I'm currently doing Wes Bos' fantastic 30 day js tutorials, and I've noticed that he's really good at desigining website layouts. What resources are out there to help become a better web designer?
If the question is really ‘How do I get better at layout?’, I think answer is:
Design a thousand different layouts!
If you're going to get that done, you can't spend a huge amount of time on them. Just try building hundreds of tiny, disposable experiments. Why not make a new tiny layout as a daily exercise.
Wes didn't get good at layout from any one resource, he got good by doing this sort of thing frequently at a really tiny scale.
I'm going to cheat slightly and post Jeremy Keith's recent blog - adactio.com/journal/11551 and a really great tip pointing out how far designers can get with a single JS trick - css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/150-hey-designer…
To more directly answer the question, to get better at CSS; first properly understand HTML and pattern/naming systems. Once you can write modular HTML, it becomes much easier to write clean CSS on top of that. You need to understand semantic markup and naming-for-purpose (class="warning" not class="red") otherwise you'll end up throwing CSS at bad foundations.
CSS itself is a huge topic; but start with core stuff like the cascade and how to use it (it's a powerful tool!); selector weights; rendering contexts and document flow. Skipping these core concepts will bite you forever. Then after that ultimately like everything else you learn by making things and extending your knowledge.
That is a good question and I would very much like to know as well as I've been struggling to learn how to wield CSS effectively, though I've found a few useful resources.
Progressive Enhancement (A design methodology for creating a design which works well across many browser versions)
Ollie Williams
Front-end/design/CSS
As far as design goes - Go on Behance and Dribble and copy other people's designs (but modify them and make them your own). You could try a book like hardboiled web design or designing for the web by Mark Boulton but it's best just to look at other people's designs and think about what it is you like about them.
As far as learning css - try books such as css master, css mastery, css in depth, css missing manual, css secrets or do an online thing like Treehouse or Rachel Andrews course. None of these resources will teach you to be a good designer though.