The content is MUCH more engaging than the design. Which is a shame considering how much work was put into it. In fact, I had to really force myself to read the content because it was presented in such a bland way. I applaud the effort as far as symantics, structure etc go, but the article div is too narrow for easy reading, the choice of font seems wrong and having a fixed layout aligned to the left is so 1999.
I know, I know, if you having nothing good to say then don’t say anything. I did mention the conent was engageing didn’t I? Tell me what I am missing here…
Well I said it was amazing, I didn’t say it was perfect.
The design is… weak. I’m not crazy about the typography, the spacing, just about anything. I’m all for simplicity, but I think that a few simple tweaks and a little more attention to detail in aesthetics could make the site more effective. That’s my personal opinion.
It probably wouldn’t hurt to tidy the XHTML up a bit. I would love to see it use <cite> instead of <span "footnote> and IDs on the paragraphs instead of a bunch of empty named anchors and useless <span>s.
That said, I’m really excited about where this could go. Many of the links right now are pretty useless, but I can see a lot of potential. Ftrain is one of my favorite sites, for its writing particularly but also for its meticulous structure. That could be very interesting when applied to another content base, as it seems to have started to with Harpers.
I’m sorry, I don’t get it.
The content is MUCH more engaging than the design. Which is a shame considering how much work was put into it. In fact, I had to really force myself to read the content because it was presented in such a bland way. I applaud the effort as far as symantics, structure etc go, but the article div is too narrow for easy reading, the choice of font seems wrong and having a fixed layout aligned to the left is so 1999.
I know, I know, if you having nothing good to say then don’t say anything. I did mention the conent was engageing didn’t I? Tell me what I am missing here…
Well I said it was amazing, I didn’t say it was perfect.
The design is… weak. I’m not crazy about the typography, the spacing, just about anything. I’m all for simplicity, but I think that a few simple tweaks and a little more attention to detail in aesthetics could make the site more effective. That’s my personal opinion.
It probably wouldn’t hurt to tidy the XHTML up a bit. I would love to see it use
<cite>instead of<span "footnote>and IDs on the paragraphs instead of a bunch of empty named anchors and useless<span>s.That said, I’m really excited about where this could go. Many of the links right now are pretty useless, but I can see a lot of potential. Ftrain is one of my favorite sites, for its writing particularly but also for its meticulous structure. That could be very interesting when applied to another content base, as it seems to have started to with Harpers.