Up North ~ Life in Minnesota

If you look closely at CNN.com you’ll find a link to their new beta website. Now I’m not sure what it is, perhaps it’s the lifeless gray background, or the individual boxes for each chunk of content, but I’m not a fan. With the completely disconnected horizontal bar at the top, it almost seems like two different competing pages.

While the content blocks offer clear visual divisions, and an overall “cleaner” look, the beta offers a lot less content (in terms of headlines). While I’m glad to see that CNN continues to refine its style, I’m not sure they’ve ever managed to concoct anything completely pleasing. With every redesign they manage to fixate on stuff that, to my eyes, already seems dated and bland. I’m usually one of the first to say “it’s the content, stupid,” but I have to admit that I find myself wishing they’d come up with something a little prettier.