It’s uncertain when the design motif originated - perhaps with the original 1980’s Battlestar Galactica TV series - but there’s something about clipped corners that screams “high tech” to viewers. Unfortunately, creating that appearance has been rather difficult in web design. Lea Verou outlined some clever ways to achieve clipped corners in her recent CSS Secrets book, but I thought up a few alternatives:
Nowhere is this axiom of design more readily apparent than on board the world famous battlestar Galactica. This ship, the last of her kind still in service, was constructed over fifty years ago during the early days of the Cylon War. Originally, there were twelve battlestars, each representing one of Kobol's twelve colonies.
You'll see things here that look odd, even antiquated to modern eyes. Phones with cords, awkward manual valves, computers that barely deserve the name. But all of it is intentional. It's all designed to operate in combat against an enemy who could infiltrate and disrupt all but the most basic computer systems.
