The web offers a plethora of sites with great photography and reading material. To find two sites worthy of critique, I visited Arts and Letters Daily or ALDaily.com. The website links web publications’ most interesting new content daily as well as keeps a great list of fascinating periodicals.
For this critique I looked at the commercial More Intelligent Life by the Economist and the nonprofit Guernica Magazine, which is likewise a magazine of arts and ideas.
The clear difference between the commercial and non-profit online magazines is the busyness of the page. More Intelligent Life is surrounded by advertisements. Moreover, a picture link to feature stories changes every few seconds. The site displays content in gray boxes or on a white background. An extensive menu exists on a black background, while sub menus, some for advertisements, have different styles.
The non-profit Guernica, on the other hand, has a very clean and calm display. There are two commercial ads using images, both for Boston Review, which are stationary. Near the bottom of the page is a Google ad listing websites, which is less distracting than the many ads on More Intelligent Life.
Both magazines primarily feature articles, yet both use photos as promotional illustrations. Yet, there is a clear difference between how each uses images. Guernica certainly has more beautiful photos, which drew me towards the site more than More Intelligent Life. There’s a reason for this advantage. Where as More Intelligent Life doesn’t credit its images, it seems that Guernica puts more effort into finding great photography. For example, most pictures are credited to professional photographers and link to websites. They rest, which is many, are from Flickr accounts with appropriate links. The diversity of sources infers that a lot of work is done to comb the web for great shots. Moreover, with a less distracting, white background and less ads, viewers can appreciate photos more.
In addition, Guernica offers a better presentation where photos are most importantly features — the arts sections. For each article, More Intelligent Life features a large photo of an artwork at the top of the article and smaller images with the article. Guernica makes use of slide show, with same format as the Missourian, to show images of art much larger and on an equal footing for each piece.
The lesson learned from this comparison is that photographs ought to be given respect for their significance. If the Economist’s More Intelligent Life wishes to illustrate its articles, it should question how display alters the effect of an image on the viewer. Guernica, which displays photos and articles so well, may want to consider featuring more photojournalism along with it’s insightful articles and art reviews.
Sources:
http://moreintelligentlife.com/
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