I started buying Monocle magazine two months ago, after reading one issue from a colleague, mostly because it is a magazine focusing on different perspectives and issues from all around the world, but also because you really feel that you buy a high quality magazine from the paper, structure, photographs and illustrations. This article from cityofsound describes what/how they did to reach the same quality level on the online version. Its a long one but it really worth the time.
With that, I thought I’d pause to reflect on some of the design and strategy choices I made with Monocle.com and share them here. I’ve often tried to be ‘transparent’ about the work done on projects here, in the hope that it stimulates useful thought or conversation in other projects elsewhere, and partly to facilitate my own reflections on work. None of what follows is rocket science, and it’s not the place to look for thoughts on 2.0/3.0, social software, or urban informatics. That would be in the accounts of different projects. But if you’re interested in the honest craft of website work, almost deliberately old-fashioned ‘classical’ web design – and how to ally this with innovation in magazine publishing – the following should provide a decent account of several of the key decisions in this particular project.”