Here is a perfect example of what I was intimating in the previous post when I said, “I’m generally of the mind that it’s almost impossible to come up with a 100% unique design. No matter what, pieces of your work can be found somewhere else on the web.” This is especially true when you keep the design fairly simple as I have here on SSDD. So what’ve we got here?

• Fat, mostly monochromatic header bar with left-leaning logo. Check.
• Thin navigation bar with a gradient fill under the header. Check.
• Faded fat diagonal lines under have bar, in background of main content area. Check.
• Footer bar at bottom, matching header color. Check.

To be clear, I am not accusing this web site owner of layout theft any more than he can accuse me of theft. Quite the contrary. The layouts are very basic but usable, and the design elements (gradients and diagonals) are du rigeur in web design today.

It’s just a very small design world. And with the popularity of CSS Design Showcases (e.g., the Daily Slurp) it’s getting smaller. The most important thing is to create the design that is most appropriate for the site in question. I think they both work.