
Smashing Magazine we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.
-
Grunge Style In Modern Web Design
January 29th, 2008 in Graphics | 181 Comments
Most design trends come unexpectedly, evolve over time, become pointless and finally disappear from the design landscape. This holds particularly for web design, which is — just as every other creative field — prone for over-hyping and over-usage of trends. Being used excessively (sometimes properly, but mostly without any reasonable purpose), trends lose their ability to communicate information, express something unique or innovative and consequently lose their visual appeal.
Web 2.0 style is an excellent example for this evolution in design. In the last months of 2007 we've observed a clear example of design abuse, as glossy buttons, colorful reflections, 3D-effects, rounded corners and xx-large font sizes could be found almost everywhere (and we've presented some examples a year ago). However, currently we've been observing a new step in this evolution. Web 2.0 elements start to disappear; they become more subtle, more user-centric, more content-oriented and less loud. Is it a sign for coming changes?
Below we've collected everything you would ever need for a perfect design in a grunge style — design examples, free fonts, icons, textures, brushes and even few tutorials.
Sponsors
- Advertise with us!
Smashing Links
Popular Posts
- 100 Wordpress Themes
- 83 Wordpress Themes
- 80 AJAX Solutions
- 53 CSS Techniques
- 40 Free Fonts
- 50 Beautiful Designs
- 50 Simple Designs
- 45 Fresh Designs
- 30 Dark Designs
- 65 Flash Designs
- Beautiful Icon Sets
- Beautiful Wallpapers
- Beautiful Photos
- Free Design Templates
- Free CSS Layouts
- Photoshop Tutorials
- Illustrator Tutorials
All Posts
- 35 Designers × 5 Questions
- 50 Designers × 6 Questions
- 404 Error Pages
- AJAX Libraries
- AJAX Solutions
- Badges and Pins
- Black & White Photography
- Block Quotes
- Blog Designs
- Blog Headers
- Book Covers
- Brochures and Booklets
- Browsers Round-Up
- Browser Test Suites
- Buzz-Monitoring
- Calendar Designs
- Charts and Diagrams: Tools
- Cheat Sheets
- Code Beautifier
- Copyright Explained
- CSS Coding Techniques
- CSS Designs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
- CSS Editors
- CSS Expert Ideas
- CSS Float Theory
- CSS Frameworks
- CSS Free Templates
- CSS Footers
- CSS Forms 1, 2
- CSS Frameworks
- CSS Galleries
- CSS Ideas
- CSS Layouts
- CSS Menus
- CSS Print-Layouts
- CSS Specificity
- CSS Styleguides
- CSS Tables
- CSS Tutorials
- CSS-Techniques
- CSS Tools
- Data Grids and Tables
- Data Visualization 1, 2
- Date Stamps
- Design Books 1, 2
- Design Magazines
- Designer's Checkpoints
- Divine Proportion
- Domain Tools
- Dreamweaver Tutorials
- E-Mail Delivery
- Favicons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- Firefox Themes
- Fireworks Tutorials
- Flash Designs
- Flash Slideshows
- Flash Tutorials
- Fonts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- Form Design Patterns
- Forums
- Gadgets 1, 2, 3
- Google AdSense
- Google PageRank
- Graphics Design
- Grid-Based Design 1, 2
- Grunge Design 1, 2
- Hand-Drawing Style 1, 2
- Handwriting and Lettering
- Hotkeys
- HDR Pictures
- HTML Template Systems
- Icon Sets 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
- Icons, Templates 1, 2, 3
- Illustrator Tutorials 1, 2
- Laptop Sleeves
- Laptop Designs
- Link Building
- Links in New Windows?
- Mascots
- Motion Graphics
- Music Videos
- Navigation Menus
- Newspaper Designs
- Online Converters
- Online Generators
- Packaging Design
- Pagination
- PDF Magazines
- Photoshop Tutorials 1, 2
- Pixel Art
- Podcasts
- PNG Transparency
- Portfolios
- Product Designs
- RSS Best Design Practices
- RSS Feed Icons
- Screensavers
- SEO Tools
- Shopping Carts
- Short Movies
- Slideshows & Lightboxes
- Source Code Editors
- Splash Pages
- Start Pages
- Stock Icons
- Space, Nebula wallpapers
- Tab-Based Interfaces
- Tag Clouds
- Textures
- Textures & Backgrounds
- Texture Design
- Tooltips Scripts
- Tutorials
- Typefaces 1, 2
- Type Setting Principles
- Typography Showcase
- Typography BIG 1, 2
- Typographic Posters
- Typography In Motion
- Typography Showcase
- Usability Books
- Usability Glossary
- Usability Nightmares
- Usability Principles
- User Interfaces
- Vintage and Retro
- Wallpapers 1, 2, 3, 4
- Web 2.0 Tutorials
- Whitespace & Simplicity
- Wordpress Plugins
- Wordpress Themes 1, 2, 3, 4
- WYSIWYG Editors
Webtips
Fresh Bookmarks
12 Tools To Decrease Website Load Times
Methods such as load balancing, compression and caching can aid in efficient operation and taking steps to optimize your site are both beneficial and, in most cases, free.
33 Beautiful Border And Corner Brush Sets
An overview of corner and border brushes.
Lou Rosenfeld on Site Search Analytics
Why is it important to analyze the site search usage on your website?
Web Design: Restaurant Sites
Showcase of beautiful and unusual web designs of restaurant sites.
BB Free Font: Conglomerfont
A funny font created by a community.
Water effect on products Photoshop tutorial
This tutorial shows how to make a nice-looking product bottle with the water effect that really makes you thirsty when you look at this kind of product pictures.
10 Insanely Useful Django Tips
Use relative paths in the configuration, use the {% url %} tag, use Django Unit Testing, utilize Memcache.



