Posts Tagged ‘web design’

Since I first started this series, the goal has been to showcase websites that did not feature the design conventions that have stereotypically accompanied web 2.0 sites. Since the beginning there have been some comments stating that web 2.0 is about the interactivity between users. I have always been aware of this however the goal was not to feature sites that necessarily were 2.0 but ones that did not “catch the trend.” That being said, I also have been challenged by some of the readers to find web 2.0 sites that do feature some amazing design.

Many of you may have noticed that I redesigned the site. I have been hinting at a redesign for a number of months now, and I am very happy to finally reveal it to you all. After what has been an almost endless number of hours (or so it seemed) I have a number of new features and what I consider to be a drastically improved design. I am using this article to describe my process and the goals I hoped to achieve through the redesign.

Web design may be a relatively new concentration in comparison to the other forms of design, however there are a number of things it shares in common with publication design. The long standing practices and theories of publication design can be applied to web design to help create more interesting and effective sites. By grasping these traits you can create sites that have an sophistication far superior than your competition.

What I am about to explain is not a new problem however it is one that is rapidly expanding within the world of design. Technology has been a strong part of our disciplines for a long time, whether mechanical or digital. However, the lowered barrier to entry has developed allowed a number of untrained individuals into the market. This increased competition means that to separate ourselves from the services of others, we need to look above the software to gain the types of projects and clients we would like.

This however is not an easy task, it requires you or your firm to embrace the idea of “Being what matters most” at a core level. If a firm wants to really benefit from the mentality it must embrace it in all of its departments including sales, management, and design. Only then will the idea truly be effective.

In the past I have written about how SEO is Bullshit. More accurately my distrust of the SEO profession, which is mostly based on the increase in unethical individuals seeking to profiteer off of an uneducated client base and a lack of definitive knowledge on the inner workings of search engines. That being said, I recently came across an interesting article on the blog Epicenter titled “Time to Standardize SEO?” Essentially the article states that there are two sides of the argument for standardization in search engine optimization.

While the social media and Web 2.0 buzz has created a number of new job opportunities for web designers and developers I can’t help but wonder at what cost? I have written before about how some client’s just aren’t ready for a sophisticated website, and how we should consult them to reach their goals. What if the client isn’t ready for the commitment of building a community? There are a number of reasons that client’s may not be ready to support a community based site that they do not realize.

Well I find myself at the 5th entry in my series of websites that are amazing yet do not have the web 2.0 aesthetic. I like many other designers have fallen to the addictive properties of commandshift3.com which has allowed me to find such an amazing set of sites and share them here with you.

First off, I just want to preface this article by saying that this is in no way an attack on anyone however I have become outraged with the large number of sites on the web that label themselves as “minimal.” In the majority of the cases, these sites are a half ass attempt to disguise under designed and under developed sites with the term. What we see in these designs is clutter, poor execution, and a lack of defined hierarchy. The goals of any minimal design is to distill the message down to only the most essential items, however that is not an excuse to avoid design all together. I think that this is a simple case of an uneducated group of vocal “designers” who refer to these designs as minimal and thus create a grouping of trends that are passed down by example regardless of how successful they are.

When designing anything that will carry the label of minimal, particular attention must be given to detail. This is because every small mistake will be blatantly obvious. Originally I had planned to give examples of websites that ineffectively execute the minimal look. However, I now feel that it would be more appropriate to share those designs which are successful, in order to educate rather than chastise.

Web design is still new in terms of education, and it can be extremely difficult to figure out what type of program you should follow in order to get the most out of your education. I am constantly running into posts on forums about the subject, and talking to high school students who want to know what type of program to enter. There is no short answer however I do have my experience and advice to share, which I feel could be helpful. Also I have compiled a list of some of the most common misconceptions about becoming a web design which is located at the bottom of this post.

The major feature of most web 2.0 sites is the amount of personalized content that you share with others in order to create relationships or friends. This however has become the number one reason why the online reputation management business has boomed lately. Try typing your name in google contained within quotes and see what pops up, chances are that you might find something you wouldn’t want an employer or client to see. This is happening to pretty much everyone. Even if you stay away from social media sites, what is to stop a blogger like myself from posting an article about how you contributed to this years big strip club bar crawl. An ever increasing amount of job seekers and top professionals are seeking a way to hide or get rid of these unfavorable items.