Ethan Marcotte, Chris Coyer, Karen McGrain, Andy Clark, Dan Cederholm, Sarah Parmenter, Dave Shea, Jeffrey Zeldman, Vitaliy Friedman, Rachel Andrew, Simon Collison, Wirlie Peters, Cameron Mall
Printed 2026-06-20
Take any creative field, and you will find several well-known authorities who occupy leading positions, or come into the profession with new interpretations, technical approaches and ideas. This is true, whether you look at David Bailey in the world of photography or Tracy Emin in the visual arts. This is because individual individuals determine movement or technique, or invent something new, defending their approach and lead the rest.
Of course, the world of web design is no different. We have our own champions and leaders, although it is surprisingly difficult to choose just a few names that every web designer should know. Fortunately, we live in the era of Facebook and Twitter, which makes leaders accessible and understandable to everyone else. So it's worth getting to know them and see what they recommend!
1. Ethan Marcotte
Twitter: twitter.com/beep
If and there is one person in the web industry who probably needs no introduction, this is Ethan Marcott. One of the most famous designers on the Internet, Ethan is a constant and popular speaker at many conferences and, in his own words, he is the one who "started all this" responsive web design.
2. Chris Coyyer
Twitter: twitter.com/chriscoyier
Worldwide renowned expert CSS and HTML gurus, Chris Coyer writes one of the most popular CSS blogs on the web, CSS-Tricks. Throughout his career, Chris has published many textbooks, websites, and scripts to help designers improve their skills. Works as a designer at CodePen.
3. Karen McGrain
Twitter: twitter.com/karenmcgrane
Recognized an expert in UX, Karen McGrane believes that the phrase "In the best days I try to make the Internet better. In bad days, I try to make it not so ugly." Combining the experience of a strategist and the experience of a designer, Karen has over 15 years of experience creating large and complex websites. She is currently the managing partner of Bond Art + Science, and is the author of the UX design strategy for mobile devices.
4. Andy Clark
Twitter: twitter.com/malarkey
Andy He is a well-known speaker at many conferences, and the founder of Welsh Design Studio, which boasts clients like The Home Office, STV and the International Organization for Standardization. Andy is perhaps best known for his book, Hardboiled web design, which combines the idea of __progressive improvement with responsive web design.
5. Dan Cederholm
Twitter: twitter.com/simplebits
Dan He is the author of five books on web design, covering everything from everything, from standard-based approaches to Saas. Dan is a practicing web designer and popular speaker. Along with Rich Thornett, Dan became one of the founders of the popular dribbble.com, which allows developers to upload screenshots of their work during website design and other visuals.
6. Sarah Parmenter
Twitter: twitter.com/sazzy
Sarah Parmenter is a user interface designer and specializes in development for the web, iPhone and iPad. She is also the owner of a design studio and co-host of the popular Happy Monday podcast. Sarah often travels the world to speak at the world's leading web design conferences. Her client list includes Blackberry, News International, STV and the National Breast Cancer Foundation of America.
7. Dave Shea
Twitter: twitter.com/mezzoblue
Dave Shea became famous because of his CSS project Zen Garden, which began the transition from creating tables in HTML based on a design layout to creating CSS based on layouts. The approach has become very popular and helps to push the boundaries of what can be done in layout using only CSS.
8. Jeffrey Zeldman
Twitter: twitter.com/zeldman
Jeffrey Perhaps the most famous of all the people mentioned on this list. He is the author of the book, which should be a desktop for any web designer, "Designing using web standards." Jeffrey is also the founder of Happy Cog Studios, an American consulting company with clients such as MTV, Ben and Jerry, and Stanford University.
9. Vitaliy Fridman
Twitter: twitter.com/smashingmag
Vitaliy well known in the web design world for his web design blog, Smashing Magazine. Initially, a small blog has grown over the past few years, bringing together a huge set of resources for web design, and also holds many seminars and conferences that attract the best specialists in website design .
10. Rachel Andrew
Twitter: twitter.com/rachelandrew
Rachel is a web developer, speaker, and prolific writer. In addition to his oral and written work, Rachel is the managing director of Edgeofmyseat.com, a web development consulting company.
11. Simon Collison
Twitter: twitter.com/colly
Simon born in Nottingham (England). Simon Collison is a designer, speaker, and author of books. Working in various positions throughout his career, Simon shares his knowledge of web design through books and conferences. He is also proud of his partnership with Kin, and also organizes the annual New Adventures in Web Design event in his native Nottingham.
12. Wirlie Peters
Twitter: twitter.com/vpieters
Wirlie is an extremely talented graphic designer. A native of Belgium, she became known for her work for the Duoh agency. She co-founded Geert Leyseele and has a blog at veerle.duoh.com where she talks about her ideas and publishes training materials. She is also a book author and speaker, and has worked on several high-level projects, including creating a graphical interface for ExpressionEngine.
13. Cameron Mall
Twitter: twitter.com/cameronmoll
Cameron - A well-known designer who regularly speaks at site design conferences around the world. Cameron replies that he collaborated on books with Andy Budd and Simon Collison. Like his speeches and books, a number of printed posters created by Cameron are well-known - which are definitely worth a look!