stuff123

Rather than end up as just another request in either the forum or an email to today.com, I thought I would share my feelings about the one only approach to everybody’s blog—specifically the new single look and feel. I can understand that it makes it easier for the folks at today.com but it takes away a major method of expressing one’s individuality.

I will find ways to work around this problem, but there are lots of folks out there writing that don’t have the knowledge or skills to do so. It is, in my mind, a very poor way to treat the contributors.

Some of the design changes are very good. It is a well organized layout but is over dominated by ads. The today.com heading is far from neutral so I think a better way to separate it from everyone’s header is to reverse the blog name (in white) out of one of the darker greys used in the page selction icons. This would create a fairly solid bar between the today.com header and the blog header. It is then up to the contributor to decide what that header should be. Neutral is always good as transition between a dominating red and whatever the contributor chooses.

The type is just too small. Maybe they should read mice print. Not everyone has 20/20 vision. There is a workaround using the Ctrl keys in conjunction with the +, -, and 0 keys. (see altering , last few paragraphs. The change has also destroyed some of my formatting changes and positioning of the graphics. Since it is an older article today chooses to lock you out of any editing possibility so the information in the post is now incorrect)

The choice of colours is not so much a problem as the lack of contrast and thickness in the fonts to make links stand out better. The font choice is not what typographers consider a better choice for reading. It is a sans serif font, meaning it has no tails and hooks on the letters that make them easier to read. I chose Georgia in another blog for that reason. Don’t try to change your font. There are defaults within the editor that will override your choice in many cases and especially if you use anything but paragraph for style selection.

There also needs to be more of a definitive break between posts. A rule about 12-16 points in the grey that matches the page icons would work nicely.

I tried to create a more casual tone with the look and feel so that the overall image was not so formal. This layout is more suited to documentation than writing that is more free spirited.

I’m sure the forum and customer support will be swamped with a lot of angry contributors. I really don’t see any reason to contact them because I am finding them more and more a large waste of time. The people that staff them are trained to deflect the problem rather than solve it. But I’m sure there will be more and more contributors looking for the delete button for their account in the next month or so.

I only have one word for today.com’s approach to changing the creative environment within these blogs.

Disappointing.