3 ms·

I'm struck by how beautiful that page design was. We don't really daily printed things that look nice anymore. Certainly web pages don't look/read well, and as

I'm struck by how beautiful that page design was. We don't really daily printed things that look nice anymore. Certainly web pages don't look/read well, and as much as I like Feedly/Unread, reading an article there isn't better than reading a printed magazine article.. then and still.

least 3y ago
The unfortunate reality of working with responsive layouts and unlimited canvas sizes are that it's rare to see anything on the web that looks as delightful as a page in a magazine or book, where the dimensions/aspect ratio are static. There are occasionally some pages that really demonstrate the best of what can be but creating these is significantly more expensive than designing a nice looking layout for a magazine. I actually really miss designing webpages without any consideration for accessibility or for different sized screens because I felt like you could be a lot more creative back when you'd just throw a "Best viewed at 800x600 in Internet Explorer" disclaimer on your website.
- AnonCoward42 3y ago
  I honestly don't see the dichotomy here. Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo.
  - least 3y ago
    > Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo. You can't both enforce a very specific aspect ratio and dimensions and be responsive with any semblance of practicality. The reason the magazine page can look good is because the person designing it knows exactly the size of all the elements, the aspect ratio and dimensions of the page it's being printed to. All of the graphics are placed intentionally, and all of the type is set intentionally to exactly where they want it to be and how they want it to look, with of course the constraint of the content dictating what that will be. On a webpage you're just doing a lot of guessing of what the viewport might look like for users. You probably could, through media queries, determine if a person's viewport is exactly right for your one desired layout and only show it if that's the case, but that'd be a waste of resources. You could also enforce the layout you want in your css by setting things by pixels and then you'll be sure that it looks exactly as you intend... except then it isn't responsive. So hypothetically, yes, you could still have it be responsive, but there's just no point, is there, if only the people that happen to meet your very specific requirements ever see it? That's why good web design is hard and why it's become, in my opinion, kind of boring in terms of layout design. You have to account for all those different devices looking at it and try to make it look as nice as possible while still being useable.
  - lproven 3y ago
    > a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site I am that Liam :-) but the design isn't mine. It's a default Dreamwidth theme which I didn't choose or touch. I think it is intentionally retro and that is why it looks good. In contrast, compare with the WinAmp website: https://www.winamp.com/ https://www.winamp.com/ As soon as I saw the new site, I knew the new version of the program would be junk and wasn't even worth evaluating. All huge, wasteful of space, nasty animations wasting my time and my CPU cycles. It's plastic sh1t, and also expensive and a lot of work has been wasted on it... and therefore it seems very likely that the program will be too. Then to rub it in, the screenshot looks like horrendous flat cr4p that reminds me of Spotify, another egregious excrescence of gratuitous Javascript masquerading as a native program.
actionfromafar 3y ago
I'm disappointed with the keming though. "Red H at"
SoftTalker 3y ago
What am I missing? It's a three-column layout with an image in the center. It's OK, I guess. I'm not seeing any beauty. In fact, some of the text flow around the image looks quite awkward to me. It was probably done in 5 minutes with PageMaker or whatever publishing software magazines used at the time.
- lproven 3y ago
  [Author/submitter here] I did work in PCW's office a few times. I think it was Quark Xpress on classic MacOS. So there would be an artfully-designed template into which my edited copy was poured. I did like PCW's design, though. I worked for Heise for a while, and got to read and take material from Linux Magazine, both in English and German. I find German typographical design awful myself and I think most German print tech mags look really bad... But I think that to German eyes, British print material looks so glossy and (to borrow a musical term) over-produced that the instinctive response is to distrust it: it looks like advertising or "advertorial". What to me looks cheap and amateurish and ugly, I suspect to a German looks trustworthy and honest. Whereas as a Brit, American advertising looks so plastic and fake that I instinctually distrust it. It's all acres of gleaming white teeth and fake smiles, with a big glob of disclaimer squeezed in somewhere, and it makes me recoil from the product. Cf. product naming. The last motorcycle I owned was a Kawasaki ZZR-1100 (a "zed zed are eleven hundred"). To Brits, the numbers sound hi-tech and exciting. In Japan it was a ZX-11. Maybe that reminds Brits of budget Sinclair computers too much? In America it's a ZX11 Ninja. Zee ecks eleven Ninja. To a Brit that makes it sound like a childrens' toy. I wouldn't want to be seen dead on a bike called a "ninja". I'm not 11 and I do not aspire to be a turtle.

