The blog post isn’t dead.
Written by: Paul Anthony | November 20, 2009
So, I awoke to a flurry of activity yesterday (delicious home page, numerous Tweets in my stream) around one of smashing magazine’s alarmist post entitled “The death of the blog post“. The article showcased a few graphic designers from around the web, who had designed completely custom, graphic heavy designs for each post. They are magazine like in style, and leave the visitor with the wow factor. I’d seen this myself, and I’m a big fan of Gregory Wood and Dustin Curtis work.
As per usual the design community jumped up and down with excitement with war crys such as:
“Holy shit! We can bring our magazines to the web without changing them! Its ok! Yay!”
“The web is dead. Long live print! Yay!”
Well, maybe in not so many words, but I did see some tweets along those lines. Comments on the article itself contained some other gems..
“Personally, I think it’s a great idea to design for web in the print style”.
What ever happened to designing for the web? Designing for readability? Designing for usability? Tell you what, just for the hell of it lets give the article to a blind user, and see how they get on.
If those issues weren’t important enough for you, how about some of the below:
Speed.
Today’s web demands information in real-time. If you consider yourself any kind of blogger, you’ll realise that you need to be able to get something out there, under people’s noses faster than ever. Whilst you are trundling away creating something beautiful in photoshop, someone else is getting the traffic. It’s only ever going to work with the folks that put out a couple of pieces of content a year.
Yeah. Good luck with getting traffic on that.
Even if the post is visually stunning, you are still going to need to post regularly to build an audience that returns. 9 times out of 10, I’ll outrank this type of content.
Change.
This format is only going to work with timeless information that doesn’t change much. I can’t imagine those guys have “re-edited” their work much, or added anything new to it. In other words it stagnates, or is timeless, depending on what way you look at it.
Consistency.
Where do I click? Where do I get the next post? I love to see a few eye study tests on where exactly people are drawn towards. Does it matter? Well maybe not if you are entertaining with your design skills. Personally I’d rather have my content frequently read, than become the dancing bear of the web.
I get the concept, and appreciate that it’s not going to work for everyone. But yet again the lines between design and self gratifying visual pleasure get blurred; stop designing for the sake of design. A good designer will enhance the reader’s experience, without the visuals becoming more important than the content. Period.
So there. I’ve said it. The blog post isn’t dead – nor will it be anytime soon.
Topics: Graphic Design, Web Site Design | View Comments
Posted on 20 November 2009 by Paul Anthony
Paul is a multi-disciplined individual, although he currently works as a software developer for an independant e-commerce provider in Northern Ireland.
Over the past fifteen or so years he's taught himself the fundamentals of at least two programming languages, the jedi art of SEO and web marketing - and showcases these skills in a personal capacity on his own website - Webdistortion.
During the little spare time that he has - Paul has taught himself to play guitar and occasionally enjoys rocking out with his proverbial out. He's also currently trying to master the Saxophone.
You can connect with Paul on Twitter - or via his own blog on Webdistortion.
Paul Anthony has written 5 articles for Cloud Mixer
