I was intrigued to see the tweet yesterday announcing a new Design Observer. The venue is widely recognized as an authoritative platform for graphic design critique, but the design of the site itself always felt a bit out of touch with the modern web. This wasn’t helped by the notion — is it just mine? — that its founders represent in some ways the “establishment class” of the design field. Whether or not that judgment is valid, the founders have a long, proven record of good work. And much of their Design Observer writing was good, too. Which is why, stylistic preferences aside, I could overlook the conservative typography of Arial, Verdana, and PNGed Gotham squeezed with inconsistent spacing into narrow columns. (Heck, my own site lived on steady diet of Verdana and Georgia for seven years.) You could read the text. It worked.
