Well it is time once again for the infamous Site Spotlight.  I am trying to the utmost of my ability to actually stay on top of this and update at least once a month with a new entry.

Jaredigital from Jared Christensen

My entry for this time is once again a complete and udder no brainer.  Jaredigital.com the digital abode of Mr. Jared Christensen is one impressive peice o' cyberspace.

Where to begin with this site... Well I guess lets start at the beginning, what is the first thing that strikes you when you load up this site?

Texture, want to touchy

The first thing that always strikes me when I hit Jared's site is the wonderful use of texture.  You literally want to reach out and touch the screen, to rake your finger tips over the faded, worn paper that somehow has magically appeared on your monitor screen.  The layout is one that I am not too hot for usually.  3 column layouts are busy, over-complicated and poorly executed... usually.  There are only a handful of sites that I can point to that pull off the 3 column, those that leap to mind are Greg Storey the master of 3 column trickery, stopdesign from Douglas Bowman and of course Jared's implementation.

Each of these sites pull off 3 columns in different ways, but I am focusing on Jared for this entry so lets leave these other great sites for now.  Now I won't say that Jared's 3 column is perfect, personally I think a bit more white space in the gutter between each colum would be a welcome addition.  Pushing the right and left column off to the browser edges a bit more would give the center div where your meat is displayed a bit more prominence.

Content is King... King Kong!

Now let's get onto the main event, Content.  If you have read much of my writing, you should know by now that I hold to the philosophy that content is king, if you are running a site that is meant to convey concepts via the written word, your site design should help actualize that; not detract from it or hinder it in anyway.  Sorry I don't want to use this post as a soapbox, so moving on...   Jared's site rides the cusp of this formula.  It is a very precarious perch but I think Jared pulls it off quite nicely.

As for content, I really find Jared's site refreshing, he strikes a good balance of personal chatter with music related information.  Being a lover of music myself I have had a lot of fun testing out Jared's musical selections, occasionaly discovering a place where our spheres of taste cross.

Jared also employs intelligent typograpahy/color decisions.  I find his selection of #fff6db (a pleasent cream colour) for the background, with Lucida Grande (wearing a very comfortable #555) an infinately readable combination that prevents the visual fatigue that some sites seam to create in thier readers.

Parting Words

Jaredigital is a wonderful read, with a great combination of well executed design and very snazzy musical selections for us to sample.  If you have not been by to see Jaredigital now is the time to start, if you are an old fan but have fallen out of the habit of reading by all means start again, today is a good day to read good blogs.

If there were one thing negative I would have to say about this site, it is simply that You Should Be Running WordPress... okay, move along, back to your regularly scheduled nonesense.