jaketbrooks:

So NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen finally got around to redesigning PressThink, his blog where he expounds on the “ghost of democracy in the media machine.” The new design by Lauren Michell Rabaino is tight and sharp—a vast, vast improvement over its predecessor.

The design features one beautifully simple (from the user’s perspective), yet remarkably innovative function: paragraph-level permalinks (circled above). Jay likes to write—he also likes to Tweet, Tumbl, etc. These permalinks allow him and any one of his many followers to pick apart his long-form articles and comment. Simple, yet, dare I say it, brilliant!

I know their not new—the developer’s post about the code behind paragraph-level permalinks is dated Feb. 2010—and I don’t want to geek out ad nauseum. But I just love how a small, simple idea can have such a transformative effect on content.

A superb login page.

And heck, while we’re at it — so should news design, since essentially, they’re the same: both ways to consume content. If news design wants to mimic digestibility of blogs, they would copy the same concepts. Stumbled upon this post this morning and fell in love with how damn clean it is:

Specific likes of this design:

• + Simple, clean logo
• + Huge, visually-appealing background image (fixed)
• + Minimal distractions on the actual body itself. No sidebar. Just a little sliver with a date and “share” items
• + Easy-to-find social media and subscribe buttons

Stole this style of css markup from @ahemhill. I dig it.

If it’s not something I’d wear on a t-shirt, it’s not simple and compelling enough. Best example off the top of my head: Socialcast. Their motto: Knowledge is social. That’s spiffy. It’s a good basic threshold for determining the effectiveness of the message you’re trying to convey to both the general public and potential customers:

(Source: socialcast.com)

Love the typography

I love this “speed dial” concept on Recovery.org. There’s a big “Looking for?” button over which you can hover to choose who you are or what you’re seeking. It’s a quick navigation element, broken down with a different hierarchy than the main nav. 

If we were to use this in new design, the “Who are you?” could be broken down by profession:

• Working Professional
• Student - College
• Student K-12
• Parent
• Retired

and choosing one of the options would filter the news down to what’s relevant to that particular age group.

You could also do the “What are you looking for?” concept, which for news could be something like:

• Events
• Data
• An overview of today’s news
• + Set your own filter (which would allow for customizability).

Just a few ideas.

I really like how hovering over a lefthand menu item on GOOD’s site highlights the active element across the entire page. There are only a few instances in which this could actually work and GOOD pulls it off well. 

Stumbled across this blog at Less Everything and I love the design. I might copy elements of it for my personal site. 

Love:

• Lefthand navigation
• Color scheme
• Simplicity. Not a lot of clutter in the sidebars
• No header. The title of the post is the dominant part of the layout.

One of my new favorite things to do is keep a stack of blank 960-grid sheets at my desk so I can randomly start sketching ideas if they come to me.

I’ve let my use of tumblr fall by the wayside these days. I’m going to pick it back up by using this as my scrapbook of stellar design findings. Stay tuned, mmk?

My interpretation of 100% Solution: Force innovation by creating a huge challenge for which your team needs to creatively concoct a solution.