New Design on the Ayn Rand Institute

[Chops]

It looks like the ARI updated their look: http://www.aynrand.org

My only beef with the new design is that the fading on the menubars goes a little too slowly and ends up being hard to read if you're scanning the options.

[tito]

Its certainly more logically laid out.

[DavidOdden]

Vastly better: the old dark background made it very hard to read.

[Benpercent]

Slick! I haven't been to their site in a while since all the op-eds and such are e-mailed to me.

[Chops]

Vastly better: the old dark background made it very hard to read.

It also made it look a little dated. Dark websites typically don't look right for a professional organization, and haven't been for 5-8 years.

[DragonMaci]

I prefer lighter backgrounds on websites. Dark colours don't look good as website backgrounds. As such am glad about this change.

[JASKN]

I agree that a lighter background is more suitable for the ARI site, but I'm disappointed with the new look. A redesign should be an aesthetic upgrade from its predecessor, and it should at least look "professional." I don't think the new site is either of those.

[Grant]

I don't like it. Could definitely be better.

(I'm a web designer)

[Seeker]

I actually prefer dark backgrounds, but apart from that, I think that the new design presents a perceptual blizzard. The use of non-underlined blue for hyperlinks is non-standard and confusing, especially coupled with dark red non-links of the same size; certain items, like "Our current feature: The Corporation, by Yaron Brook" appear to be links but aren't; the menu bar's strange fade-in/out effects are disorienting, as are the varying font sizes; the uneven and non-hierarchical stacking of sections within columns is essentially arbitrary; the grey column at left is mostly wasted space. If I had to guess, I would say they were going for something along the lines of the Drudge Report, but at least Drudge maintains a simple consistency (black and white, one font, one size, hyperlinks underlined, etc.). Perhaps worst of all, there is no image, apart from a few at the bottom, of Ayn Rand herself on the very website that bears her name. Seeing this site for the first time, the first idea conveyed is: "confusion!". I think that ARI would do well to take this one back to the drawing board.

[Seeker]

For some interesting alternatives it's worth checking out some past versions. I found this one especially striking and fitting. I also liked the last version quite a bit.

[Steve D'Ippolito]

For some interesting alternatives it's worth checking out some past versions. I found this one especially striking and fitting. I also liked the last version quite a bit.

Actually I was not enamored of the previous layout. The menu was an arbitrary mish-mosh of things; some above the title, some below it, some still above the title but below the other stuff above the title, no obvious rhyme or reason as to which went where, in fact it seems like the less important and least likely to be accessed things were on top.