Publishing & Purpose
Issues of transparency and marketing are certainly at the forefront, but as my colleague alluded to, the overriding purpose of this space is still largely amorphous. The simple answer is that we have things we want to communicate to the (for now) faceless public and a vehicle for doing so became a necessity.
I Don't Live to Write, But…
The written word is probably the articulate human's most powerful tool for idea conveyance. Generally free as it is, in the best cases, from aesthetic bias, tonal slanting, and other trappings of the spoken word, these objective little marks have the power to influence ideas and ideals for centuries or even millennia. It's a wonderful system.
This isn't the world I live in really. In my world, someone else is usually doing the writing and my job is to get you to read it or buy it and, we hope, respond to it. My role is to help tell someone else's story.
This project therefore, is enormously cathartic. Here I get to tell my story, which really means our story, as much with the visually communicative as the textual. Designing for oneself is quite revealing and not a little autobiographical.
Setting Sail
The maiden design for this site is unlike anything I've constructed before. The layout is almost purely typographic, the inspiration for which comes in no small part via Jason Santa Maria's recent redesign of his own blog. Not that I'm trying to do what he is; our purposes are too dissimilar. But, that which is both beautiful and might someday be considered revolutionary should be lauded. So we laud.
And also we design, and develop, and build, and grow for these are the things for which we were reared. In time we hope to make this almost inherently obvious.
3 brave souls have spoken.
Express Yo'Self
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Excellent post. I look forward to reading about your journey.
Having worked with you in the past I know there is a reason for it–and a lot of thought went into it–but why is there is so much empty space on the left side of the page? It feels impossible to get to the content. But that could just be me…
Didn’t take long did it?
The right alignment is weird to be sure. To an extent is has to do with design considerations of the layout. I wanted the articles to be the almost exclusive visual focus. This caused the removal of the usual header and the right sidebar was put in place. Further, I did not want a grey stripe down the middle of the page.
More than that though, it is something of an experiment. I’m wondering if the unease you are experiencing is a result of the novelty or is there truly a deeper issue for left-to-right readers.
In any case, it would be plenty easy to center or even left-align everything, so I’m waiting to see.
Now I’m curious too….there’s something about it that isn’t working for my brain - and I think that’s why it took me so long to sit down and read it. I’m curious….because I subscribed to the blog and will primarily be reading it in Google reader, I’m going to lose the format - which will make it…I feel like…a LOT easier to read. I easily read the previous post by your colleague on Google reader - but didn’t get around to reading this until 11:00PM - several hours after you linked me. I don’t think it’s the right align that kills me. I think its the size of the fonts on the left side of the page. I think it may also though be an issue of left to right reading. I think if the info that lies on the left side of the page were ABOVE each blog, I’d be more apt to get to the content faster. Just imho.