Solutions

39 Comments

• Permalink for this comment Ben says: June 23, 2008

  

  Beautiful, I love the way you’re taking these articles! That’s a really nice font, what is it?

• Permalink for this comment Craig says: June 23, 2008

  

  Wow.

  Other than the fact that the new design has provoked in me an unpleasant aura of stalker-ness, too frequently visiting the site, hoping for a new post and thus a new vision of the genius of the design, I have to say it (the re-design) is a home run.

  And freaking live preview of the comments in situ. Are you kidding me?

• Permalink for this comment Matthew Buchanan says: June 23, 2008

  

  @Ben, the typeface is Underware’s Auto 1 Black Italic – I believe that’s why Jason’s tagged the post ‘Auto’.

• Permalink for this comment Kari Pätilä says: June 23, 2008

  

  This looks quite extraordinary, but I couldn’t help noticing the unnecessary complexity under the hood, so to speak.

• Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: June 23, 2008

  

  @ Ben : Just like Matthew said, the typeface is Auto from Underware. Since I’m tracking typefaces with the Design Tags under each entry, I’ve added links to those typefaces from the category archive pages (here’s Auto’s archive page as an example).

  @ Kari Pätilä :

  This looks quite extraordinary, but I couldn’t help noticing the unnecessary complexity under the hood, so to speak.

  I’m OK with that, I’ve never claimed to be an exceptional coder. :)

• Permalink for this comment hostilemonkey says: June 23, 2008

  

  THIS SITE EXCITE HOSTILE MONKEY LIKE NO OTHER SITE SINCE LATE 1990s.

  HOSTILE MONKEY LIKE THIS SITE.

  HOSTILE MONKEY NOT HOSTILE ABOUT THIS SITE.

  HOSTILE MONKEY RETREAT TO TREE AND RECONSIDER LIFE TO DATE.

  HOSTILE MONKEY CHANGED MONKEY.

  HOSTILE MONKEY SAY “THANK YOU JSM”!

• Permalink for this comment Brad Bice says: June 23, 2008

  

  It will be great when the content trumps the design again.

  (Not that your content isn’t great, it’s just that most of the comments I’ve seen are about how this page looks.)

• Permalink for this comment bearskinrug says: June 23, 2008

  

  I would say the greatest challenge to any thinker is 14 kicks to the groin. No one can concentrate after THAT.

• Permalink for this comment Andrew says: June 23, 2008

  

  Ok, now you’re just showing off

• Permalink for this comment Drew says: June 23, 2008

  

  Have you in my “Open in Tabs” daily bookmarks. Had a moment of free fall, and confusion when I got here today. My brain was like: What site is this? But quickly recovered. The change from White backgrounds for the last week to this dark green was disorienting.

  An argument for old template based content design? NO WAY MISTER! Keep up the awesome work Jason. What you are doing is exciting me deep in the cortex, and I can’t wait to see how it develops!

• Permalink for this comment Krista says: June 23, 2008

  

  Jason –

  I lurve what you’re doing here. I’m really olde skool and never got into feed readers at all, preferring to visit websites directly. Visiting your site is a new aesthetic adventure every day. True renaissance!

  Happy Birthday!

• Permalink for this comment Brian Smith says: June 23, 2008

  

  The last two posts were both screwed up in the feed; the previous post used a background image instead of a regular <img> (not ideal semantically since the text doesn’t make sense without the image), and this one just looks strange.

• Permalink for this comment Jody says: June 23, 2008

  

  Love what you’re doing; hate that you’re calling it art direction.

• Permalink for this comment Josh Harbaugh says: June 23, 2008

  

  Wouldn’t the greatest challenge be to solve a problem that has no solution?

  Existential indeed …

• Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: June 23, 2008

  

  @ Brian Smith

  The last two posts were both screwed up in the feed;

  “Screwed up” being… ?

  in the previous post used a background image instead of a regular <img> (not ideal semantically since the text doesn’t make sense without the image)

  I think it makes perfect sense without the image.

  and this one just looks strange.

  If anything is to be done about these problems, you’ve gotta be a bit more descriptive. :)

  @ Jody :

  Love what you’re doing; hate that you’re calling it art direction.

  I’m calling it exactly what it is. If you have a different definition than I do, that’s cool.

