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Hand Drawn Elements in Web Design

Its interesting that Smashing Magazine have just published an article on the use of hand drawing style in modern web design because its been on my mind lately too. Now that web 2.0 shininess is everywhere and I’m starting to associate slick with the marketing spiel approach to web design its refreshing to run across good examples of hand drawn design elements.

One example that I came across while teaching late last year was the Biola University undergrad site - which has appeared on several lists of the top 20 websites for 2007 and appears in this Smashing Magazine article. The mix of illustration with hand drawn elements differentiates Biola from the web 2.0 approach (or even the corporate one).

Biola University Undergrad website (screenshot)

The difficulties in approaching web design from this perspective are the inherent pitfalls of the web delivery medium (a cautionary note in the article warns not to use Comic Sans).

The real art of this approach is breaking some convention while maintaining overall convention, making sure the site provides a usable experience and remains accessible. But if these elements are used with skill then the benefits of getting it right should be obvious. After all, a large part of what you want your site to achieve is an individual connection with the user and some level of creative branding.

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Stand Up Guy

Steven Clark Steven Clark - the stand up guy on this site

An icon for overweight middle aged bogun-geek web designers. A lego block in a Meccano world. A synergy of tattoos, memories of bare knuckle fist fights, and old episodes of Star Trek. My name is Steven Clark and I'm a highly opinionated web designer with a few good ideas. I'm too old for fist fights.

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Currently Reading

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky (cover)

Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations has been on my bookshelf for the last few months literally screaming to be read. In fact, I'm wondering how I got so sidetracked to have reached the end of the year without having consumed it. The message of the book is an area of my own fascination, the effects that our new technologies have on the way we relate to each other, and how we're now empowered in ways that were historically unheard of (or not even conceived of) not too long ago.

I'm a small town boy who grew up in the seventies, graduating high school in 1979. The world was slower - how did we survive without Wikipedia? Without MSN or Facebook? Nowdays we have flashmobbing and blogging and constant connection.