I was reading this great article about the future of web design galleries over at Vandelay design (a great blog by the way) and decided to react here.
My two favorite galleries are Web Creme and BestWebGallery. I almost never visit the big galleries like CSSMania or CSSInsertRandomNounHere. The reason is simple: too much content. I don’t have the time to look at hundreds of websites a week, and I already have my hands full with the dozens of “daily inspiration” type post popping up everywhere (I’m looking at you, Abduzeedo).

By contrast, both Web Creme and BestWebGallery are updated only a few times a week, and only with high quality websites. What’s more, each has its own style and reflects the blogger’s design sensibilities. The Web Creme blogger(s) like artistic and minimalist websites, often featuring portfolios. Nick La of BWG often features full flash sites or websites using big playful elements like photos or illustrations.

But wait, there’s something even better than those two galleries. Some designers don’t just show you nice websites, but also explain why they’re nice. Typesites reviews sites with great typography, while Patrick Haney has a design inspiration Flickr feed complete with screenshots and comments on details (using Flickr’s notes features). Another blogger who does this is David Mihm, who awards “randys” to outstanding websites.

And in a league of its own, there’s Design Meltdown, which is a kind of encyclopedia of web design where sites are classified according to content, design elements used, color, etc.

So you see, you don’t have to settle for rows after rows of thumbnails containing gradients, reflections, and shiny buttons. If you dig under the surface, you’ll find out that the future of design galleries is already here.