greg-wood.co.uk

Devlounge

Devlounge is a magazine-type resource for web developers and designers. In Spring 07 they asked readers to have a go at refreshing their homepage in the form of a competition. I had a free Sunday, so I got myself settled on the sofa with a thermos and bashed out this effort.

Content

Being such a large resource of information, the Devlounge homepage needed effective organization; it looked far too blog-like before. A two column grid split into twelve sub columns was employed in order to present both recent and semi-recent content clearly. The lack of any strong aesthetic features ensures that the content remains uncompromised and colour is used sparingly to highlight functionality.

Typography

Special attention was taken during the design process to make sure the homepage was as readable as possible. Leading, tracking and font size were all considered carefully in order to create a natural reading experience. The classic typeface Helvetica has been used almost exclusively to impose a crispness and sense of authority, and the main heading is set in Trebuchet to add a little character.

Despite being the competition winning design, only elements of it were used in the final Devlounge redesign. You can check out the site as it stands at devlounge.net