Comments on Boxes and Arrows Redesign

WL — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

Not Blog-ish? Isn’t MT your CMS?

- How frequently do you (now + future) add / update content? 6 entries/day? 3 entries/week?

erin malone — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

Hi Joshua -

we wanted to get a full range of judges from across the disciplines. I would consider Andrei and Nathan to cross the bounds between experience design, information design and interaction design.

On the other hand, I am still waiting for confirmation from 2 different designers we asked to judge. Until I hear yes, we are not at liberty to announce their names yet. We will do an updated announcement when we get this confirmation.

thanks

tiffany — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

Any information about how many users use 600×800 or 1024×768 (or *shudder* 640×480)?

Joshua Kaufman — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

Why is the panel of judges slated towards interaction design/usability professionals? How about throwing a designer or two on there? This isn’t just a usability competition is it?

bbop — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

typo on redesign page:

Then get our your pencils and start sketching!

erin malone — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

Some answers to some of your questions – I leave it to Christina to answer some of them as well.

1. We do want to freshen the brand. I think it’s time for a bit of a bolder look and a bolder presence in the field.

2. We are considering advertising and sponsorships. People want to give us money and right now the layout does not accomodate any way to present this.

3. Long term, I’d like to see us pursue more of the article types we started out with – case studies, design focused discussions, tutorials, interviews, historical roots pieces. We have also thought about what our offline presence could be. At the beginning we thought a year end annual or something like that might be nice.

4. Currently, some of the problems I see in the existing design is that we have one template that is supposed to fit all. There is no visual distinction between a long article and a short article. No distinction between a thought piece (editorial or big idea) and a case study or tutorial. There is no strong way to present a piece with a lot of images – or visual examples. I always wanted different templates for different article types. (see our categories for the types)

5. I speak for me on this one (the other editors will have to chime in):
Competition:
AIGA Journal – their redesign/new design is fabulous. http://journal.aiga.org/
Digital Web – similar articles and authors – http://www.digital-web.com/
Adaptive Path – not a journal but they write a lot of good essays and their partners have written for us as well. http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/
Communication Arts Design Interact – good stuff here – but they have the history of the printed magazine to build on and the editorial staff we don’t have (plus they are paid and we aren’t) http://www.designinteract.com/

Sites I Enjoy:the above mentioned – plus:
http://www.themorningnews.org/
http://www.kottke.org/
http://www.whatdoiknow.org/
http://www.zeldman.com/
http://www.informationdesign.org/
http://www.cityofsound.com/blog/
http://www.designobserver.com
http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/
among many that I visit regularly – but the writing and design of all of these is excellent.

Austin — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

I’ve got some questions I usually ask clients thatweren’t addressed above, so…

I’m assuming short term goals of the redesign are to:
1. freshen the brand a bit, and
2. include advertising.

Are there any long term goals for the publication?

Beyond messaging design in a non-arrogant manner, is there a specific way B&A wishes to be perceived? How is B&A perceived now? How do you not want to be perceived?

Are there any specific problems with the existing design you’d like to see fixed?

Who do you view as competition? What sites do the editors enjoy?

erin malone — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

Also – on the logo – the font and mark need to stay the same, but we will entertain alternative color choices.

erin malone — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:58 GMT

when we mentioned no code we really meant no code. JPEG, PNG, PSD are all we are asking for. This is primarily so we can engineer the design to our CMS and final development language.

Denis R — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:57 GMT

ok, logo is not for redesign, but also the blue theme has to stay the same?

Erin Malone — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:57 GMT

Apologies for the delay – had to hunt through 3 years of archives. But I have posted – as promised – eps and pdf files of the logo.
The eps can be found here: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/images/062104_rede… [190k]
The pdf can be found here: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/images/062104_rede… [68k]

URLs are correct now.

erin malone — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:57 GMT

Sure – I can post one for down load. Look for it later this evening.

cwodtke — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:57 GMT

“Why isn’t this a hyperlink?”

Spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam spam
spam spam spam
wonderful spam

(can I have a piece with less rat in it?)

DJ_V — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:57 GMT

“prettyface [at] boxesandarrows.com”? Why isn’t this a hyperlink?

CM Harrington — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:51:57 GMT

Sounds like a fun idea. Just a quick observation, I suggest removing the apostrophe from “New Rider’s”. It doesn’t belong there, and they are your sponsor.