Introducing Boing Boing Classic
This is what I believe. Design should be evolutionary, not revolutionary. Design should strive for simplicity and spurn complexity. Design should innovate, not emulate. Most importantly, design mistakes—that initial naivete of any fledging project—may eventually become its brand. Remember to embrace it! Look at Google. Craigslist. Coca Cola Classic.
With that in mind it was kind of shocking to see how Boing Boing, my favorite blog, redesigned their site this past week. They changed the logo (a throwback to the original print zine), they threw article callout boxes all over the place, they increased the font size, and they extended the homepage with unskimmable headline links. It seems, overall, they made a lot of design decisions that emulate the dying print world. I mean, c’mon, a masthead, really?
It’s not hard to explain my attachment to Boing Boing. For starters, it’s the only blog I still check directly, instead of plugging it into my feedreader. I probably go there multiple times a day, and just skim until I get down to posts I’ve already read. It was the first place I learned about Federated Media, a year before I started working there. It’s not because of the design (or legendary lack thereof) that I behave this way, I read it for the Boingers’ consistently stellar content and wit.
I decided I had to do something. I wanted my old Boing Boing back. I wanted Jackhammer Jill. I wanted a Boing Boing that was more Boing Boing than Boing Boing. One that Mark, Cory, Xeni, and David would be proud of. Boing Boing Classic. It was really that simple. So I registered boingboingclassic.net, grabbed the old layout and stylesheets from the Internet Archive, wrote a simple little feedparser+html generator, and voila. I give you:
Boing Boing Classic. Enjoy.
Update, Oct 12, 2009: I’ve stopped updating Boing Boing Classic so that my personal design criticism is not misconstrued by anyone as representing the opinions or attitudes of Federated Media, my employer and Boing Boing’s advertising partner.
Here’s a comparison of the redesigned Boing Boing vs. Classic:
Disclaimer: It should go without saying that this post and every post on Justinsomnia represent my own thoughts and are in no way intended to represent those of my employer, Federated Media, who provides the advertising revenue for Boing Boing.
comments: 16 so far...
Eric
If only you could “proxy” the whole thing (I prefer RSS but head back to BB for the comments), I would be in heaven. Thanks for this though! I can read the real page without getting a headache from all the content swirling around. I will certainly enjoy.
justin
When you think about it, I’ve always treated BB as a sort of feed aggregator by itself, just one where I didn’t choose the input feeds. For me, the redesign broke that functionality—Boing Boing Classic restores it and makes it better.
Mark
Justin, THANK YOU. I really am not fond of the new BB layout and find it hard to read. I am thrilled that I can still eat my lunch and scroll down the BB page at the same time. You rock.
Josh
Fantastic, thank you for this. I hadn’t check for awhile and actually thought writing had gotten worse, with your redesign made me realize hey they are just as great as always. Thanks!
Dean Putney
Hi Justin,
I coded and helped with the redesign of Boing Boing. I can see how much you love the blog and I’m interested in getting your input on the changes. Feel free to send me a message on AIM at mustardhamsters.
Dean
Nick
Very nice! I too much preferred the original look, but then again I am totally a sucker for the pixelated logo and ultra simplistic layouts in general…
Jason
“One that Mark, Cory, Xeni, and David would be proud of.”
I think that may be the version of BB they offer you, but hey — you can decide they are more proud of yours. If they wanted a site that looked like “Classic” however, I think they could have just left their old one be.
justin
Jason, I guess my point is that sometimes you don’t know what you have, or what represents your brand until its gone. And even then sometimes, especially in the case of a redesign, it can be hard to point a finger at those intangibles, when they’ve been replaced with a whole new design. Think back to the recent Tropicana packaging redesign. My hope is that by seeing the two designs side by side, they’ll be better able to point a finger at what they’ve lost.
matt
well done sir. me and a buddy were just griping about how there’s no visual flow anymore. all of the differently-sized boxes all over the place are disconcerting and there’s a lot of empty space with all of the “pictured” headlines.
khaoohs
Thank you. You have made boingboing readable again, just like http://alterslash.org makes slashdot readable.
BlueBrat
Thanks, this is sweet. I’ve been using greasemonkey in FF to nuke the comments out on BB, but this is a much better experience.
justin
Thanks for the positive comments all! In case you haven’t caught the post update, I’ve stopped updating Boing Boing Classic to head off any misperception that my personal beliefs and opinions represent those of my employer, who also happens to be Boing Boing’s advertising partner.
matt
maybe they can read the comments that appeared in just a few hours and re-think the design…
Jeremy
Bummed that BBClassic ended so soon.. I was excited to read it through the old format, well, permanently. Something about the new format is really turning me off.. design is powerful, and that particular one is pushing me away.
In response to DP, down below there (not that you asked me though) for the reason the old one works so much better for many of us: look at the side by side comparison. Simple, lots of space vs cluttered with images, boxes, side-text all competing for your attention. It was super easy to skim everything when it was set up in a simple column and nothing was competing for attention with the main body. Its really hard to beat simple. Look at google.
Mike Harris
I knew this wasn’t going to last. God knows at what precise point it happened, but we first learned BoingBoing had been thoroughly corrupted by the Dark Side with the Violet Blue matter, and I knew they’d figure out some low-profile way to shut down anyone undoing their redesign.
Lucius
More likely his employer, Mike. FM ads on Boing Boing and other sites pay Justin’s wages, this was maybe an ill-thought out gesture. There are already multiple sites just like this one, proxying BB in various forms, and they’re still up.