Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebration! This Friday we’re going to look at whimsical, chaotic, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink headers that will certainly grab your attention.

Designs of the Week

One of the big questions you have to answer when dealing with more “chaotic” designs is, how do you control the viewer’s eye movement? The site title on the header is pretty easy to find, actually, but I wish the header were a little more useful and contained a navigation menu, for starters.

Huge header alert! Again, I wish it had something a little more useful with the amount of space it is taking up. A tagline maybe. The list of services at the upper right could have been a little bigger as well.

What a cute header—I love the spinning wheel of hearts, it looks like an otherworldly ferris wheel! And it matches the quirky jewelry designs this site is selling. Might have a little too much pink for some people, though. A dash of contrasting colors could make it better.

And now for something surreal, bordering on the creepy! I like how unusual this site looks. Unfortunately there’s this empty part in the middle that gets filled only when you select something from the menu. I’m all for whitespace, but the about text is already at the footer.

Social Media Weekly

Design – 5 Inspiring Web Design Conference Speeches you Shouldn’t Have Missed in 2008
You may not have attended these conferences, so here’s your chance to learn from the masters of web design.

Programming – Top 10 Web Platforms of 2008
Which web platform should you be developing for?