Designers: The rounded corners are holding you back!
I know am, dead tired actually. Everything’s rounded these days, sometimes with a touch of gradients for depth. There’s nothing wrong with it, technically, I do it as well since it just plain looks good sometimes, but I do feel that especially blog design have gotten into a slump.
I blame Kubrick.
If you’re thinking “The what now?” then you haven’t paid much attention to that default WordPress theme. It isn’t bad, it’s just old and in desperate need of a refreshing update. Or an honorable farewell, perhaps. It’s a bit stunning that they stick to it as the default theme really. Just look at the way it displays tags, as of WordPress 2.3 - a boring centered list below the post. It feels thrown in there, which it probably is.
While it might not be Kubrick that is responsible for all these rounded corner blog design today, it sure has been putting them in a limelight. Yes, it was new and cool, and rounded is the shape of Web 2.0 as well.
But enough is enough.
I’m not saying that you should go all blocky on me, dear designer reader, but maybe you should stop and think before you do yet another rounded box. Consider other forms, consider squares and uneven forms that might or might not bring lots of problems with your CSS coding, since there isn’t a billion tutorials covering that particular form out there.
Solve it. That’s the way we used to do. You see, when 28.8 kbps modems were king, we did table layouts and solved every weird little problem without Google. Without frameworks and CSS magic, Ajax and IE hacks.
Those weren’t the good times, don’t get me wrong here. They weren’t the lazy times either.
Screw the rounded corners in your next design. I dare you. Maybe that particular project will prove to be an eye-opener. Because you know as well as I, that it’s way too easy to just slap something together in Photoshop, rounded with gradients and big fonts, a bit of Helvetica and a touch of Georgia and you’re there.
That might be all right, but it won’t help you evolve as a designer.
Grow Grow Grow, wails PJ Harvey. Don’t mind if I do.
Uh, right. *unsubscribes*
By Andre on November 2, 2007 6:35 pm
I think you are right, Thord. A lot of designers are taking the easy route to a Web 2.0 look and feel with rounded corners and gradients. 13 on the dozen.
Nice post.
(Btw did you know that I had to go to the front page to find your name? It isn’t listed on the post pages.)
By Sandra on November 2, 2007 9:29 pm
What someone should write an article on is the supposed whiny concept of actually posting a comment using the phrase Unsubscribes. I believe mountains of evidence points to the fact that many who use this phrase do so because they have very small brains and don’t have the, let’s call them Balls to publish any real reflective witty commentary on their own instead are left to merely insult and degrade others who publish insights that they believe are honest and helpful.
Just a thought however. Welcome aboard Sir Thord.
By Felix Gatos on November 2, 2007 9:36 pm
I agree. Another design trend that needs to die is the “Apple Reflection” style. It’s worse than the lens flare.
By Carolyn on November 3, 2007 5:35 am
I’m with you on this one, but probably for a selfish reason. As I end up coding a lot of designed themes through my work with Brian Gardner, Cory Miller, Daniel Scocco, etc., I am always (always) always frustrated to find that I have to create a box with rounded corners. Nothing on the designers I listed above (oftentimes they are just referring contacts to me as their plates fill up) but so often I have to resort to designing on a pixel-by-pixel basis instead of in ems. Rounded corners make for boxes which are either a) breakable or b) a pain to make unbreakable.
And don’t let those who are mean commentors get to you. I wrote here not too long ago, and there’s a lot to live up to. Good luck.
By Ryan Imel on November 4, 2007 8:46 am
You’re so right, Carolyn!
Ryan, I feel your pain regarding coding rounded corners. That is, however, nothing I would ever take into account. Creative freedom is a lot more important than making life easy on the poor guide who’ll code it all, even if it’s me. You should charge 50% more if something is rounded! ;)
And thanks for the kind words, appreciate it.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 5, 2007 1:19 am
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By Devlounge | Break Your Design Mold on December 20, 2007 11:54 pm
Does anyone here actually know WHY you would or would not choose to use rounded corners? Probably not. Especially not this author.
“Screw the rounded corners in your next design.”
Well, you’ve screwed your credibility as a designer because to you, design is just arbitrarily making things look nice. That’s art.
By Colin on December 29, 2007 10:21 pm
So Colin, you really believe that designers today isn’t taking the easy way out, going with the fresh look of Web 2.0 because everyone else is doing it, including rounded corners? You don’t think that you should stop and consider other alternatives, question your methods, kill your darlings?
It could just as well be “screw the color blue in your next design”, if that was a trend that’s being overused.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on January 9, 2008 2:08 am
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