Layout Thoughts: Details March 2015
About the blur: I'm only writing about these pages based on details in layout. I don't want to accidentally infringe on anyone's copyright, hence the "content" itself is blurred whenever there's a paragraph or more. If you are the content owner and want me to take these down, I completely understand.
Clever "yes" in the background (it's actually much easier to see when everything is blurred). I did think "hey, this is clever" more than "hey, this helped me understand the point of the text", though.
It's pretty tough to photograph a table and light and try to make it attractive. It takes up a ton of vertical space, which is annoying for copy, and it's bland (especially in an uninhabitable modern stark house, as this suggests). Still, I like that the main paragraph breaks the gridline, and pushes the eye towards the bottom paragraph. It kept me reading.
Details' feature pages are areas where the layout team gets to have some typgraphic fun. This one, about the porn industry in japan, looks like a Japanese character at a glance (if it exists, it's one I don't know), but quickly becomes two men, one handing off the job to another in a suggestive relay. It's the best kind of icon: it summarizes the content while declaring boldly the tone and context.
Two ads intrigued me. First, K&N, which makes me think of the late 70's orange & red style that Alex Varnese uses to a wonderful end. I don't really know what this ad is doing in Details, but it's a slick and stylish addition to what would be an otherwise super boring product.
The other ad is the most pro wrestling thing I've seen Cadillac attempt. (I know it's a Roosevelt quote, but I think of it primarily as a great metaphor for wrestling). It's a car ad with no car, and no positive message. It's an ad about failure, but great failure. It's also mostly type (mostly italic type). You can't read this without wanting to know what's going on over at Cadillac, but I bet most people will just wonder how much trouble they're actually in. They won't go buy a car, just because they're being dared to.
