction

Showcase sites by their nature help us designers. If you need a place to promote your work or if you seek inspiration and chance to learn something, you'll probably turn to sites like these. Whether you are a web professional or young designer you will benefit from these sites in different ways.
From my point of view as a web professional, being featured on showcase sites means bigger chance to be spotted by a potential client. So getting recognition and receive 1000+ unique visitors a day is not only huge ego boost but it can be very profitable. Did I mention that it also feels great?
Getting your site ready

When you design a site, your idea, originality and care for details must come first. Give everything you have and don't think of showcase sites until you are finished. When you're done with your site, test it. You have just one shot with this, so don't be unprepared. Get advices from your friends on how to improve things. Simon gave some great tips that can help you a lot.

When I was redesigning my site the main reason is that I wasn’t too happy with my old design and I thought I needed a change. So I gave myself some time to create new design that would please me more. I took extra care to certain details. At some point I thought that it was finished and ready for publishing. I planned to get the site submitted to showcases and I quietly hoped for features.

Wow! I made it!

One day you wake up, turn your computer on and check the mail or your web stats. And there it is! You made it! Your site is getting listed in major css showcase site. You want to jump out of your boots and tell the whole world what you have achieved. But do you really know what that means for you?

I remember my first recognition. I received a mail from Mr. Scrivs with very limited choice of words. Actually, all that Paul wrote back then was the word "In". And I was in! That was the turning point for me. I started to get emails, job offers, and comments about my work. Then another features came, each bringing new, fresh audience to my site. It felt great!

Comments

Face it, your site is out there, open to everyone's opinion. It became public property, subject of analysis. People you don’t know dig through your code, making screen shots and investigating pixels. Some of them treat you nice, some are painfully honest, and some are just looking for errors and display it like it was the only thing they can say about your site. It’s not an easy thing to read stuff like "the background doesn't show in Safari" or "your contact page doesn'’t validate".

One thing you must know. Someone with knowledge and wider perspective than most of the commenters reviewed your site and featured it. So it must be worth something, right?

Don't feel bad about some person notices that you misused heading tags. Constructive criticism can help you a lot. It can make a better designer out of you. Instead of taking each critique personally try to think of it as a way to improve your site. Many of these people are skilled and have good arguments. Learn from what others have to say. Oh, yes, ignore the jealous, mean and unconstructive comments like "your site shouldn't be here, you suck". Your site is showcased, not theirs. Most of them don't link their sites when posting comments anyway.

Now what do I do?

Few days, maybe weeks have past and some other sites are getting all the attention now. So what to do next? Redesign and get showcased somewhere else :) I don't think so.

Well, the best thing is to keep up with good work. Continue to work on client or other projects with same care and attention to details. Promote the standards. Give something back if you can. Start a blog, give advices to young designers, and write tutorials, put up some things users can download. Tell your story. Remember, you are part of the community now. Many people know about you and your work. Don't just become inactive and disappear. You won't get a chance like this so soon.