The capabilities of the Internet have gone further than we could have ever imagined; people practically live on their computers, relying on them for everything from communication to shopping to entertainment. Because it is a popular forum for exchanging ideas and information it is ever changing, and keeping ahead of the trends is hard to do. The more easy solution is to go with the old standards, such as the use of black and white in website design.

This is a style of layout that uses a basic two-tone scheme to give a more poignant, attractive look to a site. Though it is often a popular choice, it seems to be trending heavily this year, especially with sites related to creative endeavors. Bands, artists, web designers and writers have been opting for a black and white look for their personal sites.

Versatility and style seem to be the main reasons behind the pick. You can do anything from a complex creation of various ideas settled into a single design, to a minimalist look that strips the image down to the bare bones. You can even settle a tiny bit of color through a mostly black and white scheme, and several sites have thrown in a dash of pink or red to make the stark contrast of the major design that much more shocking to the eyes.

What Is So Special About Black and White Design?

There are a number of reasons that black and white designs are considered the more popular options for today’s websites. They trend so heavily without going out of style because they are black and white designs and concepts are dramatic. They give a punchy, intense image that immediately translates to the viewer, and solicits a strong, sometimes emotional reaction. You will commonly see comments on these layouts saying that the viewer got goosebumps, a strong response to a visual stimuli.

With the two extreme sides of the spectrum being utilized properly, you end up with a highly sophisticated and sleek look that can be modern and minimalist. Add that to sharp lines or more complexities in the image design and you get an artsy, edgy look that is becoming more popular with those who are in the creative arts and need an official site to show off their work/music/writing.

Classic looks are also covered, and using gray tones in the greater part of the logo or background, then softening the lines with a little black and white will look similar to a black and white photo or movie. Just thinking of this can generate plenty of creative and interesting ideas, both for a sedentary image or a flash image that can be incorporated into an opening load page.

Black and white websites designs are always in fashion. They are simple, attractive and functional, and will give your site a little kick in a way color can rarely provide. If you have been considering getting your own black and white design, you will be in good company, and you have plenty of options. All it takes is some creativity and innovation, and you will be well on your way to a gorgeous and appealing site that will an inspiration to other developers. Just be sure to go to the right source, and to check out the many links above to help you to find the perfect concept for your business or personal site.

Business or Pleasure?

So, is the black and white idea better for a business site or a personal site? Are there genres where the look would be ill-suited? Obviously, if you are looking to show off a product, service or concept where color was a major issue you would need to be very creative with how you used a black and white design. But otherwise you can consider the scheme a safe bet for any service.

When looking at a business site you may want to use a much more simple idea that really gets the point of your company across. For example, Seymour Powell uses a beautiful, simple main page that is all black and white, and very sophisticated. Notice the clean lines and professional tone, added to a highly creative concept.

For a site dedicated to an artistic or creative purpose, a black and white layout is specially suited to give a gorgeous look to any page. A personal favorite of mine is the website for Mean North, a website run by artist and writer Naja Conrad-Hansen. You will notice that she kept the modern black label look along the menus and header, but then splashed in some color within the central images that show off her work. This is a common theme through the whole site.

Black and White Logos Vs Full Page Designs

You don’t have to keep the black and white motif limited to the wider web design; you can also apply it to the logo or header, and pair it with a colored layout. This is seen a lot in blogs lately, which will use an easy-to-read, clear logo design or image in place of a more complex one, placed against a colorful backdrop.

The benefit to this is your site name or logo will stand out that much more, sticking in the user’s mind. You may have noticed that many businesses will place their company name in black against white, or white against black, and then use more colorful images on the website.

Where Can I See More Examples?

Because black and white website designs are trending right now, there are plenty of blogs putting together lists of their favorite examples of sites using the concept. Some of them are even those used here, in this article. But you will be able to find your own all over the web, some more well thought out than others.

