There’s definitely been a shift in web technology and design in the last couple years, what some people call the “Web 2.0” era. Web Design From Scratch has a great assessment of what most well-designed sites have in common and provides examples of good design.

Some common features of great sites:

• Simple layout
• 3D effects, used sparingly
• Soft, neutral background colours
• Strong colour, used sparingly
• Cute icons, used sparingly
• Plenty of whitespace
• Nice big text

I haven’t been posting much lately, mostly because I’ve actually been busy. But not today. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve been working on at the Wisconsin Historical Society:

• From Shell to Symbol: Art of the Ethnic Easter Egg
• Pottery by Frackelton
• Exhibits Portal
• Teachers and Students Portal
• Wisconsin History Portal

What are you waiting for? Go learn something already.

This is one of the best pages I’ve found in a while. Sportslogos.net features a detailed history of professional sports logos from modern teams to the Seattle Pilots (a team that only existed for one year in 1969) and the Washington Senators.

Being the logo geek I am, this site is a great find. Sportslogos.net includes primary and secondary logos as well as scripts and jerseys and covers to sports spectrum including the Canadian Baseball League, the XFL and MLS. I should be able to make some pretty great computer wallpaper (and real wallpaper?) with this stuff. Now if I can only convince this guy to give me vector versions of everything….

Brewers Logos

Packers Logos

Bucks Logos

There’s a ton more sports logos, including many obscure ones, at Logoserver.com

(Thank you Blogger for making “floatleft” so much easier)

The University of Wisconsin web site just got a much-needed face-lift. The page is organized much better than before and the site in general is more visually appealing. They’ve also integrated some CSS into the site in changing link colors and other dynamic portions of the site. Later this summer, the UW will be releasing the new version of MY UW, which from this screenshot, looks like it will be much better organized and more useful than the current version.

I apologize for the total geekiness of this post.

For all you design geeks out there, Graphic Design USA has a report on the logo design trends of 2005. Their favorites include designs that break from the tradition vector mold and incorporate blurred perspectives and patches of empty space. Some of the latest trend include “line-dots”, “hotdogs”, “weaves”, “whips” and “life leaves”. There’s some good analysis on what makes each of these styles a good design, their origins and where they are appropriate. Plus, lots of pretty pictures.

Unless you’re reading this via rss aggregator, you’ve noticed that The New Vernacular has a new look. I had a lot of extra time at work this week, so I decided to experiment with a three column layout that is a little crisper and more concise then the old template. It’s difficult to find three-column layouts for Blogger and it took awhile before I found one to work with at Ruthsarian Layouts.

I’ve been having problems getting the new layout to work with Internet Explorer, but you should be using Firefox anyway, so I’m not too concerned. I’ll be tweaking the site in the next couple of weeks as I find the time. As always, any comments or suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that enables users to download scripts that alter web pages to make them more accessable and useful. For example, you can download a script to add a “delete” button to Gmail, because it doesn’t have one. Or you can get rid of Google AdSense ads. Or get rid of the ads to the right of articles on CNN.com.

Right now, most of the available scripts add or remove elements from Web sites, but Greasemonkey has the potential to be much more powerful, actually altering the appearance of web pages and moving elements around. Once content leaves the provider and enters individual computers, people can manipulate it however they want.

nivi.com describes it well:

Greasemonkey lets you mash-up websites. It lets you extend and script websites and integrate that script right into the original site as if the designers had intended it to be there. It lets you use their web site, their data, their servers, their work to serve your purpose and function. There will soon be an army of hackers enhancing every site you use. Whether that site likes it or not.

While Greasemonkey may not be the future of the Internet, it’s a glimpse into the customization that users are going to be demanding. Companies are going to need to embrace increased functionality in order to keep users from simply taking content from the source and molding it to fit their own needs.

Download Greasemonkey

List of Greasemonkey Scripts

Greasemonkey screencast walk-through

nivi.com article

Today Adobe (makers of Adobe Reader, Photoshop and InDesign) announced that they are aquiring Macromedia (makers of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash). The deal consolidates some of the most-used software in Web design into a single company. I’m excited to see how Adobe might incorporate features of Photoshop into Dreamweaver and how the company will continue to develop Flash for web interactivity in mobile devices.

Blog post from Mike Chambers (Adobe Product Manager) explaining the aquisition and what it means for the future of the two companies.

The Honda Accord ad “Cog” is a Rube Goldberg type contraption created entirely of car parts that took over 600 takes to film. It’s difficult to believe, but the entire ad was filmed at once in a Paris studio; there were no computer graphics used. At two minutes long, the ad is pretty unbelievable. You’ve just got to see it.

Honda Accord “Cog” ad

UK Article describing the “making of”

More Articles

Hey, remember when people had websites on like AOL and had little “under construction” signs up with a little animated guy digging on a yellow background? Yeah, well, I’m not going to have one of those, but you can just pretend. I’m spending some time tweaking the layout and adding features to the site, as well as trying to come up with some kind of description of what the hell this thing is. If anyone’s got suggestions as to how to improve the site or what else to put on it, let me know. Looks like I’ve found a new hobby…