Web Design Critique: Consistency and Homogeneity of the Blog Layout

February 19th • 9 Comments • Under: Design Suggetions, Web Critique • Tags: critique, suggestion, web design

Blogherald.com is a blog featuring news from all around the blogosphere since 2003, and is run by a dozen of contributors and writers. It was founded by Duncan Riley from Australia and is now owned by Splashpress Media. The Blog Herald has gone through multiple design and layout variations, including the latest one made by Brian Gardner.

Web design and design in general should never be judged from the aesthetic viewpoint or by how much one likes/dislikes a particular color scheme, typeface or the layout of different content elements. The purpose of design is to make the content organized and accessible to the widest target audience possible. Design should be the information highway without traffic jams and clearly marked road labels which don’t require any Design Positioning System (DPS) in order to navigate. Read more »

IE8 Version Targeting — Understanding and Discussing the Arguments

January 23rd • No Comments • Under: Understanding Web, Web Critique • Tags: web standards

In defense of version targeting is a follow-up article by Jeffrey Zeldman to his previous post and the topic of browser version targeting feature planned for the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 8. His arguments (in favor of version targeting) might seem to be valid at first, but they are not enough in comparison to those who are against the version targeting.

Let’s start with an example (dates and browser versions are made up and are not important to illustrate the point). I made a website a two years ago (in 2006) and followed the W3C standards which resulted in a perfect content rendering in most of the standards aware browsers. Read more »

Browser Version Targeting vs. the Web Standards

January 23rd • 1 Comment • Under: Understanding Web, Web Critique • Tags: critique, suggestion, web standards

The following articles in the latest issue of the A List Apart magazine explain the necessity of browser targeting with the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 8, which is expected to be the most standards aware browser from Microsoft to date.

• Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8 by Aaron Gustafson,
• From Switches to Targets: A Standardista’s Journey by Eric Meyer.

To me the idea of browser targeting seems absolutely absurd, and reasons for that are so many that it will require another post to explain them all in detail. Here are just a few. Read more »

How Graphic is the Web Design, and How Web is the Graphic Design

November 22nd • No Comments • Under: Understanding Web, Web Critique • Tags: critique, design

Sorry for such a long heading, but it is the question which by itself is an answer to those trying to understand how the web design is different from the graphic design.

Designer and writer Armin Vit recently asked “[W]hat web sites could be considered landmarks for our profession?”. Ideally one should be able to name

A visual solution that not only enables, but also transcends, the message to become memorable in the eyes and minds of viewers.

He lists few examples from the field of graphic design: “Milton Glaser’s Dylan poster. Paul Rand’s IBM logo. Paula Scher’s Public Theater posters. Massimo Vignelli’s New York subway map. Kyle Cooper’s Seven opening titles”. Read more »

Time Magazine’s Blind Love for the Apple

November 5th • No Comments • Under: Journalism, Web Critique • Tags: critique, writing

What do you think is the Invention Of the Year according to the Time Magazine and it’s Best inventions team that has been arguing about the nominees and speaking to the actual inventors since the early September?

It is a mobile phone with which you can make calls, write messages, add phone numbers in a contacts list, listen to music and watch videos, access the web and view the street maps. I am not kidding.

The list was chosen by a team of experts lead by Lev Grossman. In this video he explains the process of choosing The Best Inventions Of the Year. Just a note: at the very beginning you can clearly see how the Macintosh computer and the iPhone has made his work much more organized. I kid, I kid. Read more »