I’ve installed the Anti-captcha plugin for WordPress to try to cut down on the amount of spam comments I’ve been receiving. If you have trouble commenting, contact me and tell me what’s going on.

The anti-captcha plugin works without requiring any additional user input, so I’m hoping nobody notices any changes…

EDIT (2010-08-13): Because the ‘Add Lightbox and Title’ plugin turns out to apply lightbox to any hyperlink that leads to an image, you’ll have to right’click on the links and select ‘save as’ to download them. I’ll figure out a workaround some time in the near future.

As promised, here is the first preview of the types of images that will be available on The Edge Element when it goes online later this year. The two images are both available in 4:3 and 16:10 screen ratios. You may resize them as desired provided you do not remove the watermark.

Legal babble: these images remain my property and are free for personal use as desktop backgrounds/wallpaper only. You can’t use them in your designs or claim them as your own. You can’t sell my images. You can upload them to another site provided you credit me as the artist and don’t alter the image in any way (except the resizing I mentioned already). Also, you have to send me a message telling me that you’ve used the image so I can visit you and see it.

If you really, really think an image should be cropped or altered or if the resolutions I’ve provided don’t suit your screen, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do. The same applies if you really want to use it in a way other than how I’ve already specified.

Frosted Rose

Sparkler

Download: Frosted rose (1600×1200), Frosted rose widescreen (2560×1600)

Download: Sparkler (1600×1200), Sparkler widescreen (2560×1600)

As part of a project for my advanced diploma, over the next few weeks and months I’ll be looking at web design styles and trends. I’ll be writing in more details about all these styles including links to example websites, information on when these styles were fashionable or in common use and a detailed analysis of what defines each style.

The styles

• Art-based: inspired by an art movement (art deco and pop art/superflat are common).
• Basic: very simple design, often with table-based layout and default fonts. Often uses fluid/full screen layout. Usually ‘excite no-one, offend no-one’.
• Collage: images of real-life objects are assembled to form a scene. The navigation/flow of information is incorporated into the scene.
• Corporate: usually an understated blend of elements from styles like web 2.0, magazine, typographic and minimalist.
• Hand-drawn: has the appearance of a sketch or doodle and is based around a sketchbook or exercise book metaphor.
• Geocities: animated GIFs, reduced colour palette and little use of contemporary design techniques.
• Grunge: organic textures, ‘low fi’ print effects, irregular lines, combination of muted organic colours and bright colours.
• Gothic organic: combines elements of grunge with the organic style of art nouveau.
• Industrial: similar to grunge and urban but with heavy emphasis on metal textures.
• Magazine: creative use of typography, colours and layout to create an effect similar to a print magazine.
• Minimalist: extreme simplification of form and colour to create a dramatic effect. The emphasis is on use of negative space.
• Operating system: looks like the user interface of an operating system and uses similar visual cues to orient the user.
• Real life: usually Flash-based and uses the metaphor of moving around a room or other space to deliver information.
• Retro/vintage: inspired by print media from previous decades or centuries, for example 1950s advertising posters and comic books or 18^th and 19^th century magazines. Textures used include vintage wallpaper or fabric prints.
• Scrapbook: combines elements of grunge and hand-drawn with real-life textures and light, friendly colours. Inspired by and similar in appearance to real life scrapbooks.
• Typographic: makes use of typography in interesting, creative and cutting-edge ways. At the forefront of use of new technologies like font embedding and CSS3.
• Urban: similar to grunge, but heavily focused on the urban landscape.
• Web 2.0: simple, centred layout with heavy use of gradients, 3D effects and bright colours. Big, shiny buttons and appealing icons are an important feature.

In the coming weeks I’ll update this post so that each style links to the post giving more details. Check back here often to see!

Sources

Visit some (or all) of these sites to find out more.

http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/graphicsblog/2009/01/60-vintage-retro-and-pop-art-styled-photoshop-tutorials/

http://www.instantshift.com/2009/07/07/80-corporate-website-designs-for-design-inspiration/

http://www.littleboxofideas.com/blog/features/designers-predict-design-trends-for-2010-part-i

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/clean-simple-minimalist-website-design/

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=23689

http://www.rikcatindustries.com/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/05/04/web-design-trends-2010/

http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-design/current-style/