For a while now, it has been pretty obvious to me that the advent of Web 2.0 not only means lots of fun social networking tools (like YouTube, del.icio.us, digg, Flickr, Skype and MySpace), but also an aesthetic that is clean, neat, and easily navigated. In other words, kind of boring at times. In Web 2.0, the designer’s job is to make way for the application.
That’s all fine. I like clean and neat, but I get the impression that all Web 2.0 desginers are reading from the same book. Why does all design need to be the same to achieve usability and functionality? Don’t get me wrong, there are aspects to this school of design that I like. Some significant improvements have been made to the old school text-link farms (see Yahoo! nostalgia after the jump).
And look at me–I use the default theme on Wordpress! I am not one to judge. I am merely making an observation. Maybe it is just the pastels that bother me: I haven’t seen so many hot pinks, baby blues, lime greens and purples since the 80s. And since I am old enough to remember that, you can imagine that I am especially grateful for the new, larger sans serif type.
Maybe that is the downside to all of this network socialization; we are being brought to some simple common denominators.
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Posted January 29, 2007 
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