What’s the first thing you do when you wake up in the 21st century? … Put the kettle on and make coffee? Roll over and tell your partner how good it feels to be alive? Turn the TV on? Wrong, wrong, wrong you boot up your computer right? Sad but true … my first two ports of call are the BBC News website and the Guardian Online and this is before getting to things like feed readers, email and server checks etc.

This morning I was reading the Guardian Online and I noticed they’ve had a website revamp. I’d seen it coming to be honest, because for along the Guardian’s website has felt cramped and under-represented, particularly when you switch from screen to print; and when compared to the BBC News site, it almost felt as if the Guardian’s chief editors were still not entirely convinced that investing in Internet journalism was the right thing to do. While the UK still has a relatively healthy printed newspaper obsession, with the increase in broadband Internet subscribers, people are inevitably turning to their PC screens for their daily dose of fear and paranoia.

Just this year, the Guardian began experimenting with the culture section of their online newspaper, they started a new culture blog spanning all areas of the arts and took the ‘leap’ (more of a hop really) towards reader interaction by allowing blog comments. This has proved to be highly successful and the new site has clearly taken alot of that learning onboard.

So what’s new? Well for starters as you can see below (old Guardian on left, new Guardian on right) there are now 4 columns instead of three and two principal columns devoted to news coverage allowing for more news content and giving the impression of more stories, more coverage etc. The two right hand columns contain most of the new design’s graphic elements and the third column uses a nifty rollover script to display image titles and hyperlinks. The new layout also makes clever use of the footer, taking inspiration from the blogging world and its extended footer designs. This is a vast improvement over the former design where the footer consisted mostly of advertising and legal blurb.

Overall I think there’s been a clear decision to colour-code the site going for colour sophistication as opposed to sporadic explosions of colour as seen before. The font type and font colour scheme of the new design are reminiscent of the Tarski WordPress blog design, with blues and subtle greys. The whole thing spells out the Guardian’s new-found web confidence and it is generally a joy to read and navigate. Good call Guardian chiefs!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 3:46 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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