Let’s be honest with ourselves: pop-ups, pop-unders, intrusive Flash advertising, and content-obscuring modal dialogues all suck, both from an aesthetic perspective and for site users.

In modern web design, the trend is towards elegance and simplicity; providing awesome content that’s pleasant to consume is the order of the day. But, we have to make money, and that’s what intrusive advertising is supposed to achieve. The web is growing up, and part of its developing maturity is that serious sites that want to make money from content – particularly bloggers – are tying to look less like the flyers we find under our windshield wipers advertising quack remedies in garish colors and fonts, and more like credible publications.

A key driver in this trend is the growing prevalence of mobile. What’s annoying on full-size screens is a deal-killer on the small screens of mobile devices. Mobile first design is largely responsible for motivating the move to simpler pages. Because screen real-estate is scarce, subtle integration of promotional material that doesn’t detract from the overall experience is essential.

When aesthetic requirements and technological trends clash with opportunities for revenue generation, a fertile ground for innovation is opened up. One of the solutions that has arisen to maintain both elegance and the prominent display of calls-to-action takes the form of minimalist, non-intrusive, but very noticeable message bars. Continue reading →