New NME Website Design
I have to say I’ve been waiting to review this one for a while. The new NME website design has been in the pipeline for a few months now. Before the site was remodeled this week the new look and feel was debuted on their news page about 3 months ago. Such a prolonged roll out is rare to see these days but it has been worth the wait as the new design is a great improvement over the last website.
A bit of background first: NME or (New Musical Express) is a music magazine catering for the 16-30 age group. It has been around since 1952 and been going strong ever since. It is a controversial magazine, dividing music lovers opinions. Some say they seek to generate hype rather than publish balanced opinion while many people enjoy the sensationalism and energy in their journalism.
NME are quite famous for both their scathing and exalting reviews, with rumours of journalists “out to get” or “on the side of” certain bands. With this in mind it is quite refreshing that the NME be the subject of the review for a change. Any bands that want to get on board and add their 2 cents please feel free ;-).
Trebuchet MS
You can never have enough “Trebuchet MS” - or so seems to be the prevailing wisdom at the NME. I have to say I really like it as a font but I’ve never seen quite so much on one page. I should note that I use that font for the yellow panels you see illustrating certain points of information on the page. While the NME have probably gone over the top with the amount of headlines, mainly due to the oversized page length, the effect of the redesign is positive. The headlines are easier to read and the page sections are more clear than before.
Space
Older versions of the NME website featured almost criminal levels of red, yellow and black in the place of white space. This lead to a cluttered look that was very difficult to read. The new homepage makes up for this with sections divided by generous of portions of white space and dotted horizontal lines. This is supplemented by much larger headlines with mouseover underline effect, so you are left in no doubt that you are on a link. While space has been given so generously to nearly all the sections below the header, the main site navigation is too small. A lot of things stand out on this website but the navigation is not one of them.
Ads, Ads, Ads
The screenshot I have uploaded above does not illustrate the major flaw of the NME website. It is over reliant on advertising revenue. Sponsor’s ads appear in 3 major sections and are supplemented by Google Adwords advertisements, secondary sponsors advertisements and dedicated sections for eBay and Kelkoo.
Summary
The new effect of all this commercialism is that the homepage is just too long and no amount of design trickery can compensate for that. In band terminology the NME website has sold out, and the only path to redemption is to ditch the ads and reinvent themselves. But the NME are not a band and the ads do pay the bills. It is without doubt a compromised website but still a great improvement over the old website and a very good job by the web designers who undertook the work.
Posted 15.02.08