subject: The Era of Grunge Web Design [print this page] The Era of Grunge Web Design The Era of Grunge Web Design
Design trends often come unexpectedly and evolve over time. Then all of a sudden they become pointless and finally disappear from the design landscape. The world of web design is constantly evolving and is a field that is particularly prone to over-hyping and over use of one type of design. When a design or style becomes a trend it loses its appeal for many as it is no longer unique or innovative and a new design trend is then born.
Web 2.0 is an excellent example of this. In 2007 we saw an explosion in the use of glossy buttons, rounded corners etc and they could be seen almost everywhere. Today we have a much more diverse range of styles and in this article we will take a look at grunge design.
What is grunge style?
Grunge is an emerging style that web designers have been exploring at great length in the last six months. They are often dirty, irregular and sometimes crooked looking designs. On a web page this look creates a very powerful effect and adds whole new dimensions to a web page. The unconventional approach means that it's a style that won't appeal to all designers but it is in fact popping more and more.
Where Grunge Styles Are Most Used
The unique look that designers can create with grunge styles means that they lend themselves to certain types of websites. For example this style works well on music sites and blogs. Many rock bands have used grunge styling on their websites to help express certain feelings and themes from their songs. It creates an interesting blend.
Designing a Grunge Style Website
When designing a new website there are a couple of key areas in which influence the success of the design. These include layout, font face and graphics. Web designers spend hours sifting through font types and for grunge designs fonts such as dirty ames' and sidewalk' are extremely popular. Fonts for these designs not only need to big but also textured and well emphasized. Very few fonts do this so designers either use custom fonts such as the ones mentioned above or look to create ones themselves.
When coming to create graphics for a grungy design, designers tend to go for the stressed look. These are images that have texture and highlight certain lines or cracks. Borders are particularly important here and again images should be well emphasized.
Finally the aim is to bring these elements together to create structured yet unique look for your website. It is more difficult than it sounds and takes designers many attempts to get it right. As with many things in web design there are many great tutorials and resources out there to help you put together a grunge style website. You can also invest in tools, psd's and other design instruments to help make the process that bit easier. So if you are looking to create something that little bit extra special then why not try a grunge design.
