· Not for nothing, is anybody else getting a heavy uwishunu vibe off of this thing? Fun fact: Both sites were NOT, in fact, designed by the same firm: Uwishunu was designed by Red Tettemer, and Philly.com was redesigned by Avenue A/Razorfish, which perhaps proves our longstanding theory that all ad agencies in Philly basically share a single, tired, bleeding brain that still listens to Moby and thinks silkscreened hoodies are really cool. And if you’re asking why Philly.com, who will need to redesign this site about once a year until God kills us all, have retained an outside firm when they really should have hired in-house developers, you probably work here! Hello, co-worker! Mind if I “borrow” this pen?
· Many have noted this already, but that scripty font for all the section headers? In certain countries, such flagrant violations of Good Taste In Typography will get you waterboarded or worse. Razorfish, you are a sham. This is a NEWS ORGANIZATION you’re working for. Must you so blithely exploit their vampiric desire for all things youthful in such a craven and admittedly hilarious way? But seriously: This new design sacrifices the old gravitas for the most hollow intimations of “fun” imaginable. Bad move.
· Finally: You can embed Philly.com videos. Bravo! Welcome to 2004!
· We must, for a moment, ponder the color scheme… OK. It’s been pondered: It’s dumb. Lose it.
· Anything we’re saying here has been said at great length in the comments here. Ouch.
· But for as much of a mess as this is — the blogs are still buried, most of them rightfully so, and the front page nav doesn’t give you that much that wasn’t there before — it shows that at least they’re trying. However, wishing (and throwing what we are guessing are unspeakable dollars to Razorfish) won’t make it so. Our advice to Philly.com is this: Wean yourself from the teat of outside agencies. Hire your own tech and design. Because you’re going to need them for all of time. We don’t wanna sound like harpies, but this thing is a mess, and you deserve better. And if you want something done right, you’re going to have to do it yourself.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 4:11 pm.