Websites that offer examples of black and white website designs are:

• 55 Minimal Black and White Web Designs to Inspire You
• Web Design in Black & White Showcase
• 35 Black Web Designs That Show Us That Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back
• 50+ Beautiful Black and White Photography
• A Beautiful Showcase of Black and White Web Design

Every regular Internet user has probably noticed that, in the last years, the presence of social media has become a banality, remaining however an important way of improving the author-reader interactivity. For someone with experience in the field of the World Wide Web, the chances of not having a profile on websites such as Facebook, MySpace or Twitter are closing in on zero. You need to understand that social media is not only represented by some applications that do not make any sense, reflecting that it is possible that, in the near future, for the search engine algorithms to analyze how many times a website is distributed according to the most relevant social application. Surely, if this fact turns into reality, then we could be talking about a new digital revolution.

In my own experience, it is quite an annoying situation when I try to finish reading a post and I am assaulted by a great collection of logos of various social websites.

To help people who are facing the same situation, I have established here a list of the most important social websites. I believe that some people will find the post somehow uninteresting because they are familiarized with the majority of the social media websites, but maybe there are some that will find it interesting; if I have skipped one that you consider to be extremely important, let me discover it in a comment. I skipped Facebook, My Space or YouTube on purpose because these are too well known.

1. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional network where it’s more than simple to meet people that are working in the same domain as you. It was founded in December 2002 and now has more than 75 million users. It is used as a business platform and here we have established a lot of contracts; some users find new job and everything presented on LinkedIn works in a very professional way, probably representing the key of success in this great network expansion.

2. Stumble Upon

Stumble Upon is a website that any person, interested in finding relevant and top quality articles, blogs or websites could use it. The creators of Stumble Upon made up a collaborative and versatile system that replaces a search engine very well. It’s simple: you read a good article and you want other people to read it as well; by rating it, the persons who follow you, will see that you have liked it and they probably will look at it. It is great when a group of like minded people is constituted; in this case, the exchange of links is more efficient.

3.Digg

Networks as Digg allow unknown bloggers or good websites with poor ranking to be quickly turned into the most visited places on the Internet; a very good content or post is “digged” and this attracts more and more people until it reaches a top position. It was designed for social news, but now it has evolved in all existing domains. Another cause that contributed to the rise of the social networks is the fact that many of them are interconnected, allowing for the change of information between networks. Sooner or later (it is only a matter of time), the Internet will become an intricacy of various networks.

4. Technorati

Technorati is a platform that has as a main purpose to catalogue all the blogs, a principle that has many common elements with the algorithms of Google. The name of this platform is the result of blending the words “technology” and “literati”, linking to the idea of elitism in technology (according to Wikipedia). The importance of this websites consists in the huge number of blogs indexed and the good directory that present the blogs. On their website, they claimed that last year, the system of measuring the influence on blogosphere was improved (however, it was criticized by bloggers).

5. Flickr

Flickr is the website where the most amazing images are posted; you can find an impressive number of types and categories, with more than 5 billions of pictures uploaded. I, as a designer, strongly state that, on Flickr, anyone could find the most creative images on the web; the only problem is that there are too many!!!

6. Slideshare

If Flickr allows anyone to upload pictures that respect a common-sense few rules, Slideshare allows for the upload of presentations, PDF files or documents. The site is growing faster, each month more than 25 million people visiting the website. The interaction with other important social networks is very open and this is the best opportunity when it comes to viral spreading. The commercial influence is more prominent than on other social networks: a good presentation in association with a huge number of retweets guarantees anyone good traffic and increased chances of good advertising.

7. Twitter

Twitter is the most important platform for micro-blogging. It is based on a simple division: an Internet user could be a follower, but at the same time he could be followed by someone else. Apparently, the number of followers or the rapport between those following and followers reveals the influence of the person, but in establishing the real influence there are many other factors (how those followed interact with the followers, the quality and the number of the re-tweets and so on). The magic of this website is that it allows for somebody to stay connected and find out what his/her idols or models are doing, for example Lady Gaga had 6,538,698 on 28 September 2010.

