The Once and Future King
Content has always been King, we just ignored it during the dotcoms, dotcom crashes, and now it’s back on the throne with blogs and site redesigns. A perfect example is the new A List Apart (ALA), which rolled out today. I asked the designer, Jason Santa Maria (aka Virtual Stan) about content and design and he said
“Content is most certainly king on the new ALA, and the design was created to emphasize that. We included nice contrast in text as well as comfy white space and leading to help make reading a pleasure. I wanted ALA to feel like a book you sit down and spend time with. It’s not something you’re supposed to skim; it’s there for you to consider and digest.”
I followed up with Erin Kissane (also our blog book coauthor), ALA’s Managing Editor
“Design does matter, and any supposed opposition between design and content misses the point.”
Blog design has been a theme of my lectures since SXSW earlier this year and the debate came up again during the Summit. I argue again, as Erin does above, that there is no conflict between content and design. In fact, we need design even more with the explosion of blog content and RSS. Click around ALA to see why content is king.
The King is back. Long live the King.
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It’s been amazing to see the accolades for Stan on his work with Mr. Myer and Mr. Benjamin for ALA. Every feed I subscribe to is talking about it. Weychert was trying to be commenter 100 on Stan’s site, but missed out, and is none the happier.
Seriously, a great redesign where the elegance is in the simplicity, like the old Twinsparc site (which I can’t find anymore).
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