arkitrave :: log

So, it seems to be the popular subject to write about lately. I’ll get on the bandwagon.

Yes. Drop shadows will be the ugly horizontal rules of the current generation of web designs (however long a web generation is…) We will think they are ugly and over the top in not too many years. But this is really not a problem, people. Every generation needs to define itself somehow, whether it’s with tie-dye and the Dead or that guy Marilyn or Linkin Park…

There were web design ideas that were the cutting edge in 1995. It was all we had. All we knew we could do. And it got published (damn you, Dave Siegel). The publishing bit is too bad, as people get the books after the trend has run its course, and a new trend had taken its place. This, of course, led to really bad sites way beyond when we should have had really bad sites, and a very slow implementation of CSS for presentation.

Please, don’t fault trends, however. Design lives by trends. They are not evil. They allow companies and individuals to define themselves and be contemporary.

For my two cents, subtly done drop shadows still look good. The trick will be knowing when to stop using them, and not being so enamored of our own work that we can’t recognize when it becomes dated. I don’t think that time has come yet. Fortunately, with CSS layout, we can change a graphic on a site pretty easily when the time comes to move on to different graphic techniques.