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Patrick Hruby on Dock Ellis, complete with funky design

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Versatile, Aug 23, 2012.

  1. I kind of like the design. It's something different, and it's a psychedelic feel for a story about a guy who led a psychedelic life. Sort of reminds me of Esquire's iPad app, which is a very 2012 way to experience a publication.

    The design on Hruby's piece was a bit overwhelming, but I thought it fit the experience.
     
  2. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I had problems with it on Chrome and Firefox and couldn't get it to load at all on Internet Explorer, which is what prompted the thread.
     
  3. mjp1542

    mjp1542 Member

    Works perfect on Firefox for me, and I really like the design.
     
  4. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    Design worked well on my laptop (MacBook Pro with Safari). I thought it looked awesome. Actually made me see the value of this kind of thing over paper, which is a first for me.
     
  5. brandonsneed

    brandonsneed Member

    I was going to same the same sort of thing. Read it on my MacBook Air with Chrome and it looked great. The story itself was excellent, too, Hruby. Nice work, dude.
     
  6. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Could you use the down arrow to scroll? That was my biggest objection.
     
  7. brandonsneed

    brandonsneed Member

    I used the touchpad and the scroll bar on the side. Just tried using the down arrow on my keyboard and yeah, that gave me some problems.
     
  8. JC

    JC Well-Known Member

    That was my problem as well.

    Great article, I thouroughly enjoyed it.
     
  9. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Based on how I read things, that's a big issue. I understand it may not be for others, but when I'm reading a good, long story, I don't want to think about how I'm going to scroll down to continue reading. As I said in the OP, other Outside The Lines stories with complex designs haven't given me that problem.

    But I think the design on many of these stories distracts from the writing. When I went back to look at the Wayne Drehs ultimate triathlon piece, I liked the design a lot less. I suppose it may draw in people who might otherwise not be too interested. And it engages the reader into doing more than just reading, which new online metrics track (inaccurately, in my opinion, but that's another thread for another day). But I think if you have 5,000-plus words of great prose, you shouldn't need to muddle it up. Print design is simple: You pull people in with something on the cover, then you let the words and photos stand for themselves on the jump page.

    Again, maybe I'm being regressive and conservative here. But I echo the thought that simplicity makes for a better reading experience.
     
  10. brandonsneed

    brandonsneed Member

    This story didn't bother me, visually, but I didn't really like the Wayne Drehs triathlete story's layout. That said, I admire the attempt at making stories with a lot of words more visually appealing. It's ambitious and inventive.

    But you're right. There's a fine line to walk with design when it comes to longform storytelling. I feel like Hruby's Doc Ellis piece walks that line well. The thing about great storytelling is that if it's good enough, the design really doesn't matter much.* Great design is like great writing—the best in the business do it amazingly well, and they do it well in a way that's not distracting.

    That said, I'll never criticize design or anything like that, because I simply have no talent for it. I didn't really like the Drehs layout, but others probably loved it, and again, I did really appreciate how ambitious it was.
     
  11. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    I'm curious as to how you landed on the ending. I would have preferred the sixth segment as an ending because it brought the focus back to pitching and the no-hitter. Obviously, you would have had to restructure parts of the story to work his death in above that pitching anecdote. But, as I said in a previous post, your seventh section felt more like an epilogue than a final chapter. It also struck me as strange that you ended on a quote, particularly one that didn't come from Ellis and didn't have anything to do with baseball.
     
  12. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Looking through old Outside The Lines pieces, I'm finding most are basically digital takes on traditional magazine design. There are a lot of thick frames around photos to add sort of a color scheme to the mix, but mostly the tops are illustrated or photo illustrated, then the rest of the story proceeds with photos and words.

    I did like the way data was displayed in this story by Paula Lavigne on stadium concessions, but I think that was a unique case for OTL, an investigation rather than a narrative. It's clear, though, from looking back at older pieces, that the OTL staff is ramping up its efforts on the design front. For instance, once you get past the topper in this 2009 Tom Friend piece on the fake Cal recruit, it's not more than individual photos inset around words. All of the 2012 efforts have been more complex than that.
     
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