Image by Stuck in Customs.

Every month this series is tracking the latest design trends and collecting the best examples of modern web designs. Here is the list for December 2010 with almost a 1000 links from 30 aggregator posts:

• 35+ Fresh and Inspirational Blog Design Gallery from Themeflash
• Showcasing 65 of the Best Website Designs of 2010 from Line25
• 35 Inspiring Examples of Websites Using HTML5 from Web Design Ledger
• 60 Mind-Blowing Hand Drawn Website Designs For Your Inspiration from 1stwebdesigner
  
• 10 Shining Examples of Grid Based Web Design and Best Practices from Speckyboy Design Magazine
• 85 Beautiful Cars Website Design Showcase from Themeflash
• Web Design Inspiration: Websites Having Bokeh Effect from Naldz Graphics
• 24 Examples of Orange Websites from Inspiredology
• 40 Examples of Beautiful Typography in Web Design from Web Design Ledger
• Green Living: 25 Awesome Nature Friendly Websites And Blogs from 1stwebdesigner
  
• 50+ Fresh Portfolio Website For Design Inspiration from Themeflash
• 18 Examples of Yellow Websites from Inspiredology
  
• 33 Nice Examples of 404 Error Pages for Inspiration from Modny73
• 25 Modern Navigation Solutions: Unique Designs & Awesome Effects from Onextrapixel
  
• 28 Intriguing Launching Soon Pages from Design your way
• The Fascinating Effect of Unusual Layouts in Web Design from Woork Up
• 25 Beautifully Dark Websites – Part V from Vandelay Design Blog
• 40 Excellent Examples of Texture in Web Design from Web Design Ledger
• Color Psychology: Beautiful Blue Website from Themeflash
• 30+ Perfect Slideshow Presentation in Web Design from Modny73
• 35 Clean and Minimal Websites For Design Inspiration from Themeflash
  
• Bands and Artists Websites – Showcase and Best Practices from SpyreStudios
• A Review of Web Design Trends from 2010 from Speckyboy Design Magazine
• Web Design Showcase of Hosting Companies from Web Design Fan
  
• 32 Classy & Graceful Black and White Websites from Modny73
• 60+ Fresh and Inspirational WordPress Site Designs from instantShift
• 25 Beautiful Blog Designs from Vandelay Design Blog
• Eye-Catching Websites With One-of-a-Kind Navigations For Inspiration from 1stwebdesigner
  
• 32 Tasty Coffee Websites to Inspire You from Web Design Ledger
• 35 Tempting & Delicious Coffee Websites from Modny73

Today’s post highlights the design of NomadGraphs.com by Mathias Brouilly. Precise geometrical patterns and shapes drive the visuals. Monochrome icons with simple and strong shapes; thick pinstripes and large dots used on the section headers, main logo and the contact form; typography-driven slideshow across the top part of the page – all of these guide the eye through the various content sections on this single-page site. The color palette of brick orange, light brown, pale olive and ivory is repeated in a thin repeating stripe running across the top edge – a recently popular trend that made a few appearances in this series.

On a less positive note, the pale olive is used for links as well as italicized text, adding uncertainty about what is and is not clickable. In addition, each section seems to have its own column layout. Even with strong vertical lines connecting each section content with the matching header and well-maintained visual balance inside each section, the overall impression is a little messy and disorganized.

Today’s post highlights the design of MumMade.co.nz, an online store for home-made baby products (design by PixelFusion). Soft pink-brown color palette joins the attractive selection of fabric-inspired textures and illustrations to create an inviting browsing experience. Individual product pages use a carefully crafted item selector, while category pages employ attractively spaced and nicely framed product thumbnails.

Muted pink is used for the hyperlinks, and the site uses the thin serif Archer Light for headers / navigation links and handwritten Bowfin for the social icons. The “About” page uses a professional photograph to create a deeper personal connection which is further reinforced on the “Thanks” page.

On a less positive side, the auto-advance slideshows on the home page are just too much. There are three slideshows, each one with its own cycle. The top one has a ticker that allows manual navigation, but the bottom two are not very usable – there’s just too many transitions with very little control provided to the end user.

Today’s post highlights the design of Pizzaza.ca, the home page of a local restaurant and wine bar. While home pages for most restaurants choose to use warm saturated colors and vibrant close-up photographs of signature dishes, this site uses a desaturated sepia full-bleed snapshot of a young lady writing the menu on a chalk whiteboard. This scene effectively creates an atmosphere of a warm, ambient, non-corporate and relaxed environment which is further illustrated by the picture gallery. A translucent dark strip extends across the top part of the screen and hosts stippled icons leading to the wine selection, menu entries and other sections; note how the icon style is connected to the chalk whiteboard in the background photo.

Full-bleed background pictures are used on other pages, such as wine selection or employment, but the charming simplicity of the home page is lost in rather garish floating rectangular boxes. Furthermore, these boxes feature completely unnecessary sliding animations that don’t add anything besides full view of the background.