8. Mixx

The name of this website is well chosen given its destination. Mixx realizes a good blend between social bookmarking and online ranking resources. Users can submit a link to an interesting online presence but also it’s recommended to comment on various subjects or to vote in the polls. A collection of friends who are very important players in the online and real life (channels of news especially) was of strong help in the fast evolution of Mixx.

9. Reddit

The particularity of this website is the fact that it allows one to categorize the links submitted by other users quite easily. If you want to express your opinion regarding a post, comment or website, then you have two options: the up arrow and the down arrow, the first being useful to show that you agree and the second, of course, to disagree.

10. Delicious

This social bookmarking website has a simple yet highly efficient design, this being one of the reasons that led to the increased number of users. The great advantage of Delicious is that any person can bookmark everything that is important to him with the title desired. Another fact that makes Delicious different from other similar websites is that there is no system of ranking or hierarchy.

There is no doubt that, on the Internet, there are many others important social media presences; moreover, the competition is harsh and the tops merely changing. Anyway, for a freelancer, the social media presence has become a necessity, an invaluable resource when it comes to gaining the attention of potential clients. The impact of social media will be huge when search engines will start basing their ranking on these networks.

Nowadays we are living a major change: for more relevant and high quality information, a search engine is (or will soon become) inferior to these websites, so it is imperative to adhere to social media networks.

The purpose of a company logo is to represent the company’s products, services, and business philosophy in a single image. Quite often a company’s logo is the first aspect of the company a consumer encounters, and therefore creates a lasting impression in the consumer’s mind. For this reason, it is imperative that a company’s logo provides an accurate representation of the services and products it offers. It is also important for the logo to be physically appealing to the company’s target consumer base.

For example, consider the Gerber baby logo:

While the color of the logo has changed over time, the essential design—featuring an appealing portrait-style picture in a circular frame—has remained the same, and continues to be effective. The reason for the success of this particular logo has to do with its visual appeal to the current or expecting mothers that make up Gerber’s target consumer base. A logo with sharp lines and a crying baby would hardly be as effective as the featured circular portrait of a happy baby.

Now consider the evolution of the Firefox search engine logo, as shown below:

While the original Firebird logo was somewhat cartoonish and even a bit threatening, the original Firebox logo—which emerged at the same time the search engine changed its name—draws the viewer in and resembles the circular motion signally the loading of a web page. Nonetheless, the coloring of this original Firefox logo is somewhat dark and potentially foreboding, whereas the current Firefox logo is lighter and brighter, and suggestive of optimism. This evolving shift from dark to light is one of the more prominent logo trends of 2010.

Light Trend

The reason behind the shift from dark to light has to do with the modern consumer’s eye being trained to detect projected light, either from a television screen, movie screen, or computer monitor. Logo designers have therefore begun applying this concept of projected light, as a method of catching the consumer’s eye and then commanding its attention.

Color Trend

Another way of commanding the eye’s attention is too incorporate the use of bold colors in a logo. Logo designers, therefore, are using lighter and brighter colors all the time, often incorporating several colors—or even a rainbow spectrum—into a single logo. While the rainbow spectrum once represented a single group of people only, it is now being used to represent an array of the products, services or choices a corporation provides. For example, consider the following logo for Rainbow Realty in the Cayman Islands:

Rainbow Realty is a company that specializes in vacation homes of all shapes and sizes, from larger homes for families to intimate bungalows for two, and their logo represents this range. The rainbow logo is also suggestive of the carefree getaway buyers seek when they purchase a vacation home. A logo featuring thunder and lighting, on the other hand, would hardly be appropriate for such a company as Rainbow Realty.

Animation Trend

Color is also being used within images in company logos. For example, the U.S. Virgin Islands logo features a cubist rainbow figure on stilts juggling stars. This figure is digitally animated on the Islands’ web page; more animation, in addition to more warping and faceting of images in logos is yet another prominent trend of 2010.

The trend towards animation has largely to do with the continuing development of illustration software, such as Illustrator Swirl, Pucker, and various other systems using the Delauney Raster process of creating spatial and color distinctions. As the sophistication of illustration software continues to improve, you can expect to see more color and animation in corporation logo design.

