Anyways since recently I've been such a stickler for user interface design. I feel it's often a neglected part in my opinion as I'm so used to programming the back end of web apps. Yet I feel that a really good UI will make a difference with your customers.
Ironically, I find the article's Typography to be completely underwhelming. No attempt has been made to have the fonts visually represent the hierarchy of ideas being presented in the article, or to use the article as a showcase for how good great typography can be. If this article is supposed to be doing that, it radically undercuts the article's position.
I have no idea what you're talking about. To me, this looks like a classic Brockmann-style hardcore Swiss grid design. Very conscious of macro- and micro-typography, negative space, hierarchy. Beautiful - to say the least...
The main flaw I see, using clarity of communication as a standard, is the lack of right justification. This is compounded with the quoted material that is also not right justified. It looks confusing.
Hierarchical Differentiation
Also, the quoted material is slightly smaller than the main text. The text size difference should vary in a greater degree if the idea is to have the text size differentiate between the kind of message being expressed. (In this case differentiating the source of the message.)
Lack of Consistency
The article uses a blank line as a way to differentiate paragraphs. This rule is broken in the fourth paragraph.
1. I guess full justification on the web is not a viable option (no hyphenation, no control over rivers).
2. On my machine PC/Firefox the font is considerably smaller. Just checked: The anti aliased Mac version is still obviously smaller. The indent also helps. I guess if it were too small it becomes difficult to read. But again, this is a matter of taste (among specialists) and not so much an objective design flaw. This site is 100 times superior in terms of design to anything I have seen in the last couple of weeks.
3. As far as I can see this line announces the update, thus a harsh break. That's why it's so loud. I have no problem with that either.
To say that the form contradicts the message is WAY out of line.
Just checked your website www.gibson-design.com. You must be joking...
1. Is this something that can be fixed? One solution many sites use is to have a color differentiation (or a graphic element) that defines the right side of text, making it easier for the eye to scan the text.
2. Mine is also PC/Firefox (very high res monitor). (I tried it on a lower res monitor, and it looked much better (ie more differentiation)
3. On my high-res screen, 2 of the paragraphs at this location ran together. On my low res screen, they do not.
-The page looks much better in lower res.
For my site, you are right, it is vastly out of date. (I was the 7th architect on the web in 1995, and used front-page.) I am holding off on the overhaul (there are so many pages) to make the entire site active using the technology my startup company is creating, probably won't get to it until later in the year. In spite of the retro look, I do get a lot of traffic on it.
1,2,3, whatever man. I don't want to embarrass you, but no matter how many users you have, with this site you should not pretend to be a pro:
a) Fake small caps, creating weird stairs in the underline
b) Passive white space everywhere
c) Random picture placement
d) Dozens of font sizes
e) Justification chaos, random spacing
f) Plenty of useless design elements,
g) Obvious silliness (like what you do with your signature)
If you really knew about typography, you'd take this nightmare offline right now.
My experience with graphic design is mainly in the traditional realm, not on the web. I never claimed to have the ultimate typography on my website. (To give you an idea of my age, I programmed a BBS in basic on a commodore 64 "Moondog BBS" in 1982 - I was a Junior in HS.) However, the site was cutting edge when I first had it on in 1995 and was published a few years in a row in the book _Design Portfolio_ with interviews, etc. in the late 90's.
My site has been neglected as I've been too busy (too many projects, etc.), but the thrust of the site is the imagery and design and ideas, not the fonts. That is the value people get from the site and why it is so heavily linked and visited. I am definitely looking forward to having the site totally automated and database driven so that I can control the look and feel globally (the site is huge if you noticed) and have it always up to date finally later in the year.
But to take it off because of imperfect fonts and frames etc. would be foolish. I would be denying the value that so many people are getting from the site in its current crippled form. But thank you for the concern :)
Wow, they changed it since I said that. Good for them. Their robots.txt blocks the Wayback Machine, but the current Google cache has it (search for "The main - usually whiny - argument"): http://tinyurl.com/26o3nq
