I know it’s a news site, but it looks like it’s trying to mimic print rather than adapt to a new medium.

Interesting point. Although I can’t speak on Khoi’s behalf, I’m inclined to believe that this was a conscious decision. So much of the NY Times brand is invested in its print material that the brand may become diluted if its website spun off in its own direction. In this case, the tradeoff may have been to sacrifice some of the benefits of web media to preserve a consistent identity. However, that in itself is a discussion worthy of a separate blog post. Thanks for bringing it up. :)

Yeah, I think I get your point — something doesn’t have to look minimalist in order to be minimalist (and looking stereotypically minimalist = looking Swiss).

I also take your point re the typography both sites employ (msnbc looks pretty similar to NY Times give or take a bit of eye candy); I also like the fact they both use a completely conventional blue to indicate links.

My ‘gripe’ is with the amount of stuff on the page, which isn’t ‘reductionist’ (even if the site isn’t ornamental). Vinh obviously does a spectacular job of organising a lot of content, but wouldn’t a minimalist ethos suggest reorganising and removing some information? I mean - who is going to reach that ‘Automobiles’ link right at the bottom of the page?

Not only is the page hard to scan, but there are some pretty small, hard – to – read fonts in there.

I know it’s a news site, but it looks like it’s trying to mimic print rather than adapt to a new medium.

Ta, Leon

The NY Times website is an interesting example because it looks absolutely jam-packed full of info, so at first glance, it doesn’t seem minimalist at all. However, that’s simply the result of what it is — it’s a news site. However, it does so while sticking to the absolute basics. Only four colors are used to differentiate text, and content is separated either by single-line or double-line borders.

Compare nytimes.com against msnbc.com.

Both sites are very good. To be honest, I think the msnbc site trumps every other news site out there, but I don’t think it’s minimalist at all. They have extra gradients, extra gloss, extra ‘lickable’ icons. None of it is bad — overall, I think the execution is excellent. But they could’ve gotten 95% of that excellence with simpler interface elements.

Your thoughts?

You don’t see this aesthetic in its pure form outside of blogs, I guess because its aim is to remove any sense of character from the product (I don’t mean that pejoratively, by the way!), and only a designer would want to do that.

But is the NY Times really an example of minimalist design? There’s a lot going on on that front page! It’s more a case of organising a lot of content really well rather than applying a minimalist ethos. Isn’t it just Swiss – style with serifs?

Take Vinh’s Yahoo mock-up. It looks great, but Google has already won this battle by being minimalist: no grids or fancy typography, just a big search box slap bang in the middle of the page that screams ‘we do search’. Everything spins off from that.