Reductionist Trend

Another thing you can expect to see more of is the reduction of logo images to a representation the company’s essence. For example, consider the evolution of the Apple computer logo:

While the original logo of 1976 featured Isaac Newton about to be struck by an apple, the company very quickly decided to drop Newton from the scene and concentrate on the apple, which is representative of inspiration itself, as opposed to receiver of inspiration.

In 1999, after twenty-two years of a rainbow-painted apple logo, Apple dropped the rainbow for the streamlined look of a transparent apple. This new look is suggestive of streamlining the Apple computer itself, which is essentially what Apple has done over the course of the past decade. Still, Apple might do well to jump back on the color bandwagon—even if only slightly—as the transparency of this current logo is somewhat forgettable.

Freedom of Innovation Trend

A more general trend in logo design is the lean towards innovation and a pulling away from traditional methods of logo design. While much of this is due to advancing illustration software systems, it is due also to a shift in approach toward logo design. For instance, many logo designers are following the example of designers from Eastern Bloc countries. These designers typically present several dramatically different logo designs to a single client, thereby applying the rainbow spectrum concept to even the approach to logo design.

This is an important trend, as it allows a company the opportunity to consider making changes to its current persona, and to see those changes applied to an image. As more and more companies come to acknowledge the value of having so many options to choose from, you can expect to see even bolder manipulation of shape, space, color and eye-commanding light.

Departure from Words

If a picture is worth a thousand words, it could also be worth a thousand consumers, provided the picture is bold and visually appealing to consumers. For this reason, you can expect a departure from block lettering and overly wordy explanations in logo design. Where once the objective of logo designers was to cram as much information into a logo as possible, the current objective is convey the company’s essence in a single, self-explanatory image, such as the Gerber baby and Apple computer logos.

References:

• What Does Your Logo Say about You?
• Current logo trends

This article is sponsored by NextDayFlyers, an online brochures printing company.

Social Networking sites or Social News sites are the good places to promote yourself or for you business. We have out there Facebook, Digg, DesignFloat… all of them are great and you may wonder how they build them. This collection will give you an answer.

This post is not gonna help you create Facebook or Digg sites but at least we can build a clone site by take a look at collection of awesome platforms, sources … or services to help you create your own social networking site and social news site.

The main idea here is listing them and give you a chance to compare them together. There are some sources, service you have to pay for, but we still have some great free services and resources.

Pligg CMS

Pligg is a social networking CMS which is designed to manage a site with an unlimited number of authors. Pligg CMS let users submit and vote on news articles. You can choose a 5 star method for voting or the more traditional numbered voting as seen on sites like Digg, Mixx, or Reddit by using Pligg CMS.

How to use Pligg as Social News Site

Setting Up A News-Voting Website With Pligg

This article shows how to set up your own news-voting website with Pligg. With a little work you can create your own community and let users vote news to the front page.

8 Myths About Launching a Pligg Site

This post will tell you some things you probably don’t know about Myths.

How to Create Modules in Pligg

Focus on Pligg Modules and how to create them.

Youtube: pligg install tutorial

Successful social news site using Pligg

• Sphinn.com: Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It’s designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.
• Designfloat.com: Designfloat is a Digg-clone especially for web designers and graphic designers. Although the About page on Designfloat said that is a sample page of WordPress, this is a most popular social site powered by Pligg.
• Blogengage.com: Blog Engage allows you to submit your Blog Article(s) that will be reviewed by all and will be promoted by me or our visitors to the main page.
• …

Drupal with Drigg module

Drupal is an open source content management platform. Drupal itself is a standalone CMS, but you can build a Digg-like social news by using Drigg module. Drigg is a powerful Drupal module that allows you to create Digg and Pligg-like web sites. There are also some modules for Drupal can do as well, but Drigg is the most popular.

How to use Drupal as Social News Site

Community building and social networking modules

This page contains a list of modules commonly used for social networking.

Drigg 6 Express setup (Drupal 6.10)

The latest bundle of Drigg6 along with the latest version of Drupal (6.10) .This bundle includes security feature of captcha in drigg node.

