Watch the birdy!

Posted by Andrew Faulkner on March 17th, 2008.

Andrew Faulkner is the admin at fadtastic. Andrew prides himself on standards-based, accessible web design in the city of Nottingham, UK. He believes in aesthetically pleasing accessible design and that 'standards compliant does not equal boring.'

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OK, this little niche trend is unlikely to become the next gradient or ‘wet floor’ but I thought I’d point it out all the same. I’m sure somebody somewhere will find this useful. ;-)

Whilst browsing through my recent inspiration bookmarks (I need to get a del.icio.us account so I can share all these with you) I noticed something rather odd about about the latest websites. Out of the last dozen or so half of them contained logos, emblems or illustration related to birds. Yes - birds. Examples follow.

See birds:

Conclusion: What to make of this?

I could make up a theory stating that spring (in the northern hemisphere) is on its way so were likely to see more nature in work.

I could make up a theory stating that use of birds are more likely to get the user to create a bookmark.

I could make up a theory stating that Paris Hilton said that ‘Birds are cool’ and therefore everyone has jumped on the proverbial bandwagon.

But I won’t. This was just meant to be a fun mini-post highlighting my surprise when I realised 50% of recent inspiration bookmarks were in some way related to our avian friends. Any more examples/bizarre theories are more than welcome.

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( 19 so far )

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Birds are the new flowers…

Bart
March 17th, 2008
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spotted one… http://www.songbirdnest.com/

Chris
March 17th, 2008
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Theory #4: Everyone’s copying Twitter.

Matthew Pennell
March 17th, 2008
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Could be related to the popularity of Twitter?

Jimmy Shelter
March 17th, 2008
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Yes, I agree with the twitter comments as well. Also seem like simple bird shapes are easy to create in Illustrator (as are flowers, noted by Bart).

Ted Goas
March 17th, 2008
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And let’s not forget one of my favorites at Cult-foo…http://www.cult-f.net/

Tony Chester
March 17th, 2008
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keep an eye out for leaves as well…..

atom
March 18th, 2008
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Nils over at NDNL also has an interesting post about birds: http://nodependenciesnologo.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/the-twitter-logo-or-is-it/

Joe Lencioni
March 18th, 2008
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spot on with the leaves prediction. flowers > floral > leaves > birds clouds next? Planes? Blue squares? I like these birds though. Opaque animals are so easy to make look nice. And work well through the various mediums.

ChrisJB
March 19th, 2008
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First place I flew after reading this was here: <a href="http://www.tuliqi.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.tuliqi.com</a>, a calm, bird-themed site. Also, last week a beautiful TV commercial featuring birds won a Rochester Advertising Federation Addy Award: <a href="http://www.adhub.com/cgi-bin/webdata_pro.pl?_cgifunction=form&_layout=roch_addys_08&keyval=roch_addy_08.roch_addy_08_id%3D108" rel="nofollow"> http://www.adhub.com/cgi-bin/webdata_pro.pl?_cgifunction=form&_layout=roch_addys_08&keyval=roch_addy_08.roch_addy_08_id%3D108</a>. And I saw wandering turkeys and migrating geese this morning on the way to work. Spring is wonderful!

Craig
March 19th, 2008
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We went with owls, for no other reason than we have weakness for cute birds: http://www.familyreads.com

Brian
March 19th, 2008
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It could be that birds are extremely simple, recognizable and often colorful, not to mention bubbly and cute making them a default choice for web 2.0 branding. I have to admit (shamefully) when ever I’m doing a logo or design I don’t really care about and I hit a roadblock, a "little bird’ or something similar usually gets the job done.

pwhizle
April 9th, 2008
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When I created the name TULIQI in 2005 for my organic bed and bath retail business (www.tuliqi.com) it was inspired by the migratory shorebirds which fly between my home country of New Zealand and my current home in Alaska. Migratory birds are called tuli in the islands of the South Pacific, after Tuli, the first bird of Polynesian creation mythology. Inupiat eskimo in Alaska call them tulik. I have not yet discovered the linguistic link between two such remote cultures using almost the same word for migratory birds - anyone know the answer? My theory is that whaling ships traveling between the two regions passed the word along from the South Pacific to the North. Are we at TULIQI part of a bird trend? - I sure hope so. I am just inspired by the incredible distances these birds fly, being a passionate traveler with homes in Auckland and Anchorage myself.

Mary
April 25th, 2008
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Twitter is to be envied.

BG marketing
April 7th, 2009
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I use the hummingbird on my <a href="websmartgroup.wordpress.com" target="_blank">blog</a>. They’re lively, colorful and benevolent - which is what I wanted to communicate about my blog, As pointed out in another comment, birds are the new flowers, indeed!

Jack Brooks
April 11th, 2009
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I guess the note that "a tags work here" isn’t accurate, as html is displayed in my previous post

Jack Brooks
April 11th, 2009
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offer quality Ray-Ban sunglasses including Ray Ban Wayfarer, Ray Ban Aviator, Predator, Polarized, Highstreet, Outsiders, Casual Lifestyle, Iconic, Leisure Sport sunglasses.http://www.topbuysunglasses.com/

oppear
January 26th, 2010
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Jewelry4Lover E007 - Beautiful earring with high quality and reasonable price.

yytxlw
January 29th, 2010
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Странно, искал совсем не это, но именно эта информация показалась мне наиболее актуальной.
Давно Ваш сайт ведёте?

Kirov
June 30th, 2010
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