Comments on: the new yorker

By: Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo

Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:08:18 +0000

Leon, I don’t agree with this:

Georgia is a better option because it is designed for screen reading: it’s thicker, bigger and and the serifs are wider and blunter. Apart from these differences it’s very similar to Times, so it creates the same feel.

Georgia is, as you state, much thicker wider and more blunt. This is what seperates Times New Roman and Georgia. Times New Roman is much lighter, more sophisticated and classier - when used right. So I don’t think it creates the same atmosphere.

By: Joey Pfeifer

Joey Pfeifer — Fri, 16 May 2008 03:02:15 +0000

Thanks for the honesty, Bruno; much appreciated. I’m curious though—what looks different to you about the current New Yorker website compared to the examples made in my review?

By: Kevin Cannon

Kevin Cannon — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:02:16 +0000

@Joe Clark - I can’t believe you linked to your own site in the third person as if some kind of objective authority had written it.

“The design of the New Yorker has been rather severely criticized.” would perhaps be more honestly stated as “I hate the New Yorker and have bitched about it and it’s website on my blog.”

By: Bruno Bergher

Bruno Bergher — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:30:09 +0000

I’m not sure this review did the trick, but I only read it today, and the New Yorker’s website looks a lot different, especially on the point you guys stressed.

Quite influential, uh?

By: Kyle Meyer

Kyle Meyer — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:19:11 +0000

@Leon P: Wow, just changing the type to Georgia feels like an improvement to me both in aesthetics and legibility. Great stuff, thanks for taking the time to pack it up nicely in a Stylish stylesheet.

By: Leon P

Leon P — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:08:38 +0000

Times does not work as body copy. I don't agree it looks good - paragraph after paragraph of it on the screen is unreadable. Georgia is a better option because it is designed for screen reading: it's thicker, bigger and and the serifs are wider and blunter. Apart from these differences it's very similar to Times, so it creates the same feel. I've knocked up a Stylish makeover that demonstrates the differences: My New Yorker modification

By: Gordon Warvi

Gordon Warvi — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:31:31 +0000

I’m a great fan of sites that utilize typography as a creative way to present sites, especially newspaper/magazine sites. Unfortunately, on The New Yorker, much of this is lost when images are disabled. I was disappointed to see that they did not have an alternative navigation menu, which replaced the standard one when images were disabled. I would have preferred to see the same menu (colour theme and hover effects), but the type in Georgia rather than Times to replace the existing menu had the images been disabled. Another thing was some of the Article Headings could not be seen. The New York Times has the upper hand in these cases; their navigation menu remains and so do the headings on most, if not all of their articles. I think The New Yorker could work on this a little. Perhaps they could use sIFR to sort out the Headings while implementing a alternative CSS menu in regular text rather than an image.

By: Kevin Zak

Kevin Zak — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:26:34 +0000

An interesting choice of sites to review. I’m a fan of the New Yorker’s publication, however, it is fairly challenging to get a recent copy in the middle of Nebraska. I frequent the site reviewed daily, and I have experienced a fair few annoyances; some outlined here, some not.

A big one has already been mentioned — indentation. I actually use a Greasemonkey script to add another line and eliminate the indent. While this may be an affective way of displaying print, I have yet to find a site that uses only an indent (Moll’s site has a linebreak and an indent, which is somewhat redundant but is still readable) that looks good.

This is a new angle for Typesites, in my opinion. Rather than commending a site for its positive attributes and pointing out areas of excellency, this review is telling us what not to do. I enjoy the wit put into the New Yorker, but I must say, there site is fairly disappointing.

By: kevadamson

kevadamson — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:43:58 +0000

Hmmm. I like the illustrations. I also think single articles are nicely considered in terms of the layout. But, I dunno, the site seems like a mish-mash of well considered layouts with poorly considered layouts. It feels inconsistent to me.

It’s also a site that looks considerably better in Safari than any other browser.

I’ve used “consider” a lot in this comment.

The adverts are visually intrusive. Which is a shame.

By: Kyle Meyer

Kyle Meyer — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:27:04 +0000

@Joe Clark: I don’t find them unreadable, but I do find them more difficult when used with serif typefaces at small sizes, especially on screen in comparison to an extra line break. On your site for example, the text is large and spaced liberally, in which case I don’t find it problematic.