The Unbearable Likeness of Web Design
summary
Argument: ubiquitous sameness comes from specific tools and choices — Bootstrap and Material Design templates, flat design and Google Fonts, responsive constraints — not from a lack of creativity. Evidence: Bootstrap sites look similar, the web had 26 web servers in 1992 and only one percent of global population online by 1996, the iPhone in 2007 and responsive around 2010 shift practice. Remedies: use SVG and CSS filters, break grids, experiment with typography and texture; an extreme real-world build involved hand glued 3,000 mosaic tiles.
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chapters (22)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:08Different Websites
- 1:25Web History
- 5:03CSS
- 6:25The 2000s
- 9:00The 2010s
- 12:14Understanding Design
- 13:49Constraints
- 14:21Trends
- 15:13Overreliance on Trends
- 15:33User Interface Conventions
- 16:05Accessibility
- 16:21Needs
- 16:36Visual Patterns
- 17:11Be Different
- 17:35Dont Be Flat
- 18:35Typography
- 18:55Play Fair
- 19:57Breaking the Grid
- 21:30Animation
- 22:29Inspiration
- 25:11Outro
