Archives are often something that are left until the last minute and I don’t think anyone really considers how best to create them. Designers often throw together a chronological list of posts and leave it at that. However, I stumbled across a design by Kyle Meyer today that’s a brilliant solution to the archive problem. On his website Astheria, he represents his archive visually, altering the distance between posts to show fluctuations in frequency.
Clever, isn’t it? How is it done? Well all he’s done is dynamically style the list items, altering their top margin according to the difference in dates. I guess that this is done in a custom PHP script he’s written to grab and display his blog content. The rest is just done with CSS.
Published in Design, Websites, tagged CSS, minimalism, organisation on 24th April 2008. No comments.
My games website Thunderbolt has received a visual overhaul today, with a cleaner design and a number of new features.
The eighth version adopts a minimalist style which is designed to detract from article text and images as little as possible. I paid special attention to making the site as legible as possible and I’m really pleased with the result.
Aside from the visual adjustments, the new site also introduces comments for the first time and dispenses with the news. I asked myself what people enjoy doing the most and writing news was obviously that. Now the site is firmly focused on reviews, features and opinion, hopefully offering a credible alternative to the likes of GameSpot and IGN.
Published in Design, Videogames, Websites, tagged minimalism, Thunderbolt on 6th April 2008. No comments.
I’m quite a fan of minimalist design in print and on the web. A lot can be achieved with clean lines and simple colours, and ManyBooks is a perfect example of this. The site offers nearly 20,000 free eBooks, which are available to download in countless different forms.
Like the books that you can download, the site itself is as legible as they come. Aside from the mysteriously small text in the navigation menu, ManyBooks is extremely easy to find your way around and is consistent throughout. Many websites opt for designs that confound the user with brash colours, but ManyBooks shows that more usable and elegant results can be achieved with very little.
Published in Design, Websites, tagged minimalism on 21st February 2008. No comments.