Web 2.0 design: Gradients, highlights and the purple cow.

Web 2.0 is here and maturing everyday.  Everyone you know has a blog, Facebook page, Twitters and belongs to a dozen forums.  But in this world of the future it seems everything is painted purple, green and grayscale.

The earliest design that I can recall embodying the new ever-present Web 2.0 design was Mozilla.  Their rounded typeface, plenty of soft colors in the backgrounds and white to blue to white fades on every page. Soon after, round typeface and soft colors represented Web 2.0 everywhere.

Seth Godin, marketing superstar, wrote a very insightful book entitled “Purple Cow”.  This book’s main theme is: Standout by being remarkable.  

I would venture a guess that most software and technology companies gain a great deal of leads through their homepage and related pages.  Wouldn’t it make sense to have a site that doesn’t look like every other site?  How does a company with many competitors stand out by being remarkable?

Obviously the true value of a company isn’t in the color of its website and the inherent qualities of the fonts, colors and what-have-you is adherence to trend.  However, achieving the default “cutting-edge” impression by doing the hip new thing with your site’s design, in the eyes of this user, is getting old quick.

I believe the creative company that conceptualizes Web 3.0 style and design will have a great lead in yanking themselves out from the crowd and into the spotlight.