Web 2.0 Design Tutorials

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Web 2.0 Design Tutorials

Over the last month or so I have been busy redesigning some of my best earners (not this website) over to slick new web 2.0 interfaces. I suspected that making some simple graphical changes might actually increase conversions and so far this is very much the case. I found that by making some small but trendy design changes improved visitor confidence enough to really effect my earnings. I am not talking about functionality here at all but merely design and layout - there are a million articles online for working with javascript and AJAX.
Having said that it was a real bitch finding tutorials and solid info for designing for web 2.0. Here are some of the best…
The Web 2.0 Design Kit by Tommy Maloney is a fantastic guide for mastering soft shadows, gradients, patterns, and of course rounded corners. Tommy is a great teacher and explains this stuff ain’t all that tough from a Photoshop design perspective.
Is it just me or do rounded corners make you want to spend money? Ok admit it, while nothing new rounded corners are pretty much the craze with the 2.0 web space. Design mirrors culture and one look at the consumer electronics space should illustrate that corners are hella cool. Corners can also come off like Liberace. With that in mind take a look at Schillmania’s very informative article on building More Rounded Corners with CSS. His inline dialogue boxes are very schwing.
Tabalicous. Zebra tables. Mountain top corners & drop shadows oh my! Alistapart gives the lowdown on everything bleeding edge relating to design and really should be in your RSS list if it already isn’t. Start in their design category.
Aussie designer Miles Burke has a web 2.0 color palette you can download and import straight into Photoshop. Get your pastel on.
Alessandro has an article on Zoom Layouts with references and code samples.
Max Kiesler explains why The Big Font Conspiracy isn’t actually just trendy but design smart.
Jakob has an interesting take on building your own web 2.0 layout. Step by step.
Fontshop has a decent article on The Logos of Web 2.0.
I have a lame penchant for cartoons in my design. I have actually lost friends over it. This is something I will eventually shake, but for now you can grab some professional and free comic fonts from blambot.
For inspiration you might check out: InspirationKing, cssimport, or cssbeauty.