We introduce elliptic and parabolic B 1 classes that generalize the well-known B p classes of De Giorgi, Ladyzhenskaya and Ural'tseva with p > 1. New classes are applied to prove pointwise continuity of solutions of elliptic and parabolic equations with nonstandard growth conditions. Our considerations cover new cases of variable exponent and (p, q)-phase growth including the ,,singular-degenerate" parabolic case p < 2 < q.