Web design 2.0 vs Web Design 3.0

Design, fashion, art and architecture have long ascribed convenient words to describe a period or trend - that is all this is, nothing to do with marketing.

Web 2.0, 3.0 etc is pure tech nerd bullshit however and means nothing.

Ya, thatā€™s what I meant. I think. I dunno. Iā€™m going for a ride.

:-)

Your point about reading a book is so relevant and a recent article about accessibility is similar. Quite often design gets smothered with this trend or that trend and forget what the purpose of the page is, to be read.

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Oh I agree with that!

My ā€œstrengthā€ with websites is understanding what users want. Iā€™m shite with design, I just do what seems logical. But IMO most users donā€™t give two hoots about ā€œdesignā€, beyond being able to navigate the site and read the page.

I understand that a nicely put together page will give users a ā€œfeel-goodā€ factor, and that can reflect on their opinion of the business the website represents. But beyond that, itā€™s all nonsense IMO.

I always tell my clients: My site is there to put your product or service front and centre, not my clever design. If people notice my site, Iā€™m not doing my job.

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Firstly I really love it.

Secondly if the Brutalist Police get wind of this, you will be heavily fined for even using their word on an attractive web design.

I can see that some styles of what some cider drinkers with poor eyesight, might consider to be Brutalistic hints of a sniff, have been used in the design, but no way can that site be considered Brutalistic by anyone unlucky enough to have been following Rikki Kimacovichā€™s stylistically violently offensive site. It breaks the cardinal Brutalistics rules of looking great, easy to read, easy to navigate and has genuinely interesting slick images.

However, if a client wants a Brutilistic site because he reads that the conversion statistics marketeers spout that thatā€™s what he should have, then there is no harm in telling the client that it is Brutalistic web site.

Having a hole in the knees of your $500 Selvedge jeans doesnā€™t turn you into a Punk.

What I see is what Tav gave us probably about 4 years ago in the form of HeaderPro, Billboard, SectionsFix and then Blueprint which were the original cornerstones of building a decent site for Weavers, and they remain just as relevant today.

However, what I am pleased to see in your site, accepting is a demo, is a mix of Web2 and Web3 layouts which is what this thread is about. You have broken out of the Web2 formality of text remaining inside column boundaries, column boundaries being horizontally aligned by ā€œbreaking the gridā€ and overlapping images outside that ā€œBootstrapā€ or Web2 layout. You have also flowed text into another ā€œcolumnā€, text overflowing text, broken the rigid 12 column foundations, and overlapped images vertically. There are the cornerstones of Web3. So you have created, what I would identify as a Web3 layout with a smidgeon of rips in its jeans.

Congratulations in earning your first Web 3.0 virtual arm badge:

web30badge

Yes, Web2 and Web3 are not the right terms, but in the absence of any better term, for the purposes of this thread, it is nothing but a label. ā€œXā€ and ā€œYā€ would do. The words ā€œbroken gridā€ and asymmetry are useful terms when searching for a label for these type of layouts. There are however, very definite differences between the two. Magazine and print layouts have been overlapping for ever and it is a very rare thing to see a print layout that uses a formal horizontally aligned layout. In fact, it is so rare that it comes and goes as a fashionable thing because of itā€™s difference to the norm.

A good example of how different these layouts are is that most tools available to most Weavers would not know how to earn the badgeā€¦

This graphic for the original article goes someway to explain the 2 types of layouts:

So, web 3 is actually web 0 from the early 90ā€™s then when everything was floated before columns existed. Now I understand.

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In some ways yes. In fact Web 2 is also just a floated Web 0. Columns are just floated.

I just had to look up what ā€˜brutalismā€™ actually means. Apparently itā€™s not a BDSM kink or bowel movement, or even a mountain bike. Which is a good start. Neilsen describes it in detail here.

The paragraph that registers closest with me is this one:

Brutalist designers want to break away from the stale, cookie-cutter, premade-template sites that dominate the web today. They want the web to be true to itself, to feel honest and not contrived. The brutalist philosophy shares that last goal with flat design, though the two aesthetic styles achieve it in very different ways.

