Style watch
Oct. 3rd, 2006 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsAnyone who knows me knows that I'm a design and font queen. I'm not terribly good at it, mostly because I have no excuse for exercising my talents in my direction given the industrial nature of my current position, but I love watching other designers at work and admiring their portfolios.
Curt Clonigner has a book, Fresh Ideas in Web Design, in which he attempts to classify some common on-line styles. Mine is easy: I'm an HTML Minimalist. Everything must be done with CSS and Style; the content must stand on its own, arranged in such a way that the HTML content matches its semantic value, making it searchable and understandable, and it must degrade well. Javascript must be unnecessary (although it can be used as heavily as one likes to enhance the experience, so long as it in unnecessary for a viewer to acheive their goal). Flash is Teh Evil.
But there are other styles out there, and Clonginger documents: Mondrian, Grid, SuperTinySimCity, LoFi Grunge, PaperBag, Gothic Organic, Pixelate Punk, Drafting Table Transformer, 1950s Hello Kitty, 1970s DayGlo, HandDrawnAnalog, DustyCowboy.
I was thinking about that horrible church website and I was trying to come up with a name for it. And I have it: RolePlayingGame. Take a look. World of Warcraft. Hellgate 2038. The garish hypercolor art style, the dark backgrounds with contrasting text, all are there with New Birth Ministries. Anthore site with a similar but toned-down banner is KGoule, some designer guy's blog. The designer of that church site, Sharper FX, seems to definitely have this whole RPG style going for him in all the sites he's done, which is odd considering how much of his work is for churches.
Curt Clonigner has a book, Fresh Ideas in Web Design, in which he attempts to classify some common on-line styles. Mine is easy: I'm an HTML Minimalist. Everything must be done with CSS and Style; the content must stand on its own, arranged in such a way that the HTML content matches its semantic value, making it searchable and understandable, and it must degrade well. Javascript must be unnecessary (although it can be used as heavily as one likes to enhance the experience, so long as it in unnecessary for a viewer to acheive their goal). Flash is Teh Evil.
But there are other styles out there, and Clonginger documents: Mondrian, Grid, SuperTinySimCity, LoFi Grunge, PaperBag, Gothic Organic, Pixelate Punk, Drafting Table Transformer, 1950s Hello Kitty, 1970s DayGlo, HandDrawnAnalog, DustyCowboy.
I was thinking about that horrible church website and I was trying to come up with a name for it. And I have it: RolePlayingGame. Take a look. World of Warcraft. Hellgate 2038. The garish hypercolor art style, the dark backgrounds with contrasting text, all are there with New Birth Ministries. Anthore site with a similar but toned-down banner is KGoule, some designer guy's blog. The designer of that church site, Sharper FX, seems to definitely have this whole RPG style going for him in all the sites he's done, which is odd considering how much of his work is for churches.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 09:52 pm (UTC)Churches and role playing games are not all that different. It's all about suspension of disbelief.
Just one asks you to keep it up for your whole life.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-03 10:36 pm (UTC)I'd desribe New Birth Ministries' web as almost anime-inspired in design tone. The swooshTHUNK sound effects, soundtrack, and drafting board fetishism is right out of a lot of SF anime. It's got actual speed lines!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-04 02:39 pm (UTC)Guidelines on making web sites as useable as possible, irrespective of who is reading it and on what device. As far as I'm concerned this is the design bible, enough said.