Drupal 6 Social Networking

The awesome book helps you build a social or community web site, with friends lists, groups, custom user profiles, and much more.

How to build a Social Networking Website with Drupal

Piervincenzo Madeo explains how you can plan and build a Social Networking Website using Drupal.

Successful social news site using Drupal

• Designmoo.com: DesignMoo brings together the latest news in the design community from thousands of sources.
• Designbump.com: DesignBump a popular social voting site for design related topics have just launched a great new modern looking design of their own.
• …

WordPress

WordPress is a powerful blog tool and publishing platform that help you build a great content based website. Everybody knows that we can build anything from WordPress with some plugins, some ideas … WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

How to use WordPress as Social News Site

There are some plugins help you build a news submit page besides your blog/magazine site.

TDO Mini Forms: Highlight recommended plugin for you to build a great community news website. This plugin allows you to add highly customisable forms that work with your WordPress Theme to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (also configurable) to submit and edit posts and pages.

FV Community News: With this Community News plugin you allow your visitors to add articles to the sidebar or whenever you want.

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And we also have great tutorials …

The Right Way To Build WordPress As A Community News

The most complete tutorial explain how to build WordPress as a Community News, … but in a right way.

How to Allow Users to Submit News / Posts to Your WordPress Site

The nice tutorial explains how to using TDO Mini Form in detail.

Make A Community Site With WordPress

In this post, you will see a couple of tips that can help you build your social network (community site).

Successful social news site using WordPress

• Devsnippets.com: DevSnippets is designed and maintained by the Noupe.com team. DevSnippets serves as public gallery where readers can submit the best code and design snippets, tutorials and latest trends in the design blogosphere.
• Whofreelance.com: Daily design news brought to you by AEXT.NET. All the news will display on both whofreelance.com and aext.net
• Scriptandstyle.com: A design news project by Chris Coyier and David Walsh.
• Webdesign-ne.ws/: Daily resources, design news
• Design-newz.com: The same of Webdesign-ne.ws brought to you by Spyre Studios
• …

Joomla

Joomla is a dynamic portal engine and content management system. Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.

How to use Joomla as Social News Site

TPDugg (Component + Modules) : TPDugg is a social article sharing component for joomla. With this component, you can make a website just like digg.com with Joomla.

JomSocial: JomSocial is a set of Joomla components that allows you to create a sophisticated Social Networking site using the popular free and open source Joomla software. The price of Joomsocial is $99.

Build a Social Network Using Joomla!

This article will walk through the beginnings of setting up a social site using Joomla. Some of the end goals and solutions will vary depending on your needs.

Successful social news site using Joomla

• Devsnippets.com: DevSnippets is designed and maintained by the Noupe.com team. DevSnippets serves as public gallery where readers can submit the best code and design snippets, tutorials and latest trends in the design blogosphere.
• Whofreelance.com: Daily design news brought to you by AEXT.NET. All the news will display on both whofreelance.com and aext.net
• Scriptandstyle.com: A design news project by Chris Coyier and David Walsh.
• Webdesign-ne.ws/: Daily resources, design news
• Design-newz.com: The same of Webdesign-ne.ws brought to you by Spyre Studios
• …

WordPress MU with BuddyPress

WordPress MU – WordPress Multi-User, is designed for people who want to run multi-blog in one WordPress. With BuddyPress which contains all the features for your need to build a social networking.

How to use WordPress Mu and BuddyPress

wpmu.org: Awesome place to learn about WPMU and BuddyPress.

Setting Up a New Installation for BuddyPress

Official tutorial help us to set up a new WordPress MU with BuddyPress.

Social Networking with BuddyPress:

Take a look at installing BuddyPress on Nettuts.

How To Build a Social Networking Site using WordPress

Easy to setup new WordPress MU and BuddyPress

Successful social networking sites using BuddyPress

• Solopracticeuniversity.com
• Irrationalgames.com
• …

Elgg

WordPress MU – WordPress Multi-User, is designed for people who want to run multi-blog in one WordPress. With BuddyPress which contains all the features for your need to build a social networking.

