I talked in part one about what trends are being used way to much. Well here in part two I have some examples that I found looking at showcase galleries. My first example demonstrates the over use of glossy icons, and putting a shine on everything. It also shows how not to use strips. Strips should be faint and subtle, not in your face.
As you can see those strips are just obnoxious, and all they use is those glossy icons (with reflections too) which are not even really needed. They also made that bar with the stripes (which isn’t needed either it just pushes the content down further) shiny. This style is just getting old. Plus it’s taking away from the content, it’s too flashy and shiny. When I look at that site my eyes go right to those annoying strips and not to the content. It is very distracting. Alright here is my next example which shows how gradients can be overused.
I like this site a lot better then the other one, but if you look you will notice that every graphic has a gradient. Also gradients should be subtle too, they shouldn’t be going from a dark color to white. Let take a look at some good designs that don’t need to use glossy icons and gradients.
Take a look at Pownce it’s a simple clean design that doesn’t have glossy/shiny icons, there isn’t even a single gradient. It really is a great design, and I believe it’s setting new trends.
What I expect to happen
Pownce, like some other sites is starting to use transparency. This is really exciting because I think with the release of IE7 which supports transparency we will finally be able to use it. Transparency when used correctly can add a very elegant touch to a site, and allows people to be a lot more creative. I have a feeling that as more and more people stop using IE6 we will see more and more designers using transparency in their work. Which is awesome!
Flash
For me flash is hit or miss, it’s either really good or it’s really bad. I’m not a big fan of flash sites, because most of the time they take forever to load. It’s fun to look at the first time, but after a while I just want to get to the content. It’s this reason that leads me to believe that flash is best suited for certain kinds of content. For example a lot of sites that promote a movie is done in flash. Which makes sense, people go to those sites once or twice to get information on the movie. They are not repeatedly visiting the site. Plus the interaction that flash can provide, can be used to get people excited about the movie. However blogs, and other sites where people would be going back to again and again should not be done in flash.
I believe that concludes my design philosophy, it will be interesting to see where the latest design trends take us.
If you haven’t already, be sure to read My Design Philosophy part one.
August 5th, 2007 at 12:30 am
I do love gradients and while most people say you shouldn’t deviate from the “light to lighter”, it’s just appealing to me I guess.
Pownce is a great design that appeals to my 2D senses, but isn’t exactly revolutionary. Thanks for the mention!
August 5th, 2007 at 1:55 am
I agree gradients do look good. I do like your site, I just used it as an example for using a lot of gradients. Which isn’t a bad thing I was just pointing out that there are other options out there.