For a long time now I have often wondered at the stark beauty of having a contrasting black and white colour-scheme adopted in the website design. To me this has a really simple, yet effective aesthetic to it which I find particularly nice to look at. As a photographer, my true passion is found when working with black and white and I think that this is transcending into my website designs also. There is something so pure and calming when working in monotone that I think colour just can't compete with.

Don't get me wrong I really love working with colour and would never disregard this during the design process but sometimes it's just nice to get back to the basics. I have done a lot of research into the current Web 2.0 realm and found that the colour palette for this to be very limited - approximately 70 colours being used frequently. You may say that surely working in black and white is limiting your options further! To me however I think that you can convey mood and meaning in such a lovely way through this form.

The persistent Web 2.0 design trends seem to be still very much in existence - although I'm not disregarding some of these design practices I do believe that we are perhaps becoming too much of the same. Indeed a recent article by Stuart Brown entitled 8 Web Design Clichés of 2006 points out many aspects of this current trend.

• gradients
• odd names and misplaced do.ts
• diagonal backgrounds
• big fonts
• white backgrounds
• wet floor effects
• pixel fonts
• tags and folksonomy

There are other trends which also seem to be around at the moment - the star flash to highlight new content and the symmetrical or centralised layout. A useful resource I have found is at the Web Design from Scratch website.

Perhaps we shouldn't be sheep but stick to what we feel from within? How Chi!