Frankly I am a bit worried about this because I found this tutorial that I am assuming is a satire, but maybe it isn't???

It doesn't matter because in any case it's hilarious.

Web 2.0 Design... in a nutshell by Roman Mittermayr.

Poor Roman I feel like a meanie laughing at his tutorial - but it's not him in particular it's the whole "welschmertz" of 2.0design, which he's actually managed to capture in a quite impressive little nutshell. For example;

First of all, check out these sites for a basic overview. Try to identify the major similarities between the various concepts. All of them seem to origin from the very same developer. Even though there’s no guideline (except this one here, wooho!) on that kind of design – it seems that the Bay Area is handing around some secret guide for that particular design scheme.

Yeah - well it does, and isn't that a bit weird kids... But let's truck on.

Ok, this sort of break-boring-html-rules trend seems to have got quite a must-have nowadays. Frankly, I also prefer rounded shapes over tight rectangles. Same with women, I guess. Nevertheless, some 2.0Culture providers do still stick to the rectangle design schemes. No problem at all, have a look at writeboard.com – their editor is a rectangled interface. Nice as well. To try a “psychological” approach to this difference, I might point out these facts:

• Rounded shapes look more inventive, younger, flexible and experimental

• Rectangles do impress with professionality, big-business, trustworthy

So, this is my personal interpretation. Flames welcome. But take your time and think about it yourself. Check out some different designs and make your decision on what’s happening “inside yourself” while looking at them. I guess a decent interconnection between professionality and a fresh young breeze of inventive Bay Area mushrooms might be our perfect fit for this project.

I am not flaming, I am just a little taken aback by the fact that adherance to web standards and semantic mark-up seems to have turned into an aesthetic practice. As for the rounded corner = the wimmins !!! analogy. I myself am a sucker for a good pair of shoulders and I find rounded corners a little soft so maybe there's some sense in that theory...(he he he).

Seriously, when I look inside myself to find a design I find crap like a giant transparent ruby-coloured dodecahedron with an opaque white drawing of a panda bear on the side. Somewhere out there, I'll bet my perfect client is just waiting for me to design the rhinestone panda bear site for them, God willing we'll find each other someday.

The whole reason I found this wacky tutorial is because I need to prepare labs for the course I will be TA-ing next year.

So if anyone knows any websites that deal with teaching web2.0 design (without making the attempt to create web2.0 aesthetics) and templating to a bunch of fourth year undergraduates. I'd love to hear about them.

I'll send you a rhinestone panda ;)