• Permalink for this comment baldylocks says: June 23, 2008

  

  jason, any chance of an article on how you are doing all this with EE?

• Permalink for this comment Jack says: June 23, 2008

  

  So, which browser do I need to use to actually see the quote? (I had to view source to see it using Firefox 3…)

• Permalink for this comment Shane says: June 23, 2008

  

  that’s funny!

  I agree with you, it appears that it is more a difference in definition, then actually NOT being Art Direction. I think you explained “YOUR” definition PERFECTLY in a comment you made in your last post. I was just about to comment and say you site keeps getting better and better with every new post.

  Also I definitely call it art direction.

  Also I agree with you, the last post makes PERFECT sense without the image, in fact the image is just an added bonus, but at the same time helps reinforce the overall message of the post.

  Your site is like a brand new experience EVERY time I come. but there is enough aspects taht stay the same so it keeps you branded and unifies the entire site. It’s great, it reminds me of a magazine (or a newspaper). Each new article has a unique theme.

• Permalink for this comment Josh Harbaugh says: June 23, 2008

  

  @baldylocks: My guess is attaching a specific stylesheet for that post using some fancy “if-else”-esque action.

• Permalink for this comment Josh Harbaugh says: June 23, 2008

  

  I can think of a couple ways WordPress might accomplish that, and I’m sure EE has some equivalents since it’s a bit better overall (from my experiences and those of other designers).

• Permalink for this comment Brian Smith says: June 23, 2008

  

  “As you can see from my books” doesn’t make sense when you can’t see the books.

  I didn’t look at the source, but it looks like you encoded the quotes in this article in seperate block-level elements. As a result, the typography in the feed (or anywhere else where the CSS isn’t applied) is wrong.

• Permalink for this comment Kari Pätilä says: June 23, 2008

  

  Couldn’t help but notice some of the comments being a tad condescending, vaguely pointing out foibles based on loose interpretations and offering nothing.

  Jeff Croft has already paved the way for this kind of nonsense with his redesign, withstanding more than the proverbial 14 kicks to the groin with grace.

  —Another great challenge to any thinker, and I use the term loosely here, is stating a solution in a way that actually addresses the damn problem.

• Permalink for this comment Andrew Hedges says: June 23, 2008

  

  This experiment makes me think that pretty much anything is possible if you define your requirements correctly in the beginning; especially if it’s true what you say that you’re not the world’s strongest coder. +1 on the above request for you to post an explanation of how you made this come to be. Thanks for prying open my brain a little, Jason!

• Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: June 23, 2008

  

  @ Jack :

  So, which browser do I need to use to actually see the quote? (I had to view source to see it using Firefox 3…)

  Which OS are you using? I know there are problems with Linux right now, and I’m working on some of them, but I haven’t seen any monumental problems in the typical Windows and Mac lot.

  @ Brian Smith :

  “As you can see from my books” doesn’t make sense when you can’t see the books.

  Which is why I described the technique at length. Another reason I kept the image out of the content is because I didn’t want everyone to have to download the huge image just to read it. Seem like an OK consolation to me.

  I didn’t look at the source, but it looks like you encoded the quotes in this article in seperate block-level elements. As a result, the typography in the feed (or anywhere else where the CSS isn’t applied) is wrong.

  Yup, tis true. This is because I don’t really care as much about the feed. This site is an experiment, as such, your experience may vary.

  @ To those asking about how I used EE: Sure, I will probably write something up about it, but I want to see how this unfolds a bit more first so I can offer a bit more info behind it, as well as its successful or failure.

• Permalink for this comment Brian Smith says: June 23, 2008

  

  @Kari:

  I think it is better to point out the problems and let the designer (Jason in this case) solve them in the way he thinks is best.

  @Jason:

  I appreciate your concern about the download cost of the image. Most feed readers have options to minimize the likelihood of downloading an unneeded image.

  Anyway, I can see how it would be difficult to create a great in-reader experience for feed reader users since few readers have enough CSS support to deal with the multimedia content in your recent entries.

• Permalink for this comment Joseph Lee says: June 23, 2008

  

  Sweet, this experiment is quite pleasant, glad to see how it unfolds :)

• Permalink for this comment Matt Radel says: June 24, 2008

  

  @hostilemonkey: HOSTILE MONKEY MAKE ME LAUGH.

