For several years, the main tool for learning new tricks and skills in Web design has been the 'view source' option in your browser. Until recently, Web design has resembled a massive ongoing research project where everyone was sharing their new insights, their latest discoveries, simply by allowing others to have a look at their source code.

But recent developments in extending browser functionality have allowed more and more sites to close off this creative back door with such tricks as the ‘pop-up’ window, or by excluding the tool and navigation bar thus removing the option to open the source code. From the designer’s point of view, these new browser features help to concentrate the viewer's attention on the site’s content, since they do away with the sources of distraction and escape. They also provide the longed-for control over content, which until now has only been partly possible in html using devices such as tables. Sites produced in Macromedia Flash or Shockwave are a different matter altogether. When viewed across the Web, there is no way of finding out how they were made.

The ongoing commodification of information is playing a major role in these developments; website design work is shifting to reflect the increasing complexity of visualising, controlling and interacting with large amounts of dynamic information. Tailored software code is becoming a vital part of many a new website. In fact, now some sites don't even exist as such until the user starts using them! Coming to terms with this invisibility, and with code-driven sites such as those that use transactions (both from the designer's and the user’s point of view), form the subjects of two of our introductory articles. In his article, Paul Kahn argues for the importance of visualising the invisible part of websites. Site maps have always provided a sort of meta-look at a site’s structure. Recently, mapping devices and metabrowsers have provided a different look at the Web in general and sites in particular, and may point to a future, visual way of dealing with the information on the Web. For his part, Nathan Shedroff explores the development and uses of transactions and their importance in today’s websites.

Website Graphics presents a selection of sites that showcase different facets of this transitional development. Several sites still make the best of 'classic' Web design strategies and techniques, while many others now employ Flash and Shockwave to create engaging interfaces with the digital content, and still others explore the new features of dhtml, java script, and java programming. Unsurprisingly, we’ve found that splitting up websites across different categories has proved increasingly difficult. Websites now tend to be extremely hybrid in what they offer. as well as in what they try to accomplish. A site like Fabric8, for instance, was set up both as a site for e-commerce and as a showcase for the design company. Yet it also has an important function in representing a local community of designers and artists to the world at large. And this schizophrenic nature characterises many of the sites we’ve chosen. In our first category, are the artists and designers who increasingly attempting to break the rules and boundaries of contemporary Web design, reflecting on the nature of such work online, on how it relates to the medium (as seen in the work of Jodi), and on more traditional art spaces (like, for instance, Rhizome, who attempt to curate online art to gain a wider audience). Design studios are also creating interesting sites. Fork and Lateral are pushing the possibilities of communication design in innovative ways in this area. Our education category shows how the Web is becoming a significant source of research information and learning. Schoolteachers can easily create their classroom courses from the information found on the Web. A good example of the way a TV programme is supplemented by an outstanding collection of information is the BBC's Windrush site, perfectly representative of educational resources on the Web.

Obviously, one of the most widely used functions of sites on the Web is the promotion of products or companies. We've come across a lot of 'one-off' websites, sites especially created to launch one particular product, for instance New York-based Razorfish’s G-Shock site for Casio (which is only loosely connected to the Casio mother site). Our promotional category also features a few early examples of 'multimedia' productions: self-contained Flash-based animations for companies and businesses stream across the Web as if they were running off a CD-Rom. Doing business on the Web, or serving users/clients in other ways, also calls for a carefully considered series of transactions and interactions. Personalisation and customisation are keywords for the sites presented in this category. From the sales of handcrafted, custom-made products in Fabric8 to the personalised online banking facilities in Mediamatic's Rabobank site, these sites are potential precursors of a new generation of websites.

From the beginning, magazines have been the primary source of experimentation for formats in digital publishing. Our e-publishing category presents a wide range of digital publications, from the hardcore html pages of De:bug to the visual communications of Volumeone . E-zines are also becoming more sophisticated. Atlas magazine, for instance, has some of the most extensive dhtml programming of any sites in this book, despite its subtle, crafted style. Finally, three sites exemplify a characteristic that underlies more sites in this book than immediately meets the eye. What these sites have in common is that they thrive on, or foster, a sense of community. The DIY site, for example, has arisen from the UK rave community and continues to be one of their main sources of information. Platform.net shows the rise of so-called portal sites which, as well as offering a collection of information and music on their own, also serve as a springboard to an entire collection of related sites as a service to their interest group.

Website Graphics Now marks this moment of transition — the steady coming of age of a medium with all its attendant problems, shifts and possible directions. In the world of the Internet there’s not much we can be sure of, except of course change itself, change that will take us into a more dynamic, more customisable, more engaging and definitely more multimedial era of the Web.

Noel Douglas, Geert J. Strengholt