Comments on: Art direction on the web?

By: Reading • 2008 in Review

Reading • 2008 in Review — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:59:04 +0000

[...] Jeffrey ZeldmanArt Direction on the Web? [...]

By: 2008 In Review -An Experiment In Editorial Design - Wolf’s Little Store

2008 In Review -An Experiment In Editorial Design - Wolf’s Little Store — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:28:46 +0000

[...] I believe more web designers should follow Jason Santa Maria’s example to design individual articles within a set of “rules”. Designing from scratch is always good fun, but defining a ruleset and working within that ruleset can lead to wondrous results. Some projects at work I design the website, design some examples, and at a certain I leave the website in the client’s hands. Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s always painful to see your design go awry. It’s part of the job, but it leaves you wondering whether there is even a place for art direction on the web. [...]

By: White Boxer: Creative Design Services » Blog Archive » To WordPress or Not to WordPress?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:48:39 +0000

[...] great details that pull it all together. But what really caught my eye was Jeffrey Zeldman’s remarks on the redesign. Zeldman referred to Jason’s redesign post as a “call to arms” for web art [...]

By: On art direction - Wolf’s Little Store

On art direction - Wolf’s Little Store — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:50:00 +0000

[...] wrote a piece about this too, happy cogging as always, in which I noted in the comments “You have to give the guys at A [...]

By: Brad Noble

Brad Noble — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:09:13 +0000

This move by Jason (and the others who have gone before) remind me — as someone who currently works in an ad agency — of the value of brand. If I can subscribe to the Wired RSS feeds to get the Wired content, why would I ever navigate my way to wired.com? Well, I wouldn’t, unless the payoff of leaving my reader was worth it.

Content is king, as they say. But content is not content is not content. In my reader, Jason’s content is output from him, input for me. Transactional. Commoditized. (And this has nothing to do with the content itself, b/c what he shares is great. It has everything to do with the context of my reader.) At jasonsantamaria.com, his content is truly king b/c he treats it as such, and I experience it that way.

By: G. Jason Head

G. Jason Head — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:20:45 +0000

I was thinking of this post earlier today when I was reminded that ESPN does some neat things when it comes to their "E-Ticket" stories. ESPN.com is one of my most visited sites - and while the regular site generally follows their templates, they post a highlight story every week or so under the "E-Ticket" banner. stories usually involve much better art direction that incorporates a unique design, larger high-quality photos and other interactive material like video, etc. A few examples: Practive Swings The Day Innocence Died Dice K 2.0 All Too Perfect Unlikely BFF's

By: Franky

Franky — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:19:59 +0000

Are the days of “set it, and forget it!” websites coming to an end? Not if bosses like mine have anything to say about it.

By: Chris Hester

Chris Hester — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:21:17 +0000

Nobody but weird Unibomber-like hermits and Tantek hand-codes individual pages anymore.

I hand-code all my site. I did try moving to Expression Engine but found it limited so much of what I could do. I tried my best to tweak it but I was fighting the programmers. Then, after a while of leaving it, it got hacked. I deleted the whole thing and returned to glorious HTML, PHP and Notepad2.

Note: if I was starting again I would probably go for Wordpress. Hand-coding sure takes time!

By: Art Contests

Art Contests — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:56:48 +0000

Personally, I think the Internet has been a great gift to art lovers, not only because it makes great works of art available for so many people to admire themselves. It’s also the best resource ever invented for art lovers like us to meet and exchange ideas!

By: webchick

webchick — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:09:18 +0000

>But almost nobody anymore, myself included,
>*publishes* by hand-coding each individual web page.

Guilty as charged: http://public.resource.org/house.gov/ **
(the entire public.resource site is handcoded. It is the only way we can get the flexibility we want with the layouts)

I actually find myself creating hybrid sites – I will handcode the core site, and then perhaps have a section of the site have an underlying CMS. BBS or blog engine.
So, I am glad to hear there is a movement afoot. I just thought I was old-fashioned.
————————-
BTW, watch the TimBL video … it’s great!

By: Michiel van der Blonk

Michiel van der Blonk — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:53:33 +0000

I am still most happy with the completely hand-coded sites I made (and still make), because of that incredible quality they have: no security vulnerabilies, no upgrade to version X.xxx and no plugins. It just means overall less maintenance, and the maintenance that is required is purely content, which I do myself and can fit in semantically, hell even use microformats. The fact that it’s all HTML and hardly any interactivity doesn’t seem to bother the visitors of the site: they get their information quickly and presented with great visuals. Plus: total flexibility, no fixed framework to work in. I also notice a lot of clients don’t want a CMS because they have to do the work, they prefer to have someone else do content updates (who can blame them?). Ultimately RSS can then still take care of a lot of content that has to come from a database or other sources.

By: Jeffrey Zeldman

Jeffrey Zeldman — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:30:39 +0000

You have to give the guys at A Brief Message some credit, they’ve been doing it for months now.

Jason credits them and A List Apart in his post to which I linked.

1966

That’s what happens when you write blog posts at 4:00 AM. :)

I remembered an April 21, 2008 article I read, where NY TImes Newsroom Design Director Khoi Vinh said “It’s our preference to use a text editor, like HomeSite, TextPad or TextMate, to “hand code” everything”

Right. They hand code their *TEMPLATES.*

They don’t hand code each individual page of the newspaper!

We hand code our templates. Every good designer or shop hand codes its templates.

Hand coded templates not the same as hand coded pages.

I am not some kind of crazed hermit just because I’m still hand-coding my work templates.

Right.

Good designers hand code their templates.

But almost nobody anymore, myself included, *publishes* by hand-coding each individual web page.

By: killputer

killputer — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:12:54 +0000

While this is a novel idea (that has been done before, some web zines do it all the time) the important thing that I noticed here is Jason’s use of Expression Engine verses ye olde Movable Type and the ever so bloggiest Wordpress. It looks like Jason did some playing around and done learned the engine good. With the way Expression Engine is set up you can not help but get inspired to change the look as often as you have time for.

So while I applaud the art direction approach I am equally stoked that someone else in the community is realizing the power of EE.

By: dw

dw — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:24:18 +0000

Nobody but weird Unibomber-like hermits and Tantek hand-codes individual pages anymore.

HEY! I am not some kind of crazed hermit just because I’m still hand-coding my work templates. And I have the 150 page manifesto decrying the W3C’s alliances with the Bilderberg Group and Colonel Sanders to prove it! Just publish it for me already, Zeldman.

By: jonathan stegall » Blog Archive » Links for June 19th

jonathan stegall » Blog Archive » Links for June 19th — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:35:59 +0000

[...] Jeffrey Zeldman Presents : Art direction on the web? Discussion of the concept of art direction on the web, related to Jason Santa Maria’s recent revolution of his website. (tags: art design) [...]