Dabbling in this Art Directing doohickory

A few years ago I came across a site called A Brief Message, a design blog which was doing something much different to other blogs. Rather than having a standard layout which got transferred from one article to the next, some fixed elements were created (masthead, comments etc) then each new article was appropriately designed to fit the content, much like they do in magazines and newspapers.

Since then a number of personal blogs cropped up rocking a similar process and it's an interesting to see how different people approach their designs. Personal favourites of mine have to be those of Jason Santa Maria and Greg Wood. Not only do they write interesting content, the designs they come up with are brilliant.

I've been wanting to try it out for myself for a long time but have never had the time and patience to work out how to pull it off. After lots of experimenting, I've overcome the technical challenges and somehow managed to create a design that I'm happy with although I have a long way to go before I reach the standard these other folks. For me this site is about experimentation, allowing me to play with writing and design and hopefully learn something along the way.

I intend to write a post in the near future sharing my own process during this redesign so check back soon.