Website designing started with static pages. Then came the era of dynamic sites. Clients wanted more €movement, dynamism, fun, colors & sound€. Developers started using Flash. Those were the years where the so called webmasters became multimedia designers, switching from a static, bi-dimensional concept to a far more experimental and visionary way of designing websites.
Around 2006, right before LinkedIn spread across the web and social media entered in our lives, it was the time of Second Life: Broadband internet was entering our homes, while video and stunning graphics were an un-missable feature in almost every website. But it didn't last: nobody even mentions Second Life or its clones today, and that's because virtual reality, as already happened in the early Nineties (and also in the early Eighties), is just a recurring trend and it's not as appealing as it may sound.
The massive diffusion of blogs came shortly after, as a sort of counteract to the evanescence of pixel built identities. Finally back to basics.
But, not exactly: we were entering the era of AJAX and the mobile web was right behind the corner.
Apart from that if in the late nineties the battle was between IE and Netscape, from 2007, after almost a decade of Microsoft's dominance, new and more innovative browsers entered the browser market: Opera, Firefox and Safari (in 2 flavors: Mobile and Desktop) and, a bit later, Chrome. Steve Jobs, at that time not officially, declared that the future was open standards and iPhone would probably not run Flash in the early months. We all know how it ended: Flash will never run on iPhone.
The huge number of browsers brought a new layer of difficulty to our designer's job: different rendering and different capabilities lead to build sites top-down (to the most advanced, then back to the less capable). Again, new possibilities stimulate new ideas and for us designers the shift from Flash to HTML5 is already happening.
Another shift of technology and another way of intending design and content. Flash or JavaScript widgets for loading contents, YouTube as the favorite media player and bloggish style design was the new trend for all of us. User driven sites started spreading online and the focus, apparently, went straight to the content (and less to the design). So two or three columns, and let me add sticky footers, were the most popular words.
The point is: trends are what drive a website design company's jobs and profession. The right balance between technical possibilities, aesthetics and content richness is what really gives quality to our work. But clients do not really care: they value the final result and the opinion of their stakeholders. If a client is happy and it pays you your invoice, then you've been successful as a website design firm.
Trends are changing very quickly and also clients' expectations: many clients now own an iPad and they want to be able to proudly show their sites during meetings and work dinners. And they would be seriously disappointed if their great designed site doesn't work because entirely built in flash€¦ That's the point: you are in charge to explain why and how to solve the problem upfront. Being able to anticipate and professionally advice them is the real challenge we, as designer, have to face!
Around 2006, right before LinkedIn spread across the web and social media entered in our lives, it was the time of Second Life: Broadband internet was entering our homes, while video and stunning graphics were an un-missable feature in almost every website. But it didn't last: nobody even mentions Second Life or its clones today, and that's because virtual reality, as already happened in the early Nineties (and also in the early Eighties), is just a recurring trend and it's not as appealing as it may sound.
The massive diffusion of blogs came shortly after, as a sort of counteract to the evanescence of pixel built identities. Finally back to basics.
But, not exactly: we were entering the era of AJAX and the mobile web was right behind the corner.
Apart from that if in the late nineties the battle was between IE and Netscape, from 2007, after almost a decade of Microsoft's dominance, new and more innovative browsers entered the browser market: Opera, Firefox and Safari (in 2 flavors: Mobile and Desktop) and, a bit later, Chrome. Steve Jobs, at that time not officially, declared that the future was open standards and iPhone would probably not run Flash in the early months. We all know how it ended: Flash will never run on iPhone.
The huge number of browsers brought a new layer of difficulty to our designer's job: different rendering and different capabilities lead to build sites top-down (to the most advanced, then back to the less capable). Again, new possibilities stimulate new ideas and for us designers the shift from Flash to HTML5 is already happening.
Another shift of technology and another way of intending design and content. Flash or JavaScript widgets for loading contents, YouTube as the favorite media player and bloggish style design was the new trend for all of us. User driven sites started spreading online and the focus, apparently, went straight to the content (and less to the design). So two or three columns, and let me add sticky footers, were the most popular words.
The point is: trends are what drive a website design company's jobs and profession. The right balance between technical possibilities, aesthetics and content richness is what really gives quality to our work. But clients do not really care: they value the final result and the opinion of their stakeholders. If a client is happy and it pays you your invoice, then you've been successful as a website design firm.
Trends are changing very quickly and also clients' expectations: many clients now own an iPad and they want to be able to proudly show their sites during meetings and work dinners. And they would be seriously disappointed if their great designed site doesn't work because entirely built in flash€¦ That's the point: you are in charge to explain why and how to solve the problem upfront. Being able to anticipate and professionally advice them is the real challenge we, as designer, have to face!