Apart from my sandals, beads and tie-dyed purple loon pants, Iā€™m not a dedicated follower of fashionsā€¦ and Iā€™ve never really understood what Webs 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 are. I merely steal the best bits of design trends I seeā€¦ and then make them my own. This one Iā€™m calling Consensual Barbarism.

@Webdeersign Thanks for my very first award. I shall treasure it close to my heartā€¦ until the next trend comes along!

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Oh the irony in such a contrived statement!

The comment on that site linked above by Webdeer is hilarious tooā€¦

Brutalist Websites
ā€“
In its ruggedness and lack of concern to look comfortable or easy, Brutalism can be seen as a reaction by a younger generation to the lightness, optimism, and frivolity of todayā€™s web design.

Or, in other wordsā€¦ Largely unimportant people taking themselves way too seriously.

Ultimate brutalismā€¦

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OK enough now - this is playing with semantics. I was not talking about CSS float which is not really floating anyway.

Fact is I think @steveb nailed it. 99.99% of people using RW are not designers and are not bothered. What they want is to make cheap sites for small businesses (and religious organisations in the colonies) that hit the point of the business and do a job.

  • Design trends in RW follow whatever stacks are released.
  • There is typically a 2 to 3 year lag from the rest of the world to RW.
  • The number of web design business sites made with RW that explain to the clients what responsive design is on their homepage is alarming. I even know of one that boasts of being a beta tester for a certain developer. As if business clients understand or care about that. Again, I defer to @stevebā€™s summary:
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Are you lot sat at home with nothing to do except whittle hazelnut moon mugs, or what?

My first initial post just said " Here is an interesting page that should stimulate anyone building web sites wanting to make their sites look up to date."

Then it all went a bit Brutalistic for some reason.

BTW when you are happy with the shape, you could consider Solar Pyrogrophy to decorate them for that genuine flat Brutalist style. Something to do, to pass the time anyway.

Well spottedā€¦ I missed that! Mustā€™ve been busy rehearsing my speech for all the awards I was going to get.

Ah, excellent news. Youā€™ve revived the RWC awards then.

No what you did was create a post with 2.0 and 3.0 in the title and thus tacitly endorsed a bullshit nomenclature, thank goodness that you didnā€™t leverage it as well :)

The purpose of RW4ALL is to jump on such nomenclature, beat it with a stick and then see if the resultant mush is still throbbing. That is what makes this forum the vibrant and free thinking place it is.

Feel free to post a thread entitled Premium Leverage 4.0 and Iā€™m sure weā€™ll all make time in our busy lives. :)

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Iā€™m certainly thinking about it.

It did get a little embarassing in the end, with a vociferous few casting aspersions simply because I was fortunate enough to win 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize for the first twelve years in a row.

However in these difficult times when itā€™s proving really hard to patronise our fellow weavers, perhaps we should resurrect this much maligned yet revered awardā€¦

That wasnā€™t intentional and I would be upset and have to award myself another badge, if anyone listened to me anyway. I only used their labels through laziness.

To use an awful phrase that is becoming far too common amongst techie types, ā€œThat saidā€, I did say not to get too hung up on the labels and they could be considered as ā€œXā€ and Y". I even heard Michael Gove use it yesterday. Tough times.

It looks like the eternal question ā€“ modern vs. classic. Apart from the technical achievement, this illustration of the web design v. 3 possesses dynamics but seems a bit chaotic. Aesthetically, Webdesign v. 2 appears better in this direct comparison IMO, but it all depends on the investors brief, the topic, the target group, etc. :)

Yes I would agree. Itā€™s there to show an alternative way to display content. It ends up looking cluttered, too compact and not enough space, but you can reference each component and see how it might be displayed in an alternative way. Martenā€™s cracking demo shows the layouts how they should be done.

I was only taking the piss!

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I knows. (I have been binge watching Gavin and Stacey).

Itā€™s when you stop taking the piss that we should be concerned.

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