The Producer

My take on UI design for news and information Web sites is that they have tried too hard to mimic the printed newspaper page. I extended that thought to include all printed pages. I believe that the model should be something akin to a viewing experience that has more in common with TVs and pure computer programs than it does to a digital version of print media.

Maybe I was wrong. I’ve been enjoying an appealing, if unrefined, experience recently at Driver’s Republic. It’s kind of like a glorified PDF. That may be too kind of an assessment. But it has lots of appeal because it is focused on the content. And then I came across MEKAS, a site devoted to documenting the Japanese fashion industry. (Found via @doshdosh on Twitter.)

The top of a page featuring an interview with fashion critic Takeji Hirakawa.

This is an elegant implementation of a magazine-style layout in a Web environment. It is appealing and, largely, user friendly. It’s nicely balanced between text and images. It does without the plethora of competing elements common to most Web sites. They have focus:

Based in the heart of Tokyo, we are able to break through the language and culture barriers that have stymied observers in the past and send the most accurate information on Japan to the rest of the world in real time.

While they claim to have surmounted cultural barriers in telling the ongoing story of Japanese fashion, I’ll argue that they have also overcome some design bugaboos.

Despite solid editorial content, the site is not the work of a mainstream media outlet. It’s apparently a venture backed by an advertising agency:

MEKAS is housed within Diamond Agency — a full-service advertising agency based in Tokyo — and is working closely with Hong Kong-based Taosquare Media Group to expand its international footprint.

The one really glaring shortcoming, to my eye at least, is the call out used to link to photo galleries. Can you spot the link?

This is, admittedly, smaller than it actually appears on the live site.

Once you find them, galleries on the site are really nice. They take place in an overlay mask covering the originating story page.

While a large part of the site’s appeal is visual, I also really appreciated the site’s glossary. It offers a glimpse into the psychology of Japanese fashion.

onna mote – Meaning “attractive to girls,” a recent word that describes styling for women meant to impress female friends rather than possible boyfriends.

The MEKAS site isn’t a panacea. It’s not the key that unlocks a new design language for a needy Internet. I doubt it would work on a giant flat screen in a living room. But it is a nice site that offers some lessons for people trying make their content stand out from the visual junk heap that is today’s norm.