Garrett Dimon's new website is truly marvelous because it's not about the design, it's about the content. Unfortunately, we don't see too many business sites that follow this model. Clients just don't buy into this kind of thing. They want more flash, more sizzle, and we're not good enough to talk them out of their ill-conceived notions. At the end of the day, we're not really doing web design like Garrett did, we're doing "client design."
It’s not my revelation that Garrett’s design is centered around content. He talks about this, extensively. But it has always been clear to me that when you design content so that it’s easy and inviting to read, on the Web or in print, you’re doing the right thing.
A lot of people like Apple.com, and for good reason. It’s a great website. Apple has the advantage of being able to create content for some truly compelling products, but they stage them individually on the web so well. The content design for the iPhone isn’t forced into the same format used for the iMac. Their approach is very effective.
Most clients don’t focus on content design. They focus on the peripheral elements. The header, footer and sidebars. Content, meanwhile, usually just gets slotted or templated. Get some “Lorem ipsum” in the comps, and you’re good. Content is seldom designed, much less hand-crafted.
The impact of widespread disregard for content design is tangible. How many websites can we skim a half-dozen pages and not recall a single paragraph five minutes afterwards? Same boring page, after page, after page. No wonder we don’t read on the web.
It’s ironic. Marketers spend a lot of time and money crafting content, but the effort just goes down the drain. Sometimes, they’ll even tell you they don’t expect anyone to read the material, anyway. Crazy.
Admittedly, Garrett’s site only reminds me of the mistakes I knew I was making when I redesigned this website. Too much templated content, for one. And my homepage type is probably too small, as well.
The Web and print are two very different mediums, but I can’t help to think that if we hand-crafted more “magazine-like” pages on the Web, we’d have better readership.
Posted by Todd
