client

400:seconds

challenge

To design an online magazine that reflects the innovative and querky nature of the website while being highly readable on the screen. To come up with a name and logo for a new online magazine.

solution

The first challenge started with the name, we had to find a name which was not only appropriate, interesting but more importantly available as a domain name. The name represent the time that it would approximately take to read one of the articles featured in the website. The collon which appears in the middle of the logo represents both the seconds on a digital watch and also the punctuation mark which reminds us that this is a magazine about the written word.

The punctuation marks are carried through the website design, specially in the represenation of the navigation links, that are contained in some lovely looking curly parenthesis.

I kept the overall colour scheme quite neutral and colourless because I was aware that every issue had a strong and meaningful theme that I wanted to represent quite minimalistically through the use of one powerful image that would appear on the home page and carried through to the sub-pages of the website.

Selecting the protagonist font for the site was also a bit of a challenge, I finally found the perfect font Matrix script regular. A lovely curvy font that works really well on the screen, specially for a script font.

One of the biggest challenges in designing the site was ensuring that the articles were a pleasure to read online. I hear people constantly complaining about the fact that they hate to read online. My self imposed challenge was to prove these people wrong. I designed various layouts throughout the site: some one column others multi columned. I borrowed elements used in printed materials such as:

Quoted captions
Imagery sprinkled throughout the articles to support the content and also to brake up the text heaviness of some of the articles
Intro paragraphs set in a larger font size than the rest of the article.

The width of the paragraphs are based on some research that was conducted by Usability research lab in Wichita. Even the colour that I have selected for the text has been selected to enhance the reading experience. Black text contrasts a little too much against white backgrounds, a shade of black such as #666666 is much easier on the eyes.

By borrowing elements of the printed medium I have created a design which not only mimics some of the experience of reading offline but that also enhances a readers experience online. And which hopefully stops them from pressing the print button.

www.400seconds.com