Bring back the thinker.
"The Pour" header image.
Some time ago, I wrote about the homogeneity in blog design. Just recently, I noticed that The Pour has undergone a few infrastructure changes.
The hallmark of the blog, “The Thinker”, has been replaced by a generic looking wine glass - part of the original design: photo of Rodin’s “The Thinker” pasted into a drawing of a table with a glass of wine on it.
Eric Asimov kindly responded to my query about the change, saying that the NY Times had done some software updates on their blogging platform and the header image had been changed.
I miss The Thinker. I like the slightly offbeat, kitschy composition. But the image is not why I come to Eric’s blog. It is the discussion and what Eric and the others have to say that keeps me coming back. It’s the quintessence of Web 2.0.
I also like Eric’s blog because he’s not afraid to be intellectual. Maybe that is what the presence of The Thinker in his blog’s design was all about. I hope that its disappearance does not signal any change in editorial tone, style or general direction.
My wife works in marketing. In our work on redwinebuzz.com, we often have…. spirited disagreements about the look, feel and general design of that web site. Her view is that design should be a key element that draws people to content. I often argue that overdone design detracts from content.
So I pose a question to the readers of this post: Can a blog’s design detract from its impact?
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September 25th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Yes. A blog’s design, if done incorrectly, will distract from the text, drawing your eye continuously away. This makes the content harder to read and that in turn decreases focus and thought on what is trying to be said. However, as a marketing professional myself, I do agree with your wife that GOOD design is extremely beneficial to draw people to the site and have them coming back. And that doesn’t mean snazzy graphics. In my mind it is a clean, sleek and simple style that draws your eye to the text, and the text is in a clear easily readable font. The easier and more natural it is to read, the less your brain struggles to process, and thus the more absorption of content.