Is 800x600 still the standard?

I don't do much in the way of web design, in fact none until recently. I was wondering if everyone designs to 800x600 or if they it is moving to larger formats?

I am working on some ideas for my site and I want to go a bit bigger than that because of the concept. Here are some mock ups 2 different ideas. the first (color one) I spent more time on, but the second is just the idea, it need some refining.

let me know what you think
http://www.cameracourage.com/stash/FinalBackground.jpg

http://www.cameracourage.com/stash/Background.jpg

I have my monitor setup at 1024 x 768 and I still struggle to see the first one. The second one fits on my screen with a little white space around it.

You have to design for your target audience. If you know that everyone who is going to view your site have big screens and can view sites that are designed larger then fine, but remember the bigger the page the longer to download, although miniscule to some might be time consuming to others, not everyone has Broadband connections.

I still advise people to deisgn to 15" monitors and then they are 99% sure they will get their websites displaying correctly for most people.

Personally I don't like the second image, but that isn't to say the people who visit your site won't, the second one is too wide even on my monitor.

Hope that helps.

Here's my opinion as a person who has made 100% of my income in the last 8 years designing websites (not saying you should listen to me, just giving info).

No one gives a crap how "sweet" your site is. Your friends will like it, you'll like it but if it doesn't have key elements, people will be hitting the back button faster than your camera could possibly capture.

IMO a site needs to:
a) load fast
b) BE EASY TO NAVIGATE
c) have CLEAR points where people can navigate and click
d) not annoy people with horizontal scrolling and other gimmicks

People are like monkeys. They want to see 1 banana per page, that's about it (read the book "The Big Red Fez", you can read it in about 30 minutes). Also, there's another book called "Don't Make Me Think" which talks about the same thing. If you want strangers and people to go to your site, then you CAN'T make them think.

Anyways - I like your first design, I think it's really COOL. And very NON-USER FRIENDLY. I would look at your page, go "WTF is the menu?" and leave to find another biking website. It took me about 12 seconds the first time I saw it to even notice a menu, which is about 11 seconds too long.

If I were you, you can even keep the image just like it is, but put the menu off to the left of the biker, and make it bigger and easier to navigate.

Or, keep it how you want. When I do a personal site for myself, I make it so that it makes me smile, not other people. My advice is for if you want a more commercial success, for people who have never visited it before. I think your design is WAY COOL, but it's not a website, it's web-art, and web-art rarely makes a good website.

I still design for 600x800. Check the Quick Polls on this site. I think I did one a while back on wat resolution people have their monitors set to. You could do a Google search on the subject, too. Basically, you want to exclude as few people as possible. A lot of us who are on the Web all day and are into photography run higher resolutions. But in middle America and the rest of the world, that might not be the case. Cater to the simplest audience - unless you don't care about the simplest audience. Anyway, I'm with Sean. If I go to a site and don't find what I need right away, I leave and usually don't go back. The KISS rule is very applicable for Web design.

My problem is that I really respect good design and "web art" but I want functionality. So basically want to make a very clean but creative site. I just can't get myself to make the "basic site" I want people to look at the site as an extention of my art.
On top of that my roommate is a really good flash designer (see: www.motionboy.com and www.coloradoavalanche.com) and it make me want to create something that he will respect for the design aspect as well.
On top of all that I do understand that if someone visits and cant figure it out then they will leave. That is why this is such a challenge, not to mention that I have never designed a site before this one!
Thanks for the input and any other comments are definitely appreciated!

Just my opinion again, but "motionboy.com" gave me seizures. If I were you, and you want repeat visitors, I'd avoid that type of "new wave" flash design like the plague. I honest to god spent 5 good minutes, literally, trying to figure out the site and how to navigate it and what it was all about... I couldn't do it.