What type/kind or template are these?

What do you call theme templates? web2.0? clean? smooth?

Look how everything is nice and cleanly placed, and buttons are nicely rounded. It just looks clean, fresh, and simple.

I"m trying to google for more example but i’m not sure what type in.

Examples

http://tripadvisor.com/
http://break.com/

I would call them websites. :wink: “Themes” are layouts that you can download and re-use, but none of these layouts seem to me to be for sale. You could, of course, imitate some of their features, although to copy outright would be a bad idea.

There are tons of online galleries out there that showcase nice websites. Perhaps look through some of those for more idea. They may also place sites like this in meaningful categories.

http://inspirationti.me/websites/

http://unmatchedstyle.com/

Yea, the thing is if you start taking elements from different sites your design starts to look like a garage sale.

The tendency in the last couple of years seems to be towards bright colors, large amounts of “whitespace,” rounded corners, fairly large text, etc. You can call it “Web 2.0” if you like, I just call it appealing design practices (unless taken too far, when it looks like Teletubbies designed the site).

Very true. You have to have an overarching theme of some sort: clean, grungy, spacious, info-packed, minimalistic, whatever, and design to that theme. Whether you want your site to look like a playbill posted in a 1860s riverboat saloon or something designed by the Metrons of Altair IV, your design choices have to reflect that overall design theme. (Ralph, I’m trying to pin down the idea of “theme” you introduced, mostly by trotting out a raft of ridiculous analogies. :D)

Two of my favorite designers are both identified as mavens of post-millennial design, Jon Tan and [URL=“http://cameronmoll.com/”]Cameron Moll. The similarities and differences in their two design paradigms for their sites are illuminating, I think. And neither one of them looks like they design for Dora the Explorer. :slight_smile: