design for dummies

There are horrible things going on in this world. Nuclear meltdown horrible. And that's not a metaphor...

But this isn't a blog about that. And that's OK. As fellow DC blogger/writer Lemmonex wrote recently, "Give the finger to that ass that cuts you off and mutter at the woman holding you up at the grocery store. It doesn't mean that you don't care about all the pain and suffering in the world, it just means that you are dealing with your world as best you can on a daily basis."

That's right, I'm coping. And I must thank The Washington Post for helping me along. See, they recently redesigned their Web site and it's helping me completely avoid so many of the terrible atrocities going on in the world. See?

Web designer 1: You like picture? The drunk toddler who's clearly in charge : DERP!

OK, so there's one tragedy I couldn't avoid. But think of all the ones I did! Libya who? Riots in Bahrain what? Yes, it seems the Post is the honey badger of the newspaper world -- it don't give a sh*t! One picture and a big-ass advertisement (not to be confused with a big ass-advertisement) for George Washington University School of Business and voila! F*ck everything else!

And it just gets worse... HOW MANY FONT VARIATIONS DOES ONE PAPER NEED?! As one commenter noted:

There are about a dozen conflicting font/size combinations on the front page alone, and they don't make any kind of intuitive sense. Sometimes section headings are in a serif old-school news font (e.g. "Featured Galleries"), where other headings are in a sans serif font (e.g. "Featured Videos"). Some headlines are in serif, while others aren't, and there appears to be no rhyme or reason for the differences. This very comment box uses a serif font of unique size to request that I "Weigh In," while I can count at least seven different sans serif text sizes in my view, not to mention varietals of bolded text, underlined text, all caps, no caps and grayed out text...

...I've been frustrated with certain aspects of the Post in the last few years, especially your op-ed contributors. But still I've relied on this site as my main news portal. The redesign is making me reconsider."

I couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I suppose I didn't. Well complained, sir. Well complained.