Woody Websites
Of course, all designers have different views and strategies as to how a site is designed and what components go into that design. I’ve always believed in 5 core visual approaches, as also dictated in Sitepoint’s ‘The Principles of Beautiful Web Design’ (Jason Beaird – fantastic book). Jason categorises the 5 central design approaches into Layout and Composition, Color, Texture, Typography and Imagery. All equally important characteristics of a beautiful web design.
The one theme that I’ve often failed to fully acknowledge is Texture. I’m a big believer in clean, simple websites (I’m not a lazy designer!) and in turn sometimes disregard the importance and possible benefits of employing more texture into the design. 
But, not to divulge any further in to my own approach, I’ll meander to the central topic of this article – a relatively new boom I’ve noticed, primarily among some of the finest css-based web designs on the net, of an abundance of wood texture on websites.
One of the biggest names to prove as a fine example is Carson Systems, or as they’re now known – Carsonified. And now prepare to indulge in a nice long list of other sites that have pulled off, and very well, the ‘woody website’ idea. Big breath – Enomaly, Nebonmedia, Third & Grand, Designed by Anderson, Happily Create, Trevor Saint, Buffalo, Alex Buga… I’ll stop there, you surely get the idea.
There are several reasons why this technique impresses me. 
Firstly – it looks nice, when done correctly. It provides that lovely feeling that also comes with glossy buttons and the ever-difficult-to-achieve glass effect. You want to touch it. Which, returning to an earlier point – is one of the specific aims of incorporating interesting texture within a site design.
It also impresses me because it’s not easy to do. To actually find a decent, high quality wood sample, then play with it to form a repetitive background image that matches up on all sides to create a perfect tile effect can be an annoyingly tricky task.
And of course the ‘woody website’ effect, although of course not anything new, has noticeably come in to it’s own over the past 6 months. Proving once again that the web design world does go through fashion phases, and the plethora of CSS and Flash showcase galleries out there of the web’s catwalk.
Hopefully, one day, I’ll be creating some of the top models!
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Mark Johnson said:
thats nothing new, wood has been used on websites for years. but it does look good if its done right.
some good examples there really.
admin said:
I know it’s not new, what is?! But it’s the idea that I’ve noticed a large increase over the past few months. Seems like a particular fashion phase we’re going through. (Like flares)