A Word About Unsolicited Redesigns ⇥

Khoi Vinh, former NYTimes.com lead designer, responds to this unsolicited redesign:

It’s a redesign that contains some genuinely good ideas and is executed professionally. But the argument that the redesign’s author makes is not quite so persuasive, mostly because it makes some rash assumptions, misses some critical realities and, perhaps worse of all, takes a somewhat inflammatory approach in criticizing the many people who work on the original site.

Paul Scrivens responded to news sites in general, with Rutledge’s design in mind:

Seriously though, how often do you go to a news site looking for one particular headline that is crammed 2400px down the page? I know I don’t and I can’t remember finding any hidden gems either. […] Newspapers always have one front page article that receives the giant headline treatment. The rest of the articles the readers have to “scroll” and find. Why can’t their online counterparts work in the exact same way?

Via Daring Fireball.