For most of this semester, I’ve been working on starting a lifestyle magazine for Pomona College. The analogy that I’ve been using to describe it is that All-Nighter (the name of the publication) would be what you would get if you turned the brain of a college student into a magazine, sort of a cross between Vanity Fair and collegehumor.com. My creative project idea is to design the website for All-Nighter. But I don’t want the website to be just another iteration of the format used in so many other online magazine/newspaper sites. I’d like the site (www.allnighteronline.com [still under construction, but we have secured the domain]) to be one that reflects more of the actual print magazine. Essentially, what I want to do is take the strengths of print - good layout, effective use of white space and text etc. - and find a way to translate that to the Internet. Hopefully, the website will look a little bit more like the page of a magazine, rather than a list of article titles on a front page. Maybe not the most practical design concept, but I’m more concerned with how the site looks. The accompanying paper would discuss the reasons why I chose the layout that I end up with, and talk about the relative strengths and weaknesses of print vs. digital texts. Any suggestions regarding design ideas, or concepts that the paper could discuss would be great. Plus, if you want to write for me, let me know!
I always feel I'm a better editor than writer. Don't know if you have need for any of those...however, if you need either in a pinch, let me know.
I like this idea of decorating a new medium with old formats. I only wonder if this is for artistic purposes or for practical ones. I understand that many online formats are difficult to read, but some become much easier once we become used to them. Others seem better than print ever was.
I am curious if many popular web layouts, though not as aesthetically pleasing or familiar, are actually better at displaying information. I know there are some huge problems...take a look at Cnet.com, one of my favorite sites...the layout is terrible. But what about the layout of blogs and something like google news or digg? aren't these layouts very simple and effective even if not pretty? just my thoughts
ok, part of me doesn't want to suggest this, for fear of being ridiculed for having bad taste . . . but I think the way J.K. Rowling's personal website (click on the British flag to enter) looks is really cool. It looks like her messy desk, with papers, a day planner, candy, a cell phone, pictures, and a keyboard, etc. strewn about and when you move the mouse over the objects, headings like "news," "rumors," "fansites," etc. pop up. I really like how this site reflects her lifestyle as a writer. I know this doesn't look like a magazine, but it might be cool to make your site (if you could) look like a college kid's room, or something like that.
Rowling's site also relaly reminds me of the piece we read by Brenda Laurel, "Computers as Theatre" . . . I like how this site sort of performs for the viewer with its flashy graphics and images and sounds.
Then again, maybe I shouldn't have said anything!!
I also really like how you describe your magazine. That sounds awesome. Good luck!
Some questions to ponder in the short paper: If the site reflects the pages of the magazine itself, what could you say about the future of the paper magazine? Do you see new media as more practical in terms of accessibility? Is there any trend in the magazine industry? What about profits?
I think this is a really good idea for a project.
I'm glad you're focusing on the question of design, and particularly how design in new media forms might become as comfortable and as pleasing as design in print. You should definitely take a look at the writing that's out there on web-based design, to see what the conventional wisdom is, and then think about where those assumptions come from and which ones you want to disrupt, and why. I'll look forward to seeing what comes of this!
Cool; I'm seeing many hours in Flash in your future, I will say that. I hope this works; I certainly would like to check it out. I don't know if you're familiar with Vice magazine or not; personal opinions as to content and flavor aside, they have a pretty nifty integration of video and do a great job using user comments to affect future published material. Use of white space sounds very welcome as well; their site and many other zine/blog/etc. websites tend to get very cluttered very fast.
I will also be very interested to see what someone with a background in new media theory does in the way of mixing up print media for the web and the facebook generation and reading why you did it. I'm looking forward to something really new and interesting and a little college humor to boot. Good luck.