FOOD & WINE

This post is focusing on the website for FOOD & WINE magazine.  I recently redesigned this website but i definitely took some inspiration from the original as well as other sites like this one.

The navigation on this site is pretty well done and I think that the selected state, as well as the rollover state work well.  The navigation very easy to follow and I think that the user will usually know where they are in the site because of the simplicity and clarity of the main navigation  bar.  The main navigation bar remains in the same spot as you move throughout the site and compared to the secondary navigation, it seems much more important.  So the hierarchy of information is working pretty well in this site regarding the navigation.

This site does seem to have a pretty deep architecture because there is a lot of information that would fall under the main navigation categories.  There is also subscription and renewal pages as well as shopping pages.  These can be quite in depth and the process of doing these things may take you through many pages of the site.

I think that the hierarchy of typography is very strong in this site and the information organization has been very well executed.  The big contrast in bold vs. regular typefaces as well as the drastic color contrast helps this and I am always aware of what is a heading and what is not.  The more important things definitely stand out more.  Content-wise, the navigation was spot on and when i clicked on restaurants and travel, I was able to find anything i wanted to know about restaurants and travel.

I think that the imagery used in the site is one of its strongest traits.  When talking about food and wine and travel, good photography is always important.  People want to see it before they eat or drink it.  so I think that the photographs are great and that they should make them even more interactive.  A very large image on the home-page would be nice and it could represent a featured article.  Then there could also be a slideshow to cycle through the best images and articles.  One thing that i think could change would be the colors used in the site.  at the moment they are black and orange and I'm getting an Autumn sort of feeling from it.  This could work if it was October, but it doesn't seem to fit right now.  They could possibly change there palette to represent the seasons and the food that come with that new season

The Food & WINE website is a good example of something that started out decent but just couldn't make it to the top.  Their main motivation is to get people to browse their site, like what they see, and subscribe to the magazine, or buy something from the site.