Exciting Web Design Trend

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Web design has clearly come a long way and the standard experience is certainly more attractive and useful than in previous years.  We’re in an exciting period now where some design centered groups are pushing the boundaries of what a reading experience should be, taking into account the multitude of ways people consume information online in 2013 (smartphone, tablet…desktop…).  In regards to a reading experience, I’ve noticed two sites I frequent quite a bit (one more than the other) experimenting with heightening the consumption experience incorporating multimedia seamlessly within the narrative flow…and they are doing it beautifully.

The New York Times, known for their push for forward thinking, published a piece last December on the Tunnel Creek avalanche.  The piece incorporates excellent multimedia elements (which are USEFUL) and blend them into the flow seamlessly, instead of in parallel or as a distraction.  This effort took an initial agreement from all teams involved with the design and collaborative approach.  All facets from overall concept, flow and design needed to be coordinated during production. The NYT plans to roll this type of design out in an iterative fashion and I can only assume we’ll see more of this in the future as they roll it out to include the main site, ebooks and entirely new mediums.  It will be interesting to see how they incorporate adverting.

​NYT: Snow Fall

Pitchfork (yes, this is the site I frequent the most of the two) is doing similar work with some of their artist profiles- check out the Ty Segall and Bat for Lashes pieces.

You’ll be seeing a lot more of this trend soon.