Typography is sometimes overlooked in web design, or in most cases, considered, but not considered nearly enough. Text is everywhere, from web design, to t-shirts, posters, and signs. The elements of a font can influence and determine how a viewer perceives a design, just as much as images, color, and other more noticeable web elements.

Attention to detail is the best policy for making great designs. It’s fairly easy to get a basic CSS layout up and running, whether you code it yourself or borrow it from a blank template site. For anyone who’s tried to make a great design, though, they can easily tell that making the design truly great is the hardest part. If you find yourself always displeased with your finished result, perhaps the problem is that you shouldn’t actually be finished.

I often see webmasters who complain that they don’t have a ‘knack’ for the design element to creating websites. What most people don’t realize, though, is that design skills are a learned aspect for even the greatest designers. Nobody is born a great artist, whether their talents included an easel or a web design template.

In order to create good designs, especially in web design where functionality is so important, one needs to understand design principles. These include understanding color, size, contrast, shape, and what I’m going to be focusing on today, balance.

There are plenty of trends in web design, from wooden, to large background, and to barely there. One though that has been growing especially in 2008 is the hand-drawn style. This, ’sketchy’ style is used on many websites, but still provides an original touch to any design.

In this post I’ve collected a few of the greater hand-drawn designs on the web today, as well as resources and a few tips on how you can achieve this style for yourself.