Flexible web sites—sites that are liquid or elastic—have the unfair reputation of being ugly and plain. There are certainly lots of flexible sites that fit this stereotype, just as there are tons of ugly fixed-width sites. But flexible design doesn’t have to be unattractive. There are lots of really beautiful, graphically rich liquid and elastic web sites, which are all the more impressive to me because of the extra skill it often takes to pull off these graphic techniques in a flexible environment.

Here are some web design galleries that showcase flexible design:

No Resolution

This is an entire site devoted to showcasing liquid and elastic designs. Unfortunately, you have to register to submit entries, so things have been slow lately. Still, lots of great stuff in the archives, and new additions from time to time.

CSSGlance, liquid layout category

CSSGlance categorizes all entries as fixed-width, liquid, or elastic, which is really nice. They have a pretty good collection of liquid layouts.

CSSGlance, elastic layout category

Only a few things here, but elastic layouts are pretty rare in general, as well as hard to recognize with only a glance.

CSS Drive, liquid layout category

This category seems to have been mostly forgotten about recently, but it does have a good collection of liquid layouts from 2007 and earlier, and new entries do show up occasionally.

Unmatched Style, entries tagged as liquid layout

A very small collection of liquid layouts that is very rarely updated, but I include it here in case it takes off one day. Let’s hope so!

I keep my own collection of designs I find attractive and inspiring in del.icio.us. I have a number of liquid layouts saved as inspiration, as well as a few inspiring elastic ones. I’ll point out a few of my favorites:

• SimpleBits (sadly, no longer elastic)
• Dizzain (liquid)
• Castello di Bolgheri (liquid)
• Sozidatel (liquid)
• Simon Wiffen (liquid)
• Clearleft (liquid)
• Biola Undergrad (liquid)
• RateMyArea (liquid and elastic)
• iA (elastic)