Elgg Social Networking

Create and manage your own social network site using this free open-source tool (From Technologies to Solutions) by Mayank Sharma

Create your own social network site with Elgg

In this article you will learn how to install Elgg to create your own social networking site.

Using Elgg as an ePortfolio – Video

Who using Elgg

It’s so difficult to find a social networking site using Elgg, if anyone knows any, feel free to drop lines.

• Uticked.com
• …

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Other Platforms and Services

Those CMS, platforms above are great and there are several people using it to build their social networking site. However, there are some kind platforms you may want to check out.

• Slinkset.com: Create your own social news site in seconds. An online service offers submit, vote … easy to use and one second to set it up.
• Ning.com: Ning is the social platform for the world’s interests and passions online. Ning offers an easy-to-use service that allows people to join and create Ning Networks.
• KickApps.com: KickApps provides on-demand social media applications that enable web publishers and marketers to grow, engage, and monetize online audiences.
• Boonex Dolphin: With a huge variety of features & options, you can quickly launch your very unique and successful social networking site.
• Groupsite: CollectiveX will allow you to create a social site for your group, organization or association.
• …

Something is missing?

Off course it’s missing something in this post. If you find something is missing here, please drop the line in comment form and people appreciate that. Feel free to share it with us.

There are a lot of web design trends were published somewhere over web design community to help us predict what is next in 2010 about web design. Each trend has especial idea, each trend tells us something interesting about web design in the past and help us continue to go forward to future. This one is not a trend. It’s just a small preview that works on the new, fresh, and never-seen-before portfolios some web designers prepare for their portfolio in 2010.

The idea of this post comes out from the researches around the biggest art community website DeviantArt where web designers like to post their art-works to. Although, the number of new pre-designs for 2010 is not much, it shows us something will change or not in the next year.

Beautiful background portfolio will continue

The only one page portfolios with awesome and beautiful background are really attractive to visitors or your customers. This kind of portfolio known as the full page backgrounds. It usually takes long time to complete the work. The most time your spend for it would be in drawing programs suchs as: Photoshop, Corel, Illustrator… The advantage is it shows customers your skill clearly. Who doesn’t want a beautiful design? The more beautiful and attractive by your art, the more impression on the clients. However, the disadvantage is it’s hard to find a space to show up your works. In 2010, this kind of portfolio still continue by some talent designers with great drawing skill.

Portfolio with creative design

The huge images like these would have taken forever to load just 5-6 years ago and would not have been piratical. Thanks technology that today, the internet speed has changed, the minimum speed people is using is 512kbs/s now and they can load any web page with any size (not too much !!!). People love to put their awesome art-works with creative ideas and a lot of nice and beautiful icons on their design. These image and creative arts will invite people in. This kind of portfolio will stay for further works in 2010.

Minimalist and clean portfolio design will get changes

The year 2009 was a golden-age of clean design because it doesn’t require to much drawing skills or techniques. It was designed base on the simplification of needs. Most of them shows the small number of colors in used, long long text in typography, but this kind of design highlights the services and social activities on your portfolio. In the next year, hope see more alternative minimalist and clean portfolio design with some different backgrounds, colors and typography.

What’s a perfect portfolio?

In an individual opinion, there is no perfect portfolio, but still have the best one that provides clients the most completed and interesting information. Some web design companies give to the visitors the fully content of their works, prices, life streams… the good one should talk more and put their services – what you do best – in the front of visitors. The modern style portfolio will stay alive with corporation model in the next year.

Colorful portfolio design

In 2009, besides the minimalist and clean design, people still step forward to 2010 with colorful style. You can realize that there are a lot of designers are following webdesignerdepot style in their design. The advantage of this style is it show clearly a great job of incorporating color and creating an attractive appearance. However, design a colorful web page is not easy as we can see. The strongest problem is blending a lot of colors in one design. If you don’t have the ideas or at least the aesthetic eyes, your design will be terrible. Anyway, people are doing well and still continue in 2010.

Some portfolio designs prepared for launch in 2010

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