I have been a fan of Dustin Curtis for some time. It’s been a while, however, since I visited his website. (He doesn’t publish regularly. Maybe every couple of months or so.) But I try to make a point to every so often and I was not disappointed by my most recent trip, which yielded a two-part series on quotes by accidental presidents.
To put it bluntly, Dustin Curtis knows how to design the fuck out of the written word—online. It’s a beautiful thing to behold.
It’s especially exciting for someone like myself who sees in Curtis’ work a way forward. What if editorial sites slowed down their publishing cycles and paid more attention to design? What if each story was a uniquely designed, self-contained editorial morsel of perfection? Is this sustainable? I think so.
I don’t know Dustin Curtis, otherwise I would ask him directly, but I’m very curious what his traffic is like. Do these stories have peaks? What’s average time spent on each article? I would just love to get my hands on his analytics.
What’s wrong with this photo? The days of creating an infographic in photoshop and then uploading it to your site should be over. Or I should I say the days of creating an infographic in indesign for a newspaper or magazine, saving it as a .jpg or screengrabbing it and then uploading it should be over. It’s time to give serious thought to what skills a production staff working for an online site should possess and consequently, what kind of work they should be producing. Why can’t websites have art directors? Why can’t they strive for the same kind of unique production that popularized magazines in the ’60s and ’70s? Like here or here or here. CSS is super powerful (and not too time intensive, if you’re skilled) and everyone on an editorial website’s staff should be conversant in its potential.
