My friend John Gillespie recently wrote about the inauspicious origins of the Arial typeface, namely that it is a blatant copy of Helvetica. While I agree with the general thrust of John’s argument (I’m a self confessed Helvetica fanboy) I do think that Arial has one redeeming feature that deserves mention, especially in the context of web design: Arial renders better at small point sizes on Windows systems than Helvetica does.

Remember the Max Headroom pilot, in which hyper-fast subliminal advertisements called ‘blip-verts’ caused viewers’ heads to explode? Well, that’s how I feel after absorbing 5000 web 2.0 logos in 333 seconds. Anyone get the feeling the world might have enough web apps already?

Like many web designers, Photoshop is my tool of preference when it comes to doing website mockups. As such, I spend a decent chunk of my time working with the program, and have picked up a number of techniques that speed up my workflow. I’m not talking about creating shiny image reflections, or beveled starbursts, but rather simple tricks that shave a few minutes off your working day so you can go home earlier.

“Microsoft” and “design” are not two words you normally expect to hear in the same sentence. The image of PCs – and by implication Microsoft – as boring, corporate and unimaginative is well entrenched in the public imagination. It’s a stereotype that Apple has cleverly exploited for the popular “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” television campaign, which personify a Windows PC as a dowdy paper pusher. It is interesting then to observe Microsoft’s recent efforts to reinvent themselves as a design oriented company, with user experience taking center stage in their new philosophy.

Everyone loves a good black and white photograph, they have an immediacy and elegance that’s hard to resist. But converting a color photograph to grayscale in Photoshop will often produce a lackluster result. Here’s a tip for creating black and white images that really come to life.

If you didn’t blink, you may have noticed that for a few days recently Wikipedia’s entry for Web 2.0 included a subsection describing the visual elements of Web 2.0. Gradients, colorful icons, reflections, dropshadows, and large text all got a mention.

A few days later the “visual elements” addition had been removed after a vote by wikipedians. The objection, I suppose, is that no set of visual criteria can accurately define something as being characteristic of Web 2.0 – if Web 2.0 can be understood as an approach to generating and distributing content, then it needn’t be tied to a particular visual style.

Nevertheless, it’s true that many Web 2.0 sites do share a distinctive aesthetic. Wikipedia’s editors may not think it’s a worthy part of the Web 2.0 discussion, but I say bring it on! Let’s take a look at the some of the communication issues facing a Web 2.0 site, and see how the “Web 2.0 look” can help to solve them.

If you plan on designing a kick ass AJAX application then you better make sure you’ve got a kick ass load indicator. That way your visitors will know that stuff is happening while you weave your AJAX magic behind the scenes.