22 Oct 2003 | Gwilym said...

Personally, I found it well thought out with an elegant use of type. However this hasnt been the opinion of some...

http://www.designateonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1844

22 Oct 2003 | Scrivs said...

My only real beef is that the navigation text is way too small. Other than that I wasn't looking for any special design that was going to revolutionize everything. In that respects I kind of feel sorry for Zeldman because from now on any of his designs might not live up to the hype they get. Maybe he shouldn't have let us know that the "new" ALA was coming soon. Oh well...great articles.

22 Oct 2003 | Mike said...

The text scales extremely well (with browser text sizing controls), which is probably one of the most difficult things to accomplish after your code is totally semantic and standards-compliant.

I personally enjoy the torture of using em's and percentages for the size of everything, but that's just me ;)

As said in the design forums, I like the Trebuchet MS as well, I think the "pointy-ness" of it aids in readability at least on the web.

22 Oct 2003 | Mike said...

The text scales extremely well (with browser text sizing controls), which is probably one of the most difficult things to accomplish after your code is totally semantic and standards-compliant.

I personally enjoy the torture of using em's and percentages for the size of everything, but that's just me ;)

As said in the design forums, I like the Trebuchet MS as well, I think the "pointy-ness" of it aids in readability at least on the web.

22 Oct 2003 | Mike said...

Sorry about the double-post, it wasn't intended.

22 Oct 2003 | wppk said...

To me, the site seems really crowded. I would prefer Arial Bold (yeah, I know...) over Trebuchet. Trebuchet reminds me of the type used in the Star Trek movie titles.

22 Oct 2003 | JF said...

Have you guys looked at the content yet?

22 Oct 2003 | Gwilym said...

Yes, people seemed to have missed the quality of the articles. I like to think of this type of designing for the web as analogous to book design or newspaper design. Without wanting to seem pretentious, Im reminded of a quote by Robert Bringhurst 'Typography is like bread: ready to be admired, appraise and dissected before it is consumed' Well I feel the same about this type of web design. The content is what matters but it needs to be presented is an elegant and thoughtful manner as possible.

22 Oct 2003 | wppk said...

Have you guys looked at the content yet?Yes. The articles are great - they have always been great. I have been going to ALA for year, which is why I only commented on the layout.

23 Oct 2003 | Darrel said...

As always, good content.

As for visual design, it's incredibly dated trendiness.

And I can't stand grey text on white. The body text is overpowered by the sea of white and the bright red is too much. But maybe that's just me.

23 Oct 2003 | dayvin said...

Does anyone else think the speed dating ads, both here and on zeldman.com, cheapen the user experience? Appearance-wise, they blend nicely, but selling speed dating seems so ... seedy.

23 Oct 2003 | p8 said...

I always found ALA one of the best html design sites with some of the best developers who really know what they are talking about. Good to see it's back with new content.

And, how cool is it that there are 37 design articles?
I couldn't find them could you be more specific?

23 Oct 2003 | Scrivs said...

I think JF meant there is actually 37 total design articles. Not "37 Design" articles.

And I agree that the site serves the purpose of the content that it holds. Free resource with useful articles equals great resource to me.

24 Oct 2003 | p8 said...

My mistake :)