least 3y ago

The unfortunate reality of working with responsive layouts and unlimited canvas sizes are that it's rare to see anything on the web that looks as delightful as a page in a magazine or book, where the dimensions/aspect ratio are static. There are occasionally some pages that really demonstrate the best of what can be but creating these is significantly more expensive than designing a nice looking layout for a magazine. I actually really miss designing webpages without any consideration for accessibility or for different sized screens because I felt like you could be a lot more creative back when you'd just throw a "Best viewed at 800x600 in Internet Explorer" disclaimer on your website.

AnonCoward42 3y ago
I honestly don't see the dichotomy here. Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo.
- least 3y ago
  > Can't you do both if you want? Use a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site and make it responsive (where necessary). Actually ... this site is already responsive enough imo. You can't both enforce a very specific aspect ratio and dimensions and be responsive with any semblance of practicality. The reason the magazine page can look good is because the person designing it knows exactly the size of all the elements, the aspect ratio and dimensions of the page it's being printed to. All of the graphics are placed intentionally, and all of the type is set intentionally to exactly where they want it to be and how they want it to look, with of course the constraint of the content dictating what that will be. On a webpage you're just doing a lot of guessing of what the viewport might look like for users. You probably could, through media queries, determine if a person's viewport is exactly right for your one desired layout and only show it if that's the case, but that'd be a waste of resources. You could also enforce the layout you want in your css by setting things by pixels and then you'll be sure that it looks exactly as you intend... except then it isn't responsive. So hypothetically, yes, you could still have it be responsive, but there's just no point, is there, if only the people that happen to meet your very specific requirements ever see it? That's why good web design is hard and why it's become, in my opinion, kind of boring in terms of layout design. You have to account for all those different devices looking at it and try to make it look as nice as possible while still being useable.
- lproven 3y ago
  > a design like the one on Liam on Linux' site I am that Liam :-) but the design isn't mine. It's a default Dreamwidth theme which I didn't choose or touch. I think it is intentionally retro and that is why it looks good. In contrast, compare with the WinAmp website: https://www.winamp.com/ https://www.winamp.com/ As soon as I saw the new site, I knew the new version of the program would be junk and wasn't even worth evaluating. All huge, wasteful of space, nasty animations wasting my time and my CPU cycles. It's plastic sh1t, and also expensive and a lot of work has been wasted on it... and therefore it seems very likely that the program will be too. Then to rub it in, the screenshot looks like horrendous flat cr4p that reminds me of Spotify, another egregious excrescence of gratuitous Javascript masquerading as a native program.

actionfromafar 3y ago

I'm disappointed with the keming though. "Red H at"

SoftTalker 3y ago

What am I missing? It's a three-column layout with an image in the center. It's OK, I guess. I'm not seeing any beauty. In fact, some of the text flow around the image looks quite awkward to me. It was probably done in 5 minutes with PageMaker or whatever publishing software magazines used at the time.

lproven 3y ago
[Author/submitter here] I did work in PCW's office a few times. I think it was Quark Xpress on classic MacOS. So there would be an artfully-designed template into which my edited copy was poured. I did like PCW's design, though. I worked for Heise for a while, and got to read and take material from Linux Magazine, both in English and German. I find German typographical design awful myself and I think most German print tech mags look really bad... But I think that to German eyes, British print material looks so glossy and (to borrow a musical term) over-produced that the instinctive response is to distrust it: it looks like advertising or "advertorial". What to me looks cheap and amateurish and ugly, I suspect to a German looks trustworthy and honest. Whereas as a Brit, American advertising looks so plastic and fake that I instinctually distrust it. It's all acres of gleaming white teeth and fake smiles, with a big glob of disclaimer squeezed in somewhere, and it makes me recoil from the product. Cf. product naming. The last motorcycle I owned was a Kawasaki ZZR-1100 (a "zed zed are eleven hundred"). To Brits, the numbers sound hi-tech and exciting. In Japan it was a ZX-11. Maybe that reminds Brits of budget Sinclair computers too much? In America it's a ZX11 Ninja. Zee ecks eleven Ninja. To a Brit that makes it sound like a childrens' toy. I wouldn't want to be seen dead on a bike called a "ninja". I'm not 11 and I do not aspire to be a turtle.