Totally Tubular Design Kicks Some Major Shell

I don’t know who the Krang was behind this operation, but Paul Brockwell likes this re-design. He thinks the use of more dominant visuals gives the site a nice feel while accomplishing the identified goal of relying more heavily on video.

Incorporating pull quotes and headlines into the visuals does a nice job of cleaning up what had been part of the problem of news expanding beyond the eyesight down the page. The incorporated headlines save space and also evoke, with the white Arial on black bkgrd, the idea that someone’s watching a video presentation/clip from the network. In our highly visual online culture, the site no longer suffers from a laundry list of links and one moderately-sized visual.

D’arps mentioned some interesting points on (cringe) infotainment. For me personally, though, CNN the Newer seems like it’s presenting similar information but just in a better way. In responding to the question re HuffPost, CNN’s Nick Wrenn said the redesign shows how important entertainment was to CNN already, not how much they intended to mimic HuffPost's success. I think their decision not to focus too much on the use of social networking beyond existing agreements substantiates this claim, and anyone who’s surfed HuffPost lately (a guilty pleasure of mine... just like Grey’s Anatomy..) will know that Arianna has social media coming out the ying-yang.

To me, Wrenn’s response underscores the reality that CNN has covered entertainment/infotainment/crap for awhile now. Today’s re-design is just a better window dressing. For that I congratulate them, and will continue to visit when I want to learn about a man breaking into a house and cooking while naked, or for the latest updates on Jon and Kate as they Separate, or even celebs gone wild.

What will be interesting to watch is how new emphasis on the user might validate some of CNN’s more bizarre news stories from before of it it will reveal an informed, engaged and disgusted proletariat seeking substantive news coverage.

Paul Brockwell awaits those results with... anticipation (and a bit of sarcasm is seriously wondering whether people at large want a higher level of discourse).

P.S. - I’m glad this redesign occurred after Jeff had us mock up one of the divs for the assignment.

P.P.S. - It’s interesting to note that the UK, generator of this article on the new design, also heavily censored the TMNT when airing the animated series - first by renaming them the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and replacing images and removing phrases like “Let’s kick some shell” and “Bummer” from the shows. They also didn’t like nunchuks...