I claim to be no web designer. I can still code some mean HTML but have never been able to manipulate graphics to my liking, no matter how open source the program is. So when I sat out to throw together a custom front page for the NextGenTeachers, I offered to code it, as long as someone else designed it. Little did I know I was in for a shock.

You see, I have not designed a website that I intended to get a decent amount of traffic in some time. Oh sure, I redesigned two sites in the last few months, but those were using templates from open source web design and was fairly easy using Kompozer.

Now that I am working on a site for NextGenTeachers, with some awesome design work by Doug Belshaw, I am left wondering how to proceed. We’ve got a solid set of icons and graphics, but it’s on a plain white background. This doesn’t seem terribly web 2.0ish.

I have to admit, I am absolutely captivated by web 2.0 design, and there is one web site in particular that makes me want to shake the hand of the designer. I have contacted the gentleman who runs the site for an interview for this blog regarding his site and use of open source software in the build. It is built using Ruby on Rails, and I understand he learned Ruby for this site.

Impressive.

More impressive is the design. It is simplistic, clean, and wonderful. It has an automatically updating rss feed which is based a javascript (that I really should search for, I see it in the source code).

The catalyst for this series of design-based changes in my thinking was an article I read that really resonated with me. It talks about how years ago us geeks all went the exact opposite direction from Arial, and now it’s making quite a comeback. The article deals with many of the characteristics of web 2.0 design, or at least characteristics that we have come to associate with web 2.0 sites. I can’t necessarily articulate them, but I feel like I know then when I see them.

I recognize that web 2.0 is about information and collaboration, not web design elements. As a matter of fact, I have a post I’ve been working on for some time called “Does Web 2.0 equal Ajax?”. I get that. O’Reilly defines it well. I will make no attempt to even summarize it. All I know is I am hunting for a web 2.0′erizer. I want to take these icons, put them in a blender, and have it spit out the design.

I want to focus on the content, maybe hack it a little.

I am horrible at creating graphics with rounded edges, big fonts, pastel colors, and the like. Maybe plain is ok? Doesn’t content rule anyway?

And no, don’t worry, there’s no flash in sight. Yeesh.