Until now, I’m still embracing the beauty of web 2.0 design: The glossy effect, the badges etc.. But the presentation of “Destroy the Web 2.0 Look” by Elliot Jay Stock has changed my perception and makes me understand even more about what is the real Web 2.0. Elliot presented this topic in FoWD event in New York and for people like me who couldn’t attend the event, there is a slideshow which I embeded below and PDF document for download.

He emphasize that “Web 2.0” is not a design aesthetic, and to encourage people to break with overused of the current web design trends. In the presentation there said that the characteristics of Web 2.0 that coined by Mr. Tim O’Reilly does not touch anything about design at all! So, don’t blindly use the style but use it with rational, and come out with own concept and design. Don’t follow the cliche and pursue something new!

Actually there is some great and original designers had breaking out from the trends and come out with something really interesting. Author of snap2objects was agreed with what Mr. Elliot Jay Stocks point of view and written out an interesting article on “How to Destroy the Web 2.0 Look“. He listed out several well designed sites that is opposing the current web design trends.

The website screenshot shown below are one of the examples that mentioned in the post. I can see that most of the designs are using heavy textures, grungy feels and not over contrasts color combinations. Basically most of the examples are not the cliche Web 2.0 feel. Well, this does not mean that the Web 2.0 style is evil and should fully avoid it, but use it with rational like I mentioned above.

Further reading

I found another two links that talks about the current and future predictable web design trends, they are:

Design à la Web – What’s Hot. What’s Not. ~A design forecast for 2008~

– colorspretty.blogspot.com

Design: Web Design-isms: 7 Surefire Styles that Work

– www.thinkvitamin.com

The articles above although not related to the topic here, but somehow it touched some web design styles that is similar to above, so feel free to read it and be inspired.