Skeuomorphism
A design approach where digital interfaces mimic real-world objects, using textures, shadows, and physical metaphors.
Web Design Glossary
Essential terms and concepts that shaped web design across eras.
Flat Design
A minimalist design style that removes three-dimensional effects, relying on simple shapes, typography, and color.
Related eras
Design Tokens
Named entities that store visual design attributes (colors, spacing, typography) for use across platforms and tools.
Related eras
Glassmorphism
A design trend using frosted glass effects, transparency, and background blur to create layered depth.
Related eras
Neumorphism
Soft UI style using subtle dual shadows to make elements appear extruded from or pressed into the background.
Related eras
Indexed Colour
An image format that stores each pixel as a number pointing into a small palette table, so recolouring the whole image means swapping the table rather than rewriting the pixels.
Related eras
Claymorphism
A soft-3D style in which controls look moulded: a large corner radius, a drop shadow that lifts the object off the page, and two inset shadows that light the top edge and darken the underside.
Related eras
Mesh Gradient
A colour field blended from several large gradient sources rather than a single axis, used as an environment behind an interface instead of as a background fill.
Related eras
Hard Shadow
A box shadow with a blur radius of zero, which renders as a second solid shape offset behind the first — the defining component detail of neo-brutalist interfaces.
Anti-Design
The deliberate refusal of the conventions that make a page comfortable — alignment, legibility, restraint — used as an editorial position rather than as a mistake.
Related eras
Internet Aesthetic
A visual language that forms in online culture around a mood or a period rather than around a product, and is circulated as images instead of specified as a system.
Corporate Memphis
The late-2010s technology illustration style of weightless figures with elongated limbs and non-literal skin colours, named after the 1980s Memphis Group it superficially resembles.
Related eras
Bento UI
A grid-based layout pattern inspired by bento boxes, organizing content into modular, varied-size cards.
Related eras