Neudal

Written by Typographica on June 29, 2004

Coudal redesigned. The pithy design blokes breathe new life into Times Bold by setting it huge and tight. Damn, even the site’s CSS file is pretty.

Thanks Chesh.

19 Comments

  1. nick shinn says:

    Yeah, I know.

    And news sites should look more like this, insteady of crappy little index pages crammed with ads. Yo — bring back the broadsheet!

    But it does bear a disconcerting similarity to a “desktop publishing” newsletter from 1990…

  2. Alexey says:

    It does look like a newspaper now. This tendency was going around for a long time now, but Coudal managed to sharpen it even more. And frankly, I don’t know if I should be happy or if I should pity this.

  3. armin says:

    I never cared for the fadish green background they had before, although the rest of the site was greatly designed.

    So I LOVE the new redesign. It is bold, colorful and crisp. I looked at it last night in OS X and it looked wonderful, this morning I looked at it in OS 9 (sans aliasing) and it doesn’t look quite as nice. But still, awesome job!

    “Like, for example, how the whole site’s color palette is determined by the main cover image.”

    I can’t wait to see this in action.

  4. nick shinn says:

    >I don�t know if I should be happy or if I should pity this.

    What should a web site look like? Designed for function, obviously, but if you think that the function is only for content that is very “webbish”, such as the Euro2004 site, with lots of small items, and constantly updating data, there’s more to it than that.

    What about areas where web design overlaps with other media paradigms, like newspapers, and, increasingly, TV.

    If there’s a legitimate (ie functional) reason that web design resembles legacy media, that’s OK. At first, such similarities make web look bad, because it lacks the sophistication. However, with the awesome headline typography, Coudal are taking on the old media on their own turf, so I say, go for it, because like with desktop, it won’t be long before the new media catches up.

    I’ll say it again, this is AWESOME typography. Tightly fitted Times Bold heads with Every Initial Capitalized may be a cliche in print, but in html???!!!! Text zoom, baby!

  5. Tom says:

    Pity they hard-code the text size in pixels.

  6. Cheshire says:

    I’m not an expert in CSS yet, but though I know the standards bullies don’t like specifying pixel heights for type, the alternative, percentages, often wreaks havoc on design because it’s dependent on what the user has set as a default font size in his or her browser.

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but unless a user has a 19-inch monitor set to 1800×1440 or some other inappropriate setting, 12px type will look just fine. People who need the text to be much larger have options in their browser.

    I absolutely love the connection between print and web that Coudal is going for. It dovetails with what I’ve been thinking that web publications need, which is a more fluid meshing between print design and web design. The 1980s-meets-2020s futuristic aesthetic that’s all around the web these days is good for what it is, but it doesn’t say that much to me. Rather than trying to imitate and update a retro vision of the future, Coudal is doing what I’d like to see more of: refining and challenging the present.

  7. > Pity they hard-code the text size in pixels.

    Well, so do we. And to honest, it’s not an issue in a reasonably modern browser with logically implemented text zoom. Safari. Mozilla. Firefox. It’s most unfortunate that the most ubiquitous browser on the planet – IE/Windows – completely futzes this up by ignoring pixel-declared sizes.

    Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.

  8. Regardless of the technical issues mashing content and structure together behind the scenes, the site is a freaking pleasure to look at.

  9. Armin says:

    �Like, for example, how the whole site�s color palette is determined by the main cover image.�

    I can�t wait to see this in action.

    And there it is! Beautiful!

  10. Alexey says:

    What about areas where web design overlaps with other media paradigms, like newspapers, and, increasingly, TV.

    that’s what I was thinking about when saying �pity�. I would be more happy to see TV-like web � in sense of using the advantages of the screen more � than merges of newspapers & web. I am not saying Coudal looks bad or something � it does look nice! � but the medium has more potential, than represented at the redesign.

    Though, frankly speaking, as coudal.com serves its functions well, I guess, it can be said, that the redesign was successfull enough.

  11. nick shinn says:

    Alexey, can you recommend some good “TV-like web” sites?

  12. geraint says:

    >I�ll say it again, this is AWESOME typography.

    totally agree. never thought i’d be knocked out by times bold

  13. Alexey says:

    Nick,

    heavy.com, cbc radio 3, Ourtype, Bmw, Acura are good examples. They are completely or partially flash-based, yes, but it is what makes the web look like… ehh.. web!

    Veer.com, Dresdner-Bank.com are good examples of html-based web-rooted layout – and no resemblance with TV or Paper. That’s what I mean. :)

  14. nick shinn says:

    Thanks Alexey, not so sure about some of your examples, though. The flat graphics of Ourtype is more like film animation.
    One way TV is ahead, is how designers are integrating cut-outs (with transparancy even) against live action.

    That would be more After Effects than Flash, if we’re talking tools.

    Flash is disctinctly webbish when the user is “playing” with the speed of an interaction, controlling it by mouse.

    Recently, this blew me away as being both TV-like and hyper web:
    http://www4.insinc.com/cponline/newbrunswick/fed_elxn_2004.html

  15. Cheshire Dave says:

    From the Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Plagiarism Department: we’re not the only ones who like the new design.

  16. Nice catch Dave. That’s pretty gross.

  17. newsdesigner says:

    You’d think “web designers” would know that when you steal a design, it’s a good idea to make sure that clicking on the logo at the top of your page would take you to your home page and not the page you ripped off. Smoooooth.

  18. Cheshire Dave says:

    Credit for the link goes to the victim of the theft — saw it on Coudal’s site yesterday. I hadn’t caught the link from the perp’s logo. That might have been how Jim caught ’em.

  19. Coudal says:

    Didn’t take much detective work Ches, I saw it crop up in the referrer logs.

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