  Seriously though, I’d love a post on how you’re managing the blog JSM. It’s a fantastic idea that you’ve executed beautifully so far.

• Permalink for this comment Jason Campbell says: June 24, 2008

  

  You are going to be inundated with questions about your inspirations until the novelty evolves into the norm.

  I am curious what about this quote inspired you to go green. No commentary on right or wrong just curiosity, just as I would be if it were orange or paisley.

  I’m having fun experiencing this, I have never used a feed reader just a folder in my bookmarks that I use the “open all in tabs” on everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, it’s a treat to see something different.

  Cheers,
  J.

• Permalink for this comment Patrick Beeson says: June 24, 2008

  

  The color selection for this entry looks a lot like those used by the Django Project Web site.

  A coincidence? (I love these colors, I’m just curious.)

• Permalink for this comment Stephen says: June 24, 2008

  

  This is beautiful. Not since the lolrus have I been so moved by a website.

• Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: June 25, 2008

  

  @ Patrick Beeson : Wow, there are some similarities! I can definitely say it’s a coincidence as I swiped two of the greens from some old comps I did that never got chosen. Which leads to…

  @ Jason Campbell :

  I am curious what about this quote inspired you to go green. No commentary on right or wrong just curiosity, just as I would be if it were orange or paisley.

  It’s a small inside joke to myself from a time when I used to fall back to just making stuff green when I couldn’t solve a design problem. For whatever reason, the green would work for me. Now I just do the same with orange ;)

  Sometimes, the direction of these pieces might be a might more straightforward, like the last entry, other times it might just be a nice aesthetic change up (like this one), and both of those possibilities are interesting to me. The real experiment here is maintaining a visual identity while employing different stylistic variables to achieve some variety.

• Permalink for this comment Joshua Gentes says: June 25, 2008

  

  @Jason, green is the color of nature and generally inspires cool and calmness, however at the same time, it is often one of the first colors that color blind persons cannot distinguish. I am interested in seeing how your designs develop in the future, although I am concerned about the downward scalability and degrability for when images and/or other media is turned off.

• Permalink for this comment Mike G. says: June 25, 2008

  

  I can’t see the quote in FF3 WindowsXP. Bottom quotation mark hangs down into the “design tags” area.

• Permalink for this comment Wilson Miner says: June 25, 2008

  

  It’s a small inside joke to myself from a time when I used to fall back to just making stuff green when I couldn’t solve a design problem.

  I thought I was the only one with that problem. :) Love the new design and ideas.

• Permalink for this comment Shawn Adrian says: June 26, 2008

  

  Wow man, gorgeous design. Great quote too. I just bookmarked you.

• Permalink for this comment Raymonn says: June 26, 2008

  

  Jason,
  As my Big Momma would phrase it, “You stuck your foot in this design.” This is some awesome work.
  Now I will go hang myself. I thought I was getting better till I saw this design.

• Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: June 26, 2008

  

  @ Joshua Gentes :

  I am interested in seeing how your designs develop in the future, although I am concerned about the downward scalability and degrability for when images and/or other media is turned off.

  I am too, though only to a point. I understand that isn’t the best case scenario, but that’s why I’m also testing this out on my personal site rather than a client’s :)

  @ Mike G :

  I can’t see the quote in FF3 WindowsXP. Bottom quotation mark hangs down into the “design tags” area.

  I’m not seeing that problem in FF3 for Windows, but I do see that the closing quotes are overlapped by the quote text. Unfortunately, this last one is a result of a fix for Linux users. Linux browser need sIFR to have a background specified (whereas most other browsers seem OK with the transparent background), so FF3 for Windows (though not for Mac, for some reason) is dropping the sIFR swf on top of the closing quotes image. This just might be something that can’t be helped right now.

• Permalink for this comment Benjamin K. says: June 27, 2008

  

  Jason, this new Expression Engine system is really working out! I love the flexibility you’ve found with it. (i.e. the previous article’s layout)

  I would have to agree with bearskinrug. Fourteen kicks to the groin would take me right out of the thinkin’ game!

• Permalink for this comment TR1 says: June 28, 2008

  

  It’s all turtles, all the way down.

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