Information Architects

This seems to be from the guys over at http://informationarchitects.jp/ - which explains the heavily typographic layout. I actually think it would be fantastic as a daily email round.

Many people'd disagree with you about what clutter is, I suspect. Take a site like http://informationarchitects.jp/. They're a firm who specialise in news design: unsurprisingly, their site uses rigid typographic hierarchy underpinned by a grid. It feels really uncluttered to me, but it's clearly taken a lot of work to achieve that. Then take Craigslist, which is the other extreme. There's no graphics at all, but it's an amazingly cluttered layout. Both Reddit and Hacker News are nearer the Craigslist end of things than the iA one. None are the acme of good web typography. That's fair enough - Reddit, HN and Craigslist are all huge successes in their niches. However, the design decisions (or choice not to make any design decisions) do affect the tone of a place.

Courtesy of http://informationarchitects.jp/ who happens to do some great work.

Absolutely agree re: typography. Or to quote this great post from @iA, "Treat text as a user interface" http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/the-web-is-all-about-typography… It includes its own great list of other resources, including A List Apart and Thinking with Type. I think a vast majority of websites ignore even basic principles like spacing, negative space, readability, and rudimentary concepts about typeface pairing.

iA Writer is great! http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/ia-writer-for-mac/

The followup (Part 2) is here: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/webdesign-is-95-typography-part…

1. Typohiles are megalomanics 2. We should read minds, but that would be megalomaniac 3. Let's just be a user then No. Users are people with an opinion. User experience designers are those who deal with all those user opinions and try to find the best compromise. User experience designers are engineers. http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/can-experience-be-designed-2/ But that's not what the article is about.

I think learning about typography would be a good stepping stone to learning design in general. Start off by reading Typography for Lawyers and iA’s post “Web Design is 95% Typography”. Both links have great advice and talk about the fundamentals of typography and type on the web. If the last links perked your interest than I recommend picking up The Elements of Typographic style. It is a great bible on the subject at the macro level. [1]http://www.typographyforlawyers.com/ [2]http://informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period… [3]http://www.amazon.ca/Elements-Typographic-Style-Robert-Bringhurst/dp/0…

The actual posts (http://informationarchitects.jp/designing-firefox-32/ and http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/firefoxnext-tabs-on-the-side/) are much more insightful than this blogspam. The prjor suggests that the iTunes-style design could be more of a "default landing page" than an actual tab replacement and a way of uniting the sidebars together. I could live with that.

As pretty as it is, I'm always on the fence about overcooked designs like this for a blog - blogs always have more html to download than a typical static page anyway and I just want to get reading. I based my current site design around minimal reading-friendly sites like: http://informationarchitects.jp/ http://garrettdimon.com/

I'm a designer myself and I lean towards very simple layouts focusing purely on the text/content and using it as the framework of the site, not shoving content into the framework. It tends to be better from a usability standpoint, SEO, and even aesthetically. Less is more. This is probably my favorite article on the topic: http://informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period…

I'm a big fan of information-architects.jp this article on web design typography is great: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-pe…

I also recommend the rest of the articles in their "IA Notebook" on design questions of all kinds: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/ia-notebook

Came into this thread to recommend this book and upvoted here. This is an older book, the 3rd edition is from 2008, but the first edition is a few years older I think. The most surprising thing (for me) was that design principles have not changed much in the past 100 years or so. This book is geared more towards print design (newsletters, fliers, business cards, etc) but the concepts translate really well to the web. Another point is TYPOGRAPHY! This shouldn't be overlooked and is easily the best way to improve the design of your site. Color schemes, graphics, and ornaments are secondary to getting the typography (font choice and style, layout, colors, pairing, etc.). Please do yourself a favor and read this article from the world-renowned web designers at Information Architects: http://informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period… -- be sure to read the resources at the end of that article. It's s a great place to get started. Good luck!!

You are just used to very small type. http://informationarchitects.jp/blog/100e2r/

If you're considering a redesign, I'd highly suggest http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/projects/

A better article on the topic: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/100E2R/

Oliver Reichenstein, a swiss/japanese news designer, has been writing about some similar thoughts: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/business-class-news/

Surprised he didn't link to Reichenstein's essay on the topic: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/100E2R

Is it just me, or does this look uncomfortably similar to the celebrated iA3 template for wordpress, designed by Information Architects? http://store.informationarchitects.jp/product/ia³-template http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/100e2r/

I find this better explains use cases. http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/ipad-scroll-or-card/

A hell of a lot of interviews in there---Some smart people weighing in. Though maybe Dadich, father of the Wired iPad app, is the OPPOSITE of design that gets out of the way of the reading experience? Check out these posts for more: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/wired-on-ipad-just-like-a-paper… http://www.subtraction.com/2010/10/27/my-ipad-magazine-stand

Start with "The Non-Designer's Design Book" by Robin Williams http://amzn.com/0321534042 You can devour that book in an afternoon. And since Typography is such an important part of design. You should read this blog post here: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/the-web-is-all-about-typography… and: The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web http://webtypography.net/

Hmm, I've done similar things based on my own experience (hah!) and what the Easy-2-Read standard[0] says about text color (start with #333 on #fff and work from there). Really, as long as your luminosity contrast ratio[1] is somewhat decent, you'll be ok. [0]: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/100e2r/ [1]: http://juicystudio.com/services/luminositycontrastratio.php

I actually find it more reminiscent of this: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/ias-2006-facebook-designs-redes…

View Source is your friend <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" href="http://informationarchitects.jp/wp-content/themes/iA3/css/ia3.css /> @import url(typography.css) http://informationarchitects.jp/wp-content/themes/iA3/css/typography.c… font-family: Georgia, "Hiragino Mincho Pro", serif;

There is some kind of "second part" to this article, published today: http://informationarchitects.jp/pronto/

If you want a printed one (which was my first thought) reserve it by sending them an email with "Reserve WTM" as the topic as per the instructions: http://informationarchitects.jp/web-trend-map-4-final-beta/ they will only make a thousand.

Dude, have you seen that WaPo thing? http://www.informationarchitects.jp/washington-post-redesign-as-a-wiki

I've had a very different experience with this. One of my friends from the US was made fun of for carrying around a FlipCam there because all their phones (pre Android/Apple) could already do that and in addition, they could edit their videos right from the phone. They would constantly ask "it JUST takes video?" They saw us Americans as the ones with oversimplified one button gadgets. The Japanese phone mfrs have had complete control of the entire platform (network, hardware and software) for too long. More than likely the dictionary mfrs and the phone mfrs were just staying out of each others' verticals. Now software (Apple,Android) is finally disrupting that and changing the market but I wouldn't agree that the Japanese thinking is around single function products. There's just a better solution now that didn't exist in the market before. Even then, I feel like culturally it's ok to use a dictionary in class but not a cell phone... This article (http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/kenya-hara-on-japanese-aestheti… does a good job describing how "less is more" is interpreted differently in Japanese design.