Many of the best examples of web 2.0 have some elements that make them, well, Web 2.0 style. Yet Web 2.0 is an oft-overlooked design style, and even more often misunderstood especially in terms of value and implementation. Making a site interactive and yet still comprehensive is not an easy thing to do.
Wikipedia describes Web 2.0 as "a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users". While this is an accurate description of the term, nothing says Web 2.0 more than central layout, big text, strong colors, round corners and an intuitive navigation.
Web 2.0 templates are a lesson in Web 2.0 style - it's as simple as that! Their beauty comes from an intuitive use of layouts, rounded corners, bigger text and brighter color surfaces, which give them a polished Web 2.0 style.
Centralized layouts: As apposed to jamming everything in one place (e.g. left-orientated scalable layouts), Web 2.0 templates centralized layouts bring simplicity into focus by positioning the content in the center of the page. It's not overwhelming, there's less information to process and the right allocation of large fonts and white space presents a better more amicable experience.
Navigation: The ease of navigation needn't be compromised. The Web 2.0 template style of navigation is typically horizontal, utilizes large fonts and is always clear and concise.
Brighter color surfaces: The old Web 1.0 always felt a little drab, part of the reason for that was the almost total lack of color. Web 2.0 templates are typically characterized by color. The colors are bright, fluorescent like, cherry colors - blue, orange, lime-green and a myriad of rich surfaces and reflections harmoniously twined with white space to deliver an open and friendly feeling.
Bigger fonts: Another component of Web 2.0 templates are clear large fonts. Large font can help place the eye on the things you feel should stand out. Large fonts are perfectly acceptable on the web, as long as you employed them judiciously.
Rounded corners: Boxes with rounded corners aren't anything new; the only difference with Web 2.0 is that they're now standards-compliant. The trick is Web 2.0 templates use CSS to implement the illusion of curves, instead of the old fashion method that involved slicing the top and bottom of a rounded rectangle, a table with three rows and a lot of time on your hands.
Web 2.0 falls right into the category of design where many people think it's easy, yet an understanding of layout and white space and, even more, an understanding of communication, is vital. All of the elements (centralized layouts, strong colors, round corners, big text) readily attributed to Web 2.0 templates are carefully crafted by professionals who are passionate about design. On that note, we entreat you to consider the convenience and practicality of obtaining template customization. The result is a unique product that works intuitively to help the user (your customer) find anything on the site.
The templates shown here are but a few samples...Example Template No. 18579, Example Template No. 18117, Example Template No. 15360, Example Template No. 18099, Example Template No. 16962.
About the Author
Dave Collado is the Senior Design Consultant at www.foamers.net who provides website template customization, Web 2.0 template customization, inspiration, resources and much more.
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