Web 2.0’ encapsulates a rethinking and reinvention of how the web is used, and might be used.

Both as an attempt to address new interaction models and as response to the conventions that new publishing tools have employed, new navigation systems and aesthetics have emerged. Web 2.0 design is constructed using CSS and employs strict web standards. The benefits of the techniques used are meaningfully marked-up documents that separate content, presentation and behaviour and can be easily interchangable, modified and upgraded sometimes employing easy to use backend administration.

The examples below show excellent modern graphic design technique. They all look good, and are clear and easy to use. This new trend is frequently referred to as the art of Zen design.

Examples

Common features

The great sites above share the following design features:

• Simple layout
• Centered orientation
• Design the content, not the page
• 3D effects, used sparingly
• Soft, neutral background colors
• Strong color, used sparingly
• Cute icons, used sparingly
• Plenty of whitespace
• Nice big text

Let's look at these features one by one.

Simple layout

It feels like we're seeing more simple 1- and 2-column designs than in previous years.

The overall feel you get is that designers generally agree that simple pages work better.

These pages read in a straightforward way from top to bottom, and you don't find your eye skipping around trying to work out what to look at. It's a much calmer and more solid browsing experience than in times gone by.

Centered orientation

The other thing you notice about all the hot picks above is that they're all laid out around a central axis.

Whereas a couple of years ago, you'd find a lot of liquid layouts and left-aligned fixed-width layouts, today content goes in the centre of the screen.

Left-oriented layouts are much less common than they used to be.

Also, liquid (full-width) layouts are less popular.

The wisdom has always been that we should try to get as much information "above the fold" (i.e. visible on the screen without scrolling). Liquid layouts achieves this.

However, today we seem to be more comfortable with scrolling, and we're willing to put up with scrolling for the benefits of increased white space and line height.

Design the content, not the page

Good modern web designs put less energy into designing the page background - the canvas and permanent page features - and rather focus on designing the content itself.

This reflects the principle of drawing the viewer's attention to the content.

We see the effects in:

• Freer, less boxed-in page layouts
• Softer, simpler, receding page "furniture"
• Strong color and 3D effects used to draw attention to the content itself, including the main branding
• The focus is on making the site's subject look good, rather than making the web designer look good (which is better for the designer in the long-term!)

3D effects, used sparingly

Every single one of the examples uses gradients subtly, either to give bars a slight roundedness, to create a soft feeling of space in the background, or to make an icon stand out with embossing and subtle drop-shadows.

Reflections & fades are very prevalent. Drop-shadows are still used, but with care.

Trademark round flashes are everywhere.

Soft, neutral background colors

All the hexamples have a plain background, the most popular being white and greyscale fades. These give a cool, neutral, soft base against which you can flash strong colour to draw the eye.

Strong color, used sparingly

A soft, stylish background is the perfect base for adding eye-catching features. Strong colors and tonal constrast are great for drawing the eye to the more important elements on the page.

Cute icons, used sparingly

There's a theme here: Don't use too many attractive elements on the same page view (i.e. that appeals to the eye and draws the user's attention).

As with strong color and 3D effects, appealing icons and buttons can add that bit of polish to help give a page a high-quality feel. But used too much, they'll have the counter effect, cluttering the page and confusing the user.

Plenty of whitespace

Today's web designs are so fresh, they feel like they've taken a deep breath.

Your eye needs space (guttering in typo language) round stuff to help you clearly and cleanly identify things.

In general, the more white space the better. It's very rare that I look at a page and think: "Gosh, they really need to cram that page up a bit!"

Of course, "white" space doesn't have to be white. But it does have to be space!

Look at all this lovely refreshing white space!

Nice big text

I'm not saying that all the text on your web site should be supersized. In fact, in some scenarios, small text is fine (we tend to take in more when text is a bit smaller).

What these good designs show is:

Make the most important text on the page bigger than normal text

Like the other design techniques we've seen, it works when used in moderation. If all your text is big, then none of your text is big.

Use bigger text to help your visitors see quickly what the page is about, what's most important, and figure out where they want to look next to find what they want.