Overuse of Rounded Corners
There was a time, back in the early days of the table-based layout, when rounded corners were considered a black art of web design. Revered by many and mastered by few. In reality they were a piece of piss. But when CSS came onto the scene the cork fired - every designer and his dog (or cat depending on preference) got on board. Now we are well and truly stuck in a rut, where rounded corners are king and the mere mention of a sharp edge results in nothing more than confused stares.
I admit being part of this movement. However some time ago whilst designing a particularly pleasing lingerie site I realised that, for the past year prior almost every one of my designs supported some kind of rounded edge. Not all that creative when you think about it. Since then I have been keeping my mind open to the possibilities, and have subsequently been making much greater use of the old-style square edge. I'm not saying these work well for every project - rounded corners are very effective in some designs, but I think it's all too common these days for designers to decide on a design style simply because it can be done, and not necessarily because it should be. A bit like Web 2.0.
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- Dated: 05 June 2006
- Comments: 4
- Spam Blocked: 1
About the Author
Steve Tucker is a 23 year old web developer living and working in Huddersfield, England
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02/04/2007 
8 Comment(s)
On 06/06/2006 Stu Hall said:
Rounded corners are great. So are drop shadows, Apple-esque glass buttons, those angled banner strip thingys in the top corner, and, my very favourite, those spiky circly badges... Dropping letters in names is good too (Ovr use springs to mind...). What?
[Removes tongue from cheek] There are far too many words already written on 'web trends' etc but I still really believe sod it, if you think a design is relevant to a particular project, then go for it. Rounded corners do actually look really good in most circumstances; sharp corners in others. I think people can get too hung up on either going along with the current trend or trying to get ahead and predict the next one.
Just design for the current project you're doing.
On 06/06/2006 Steve Tucker said:
Well put
On 06/06/2006 Mendez said:
Rounded corners are a trend. Nota bad one, but I do think they are overused a bit much, like you say. How many ways can you execute a corner though? I see exactly what your saying steve+stu and I agree in that we should design for the project in hand.
On 08/06/2006 Damien said:
too overused, in my humble opinion. I aim at keeping things square or just completely wierd until the round corner fever leaves.