Redesigns On you Audience
So the Guardian online: Guardian Unlimited has had a redesign. Not that surprising, the previous design did seem like a slight hangover from the three column era (the BBC are still sticking by that, but it can only be a matter of time: we ditched it last year on Freakytrigger). Now we’re not saying, like we always do, that the Guardian are copying us. Clearly they are not. But what is interesting is the timing of this design launch and what they haven’t done.
Today is a big news day. Admittedly there is a massive amount of ennui floating around Blair’s resignation: has anynews item ever been so overly trailed. Nevertheless it is scheduled to be announced at 11:45am, when most people will be at work and their main source of news information will be online. And that generally means in the UK, BBC Online or The Guardian. Those are also the two most accessed British news websites abroad. So it makes sense to launch a design today for maximum exposure. It is also risky of course, if it hasn’t been tested properly. But i get the feeling it has, and that is due to point two.
What they haven’t done is significantly change the logo. It is still called Guardian Unlimited (a name which seems a bit hokey now, but still works). And it still uses the dark block font from the pre-Berliner Guardian days on its masthead*. So while lots of sections (Comment Is Free for example) uses the new headline font, the online edition still hangs to the old days. This is odd, until you think about what the Guardian Unlimited is. It is one of the most trusted and successful news sites in the world. It has managed to shake off some of the perceived historical issues of the Guardian newspaper, no-one ever talks about the Grauniad Unmiltied after all. And while the Guardian on the newspaper racks is unusual for a colour masthead and has a distinctive shape, neither will play into its web identity.
It is a stage by stage redesign, lots of the sections still have the old look, none of which is a bad thing. Its going to the front page that matters. Emily Bell, the online editor, on the redesign.
*Or something similar anyway. What is interesting is the masthead now seems smaller than the Mac/PC adverts above it. Hmm, can’t wait for the Mitchell and Webb film. There’s not enough Mitchell and Webb on the TV.
Pete Baran in FT / The Brown Wedge • 387 views • Share/Save
The designer speaks.
“Improvements in web browsers and computer screens mean that we can now offer a wider page than before, giving us a larger canvas ”
this has been bothering me for some time. i know PC users habitually have web-browsers set to ‘full screen’ which means FAT layouts are coming. i have a widescreen monitor, but (on my mac) i have quite narrow browser windows (~1000 pixels) that take up less than half the width of the monitor. is there a mac/PC split on this behaviour?
Why do you do that, why don’t you full screen it (made a degree of sense with cascading windows but less so with tabbed browsing).
macs rarely do that ‘one application takes over the full screen’ thing that is the main way of working on a PC.
it just seems natural to have about a hand’s width of window.
a lot of websites (FT isn’t one) are fixed width anyway. fixed width sites are usually 800/1000 and must look awful full screen – lots of pointless blank/patterned border. Variable width probably look just hard to read as the text reflows.
“it just seems natural to have about a hand’s width of window”
See if the Mitchell and Webb Mac / PC ads were dealing with issues like this, I’d be interested!
Webb: Hello I’m a Mac
Mitchell: And I’m a PC
Webb: I like to have several windows open at once, all about a hands width. It just seems more natural.
Mitchell: That’s not natural at all, its more natural to use the entire screen.
Webb: It doesn’t seem natural to me.
Mitchell: You’re a computer: NOTHING ABOUT YOU IS NATURAL.
Webb: That might be true, but you were caught with your hands down your pants in Peep Show the other week and therefore my argument wins because I’m cooler.
Bing-bing-bing.
“Why has no-one pointed out there aren’t any good games for the Mac”
in the ads: because that wouldn’t be a good way of selling macs
in real life: ALL THE FUCKING TIME
btw the guardian site is fixed-width. what happens with the mac browser is that there is a ‘toggle window to fit’ button (instead of take up all the screen button) and it fits the browser to fit the site. in my case my usual browser width is about that of the GU site
anyway, not to get sidetracked. are we going to see wider fixed-width sites? GU site is still ~1024
Ah, “toggle window to fit” explains it. (BTW I took out Mac games joke bcs it did not belong here, and would make all your comments look weird – MAC USER alert).
I noticed the fixed width thing, which onmy browser has a left margin and a right white margin. When I decrease window size the left margin goes first, and then the right, followed by pictures etc.
I like it by the way Guardian journos watching (I know who you are…)
Dear the guardian,
next time you mention the Scottish Office on yr front page, please note that it doesn’t exist anymore. kthxbye.
yrs, a reader.
it is now called the scotch office, innit
that’s correct.
hic.
Speaking of which, admin I have an FT related note – if my IE (windows, v6) window is smaller than “a certain size” then FT goes completely b0rked with a huuuuge whitespace gap at the top, until you scroll down past the link section. A couple of times I had thought the entire site was down and clicked away before remembering to pg down a couple of times.
thanks for the spot! i did a quick check and yr right. IE is doing something wrong with the CSS of the category bar graphic. how long has it been doing that? i’m pretty sure it didn’t do it when we changed designs last year – as i check on IE and always try varying widths to test things out.
:-(
will fiddle…
oh, it’s always done that, my rss reader window is k-tiny and i’ve just got used to scrolling down when clicking through…