finch / Severity: Warning
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Art directed design blogs have become *the trend* talked about all around the web community blogosphere. It is pitched as the latest and greatest thing that you need to be aware of. In short, it's what all the cool kids are doing. A recent article brings this up as a revolutionary and future trend in the blogging world. I don't completely agree with this article or the praises of this trend.
The future of blogs are not over-photoshopped articles. It's better content.
It seems the reason this trend is being heralded as the second coming is for much of the reason pointed out in the article: "I noticed such unique post designs get a lot more attention than usual ones even if actual post idea isn’t so original!" So as admitted here in this article, designtainment is amuck online and most of the common content is a slight variation of something that ran the previous week. However, with some art direction -- a.k.a. adding some big type, pretty pictures, and colors --- they can squeak out more views with sub par content.
I liked Jason Santa Maria's take on art direction for websites when it came out a few years ago. Let me clarify by saying that I do admire the approach when it fits good content. At this point though, I've seen a half-dozen posts talking about the power of sketching, and they look like... (gasp) sketches! Some of the articles out there applying this trend have reason to do it, and they do a nice job with creating a sort of segmented experience. The problem is that so many designers will fall into this trend trap, that the value of a few blogs actually crafting well thought out art directed posts will soon become just one of many.
In fact, it has become a reality. You know a trend has truly taken off when there are several galleries dedicated to tracking it. Heart Directed and Unique Article Designs are two of them. Some of the entries listed in these galleries don't seem to all fit the same category of a blog with multiple unique posts. In addition they are not all at the same level of design or quality content. Which leads me to a few points.
Creating these types of blogs are difficult to sustain. Writing a well thought out and researched article for a blog takes a lot. Add in art direction and it is a huge time investment. There are some designers and web design blogs that I'm sure have the time and ambition to write a quality article, design it, and code it. Can it be done week in and week out though? I have only seen a few come even close to doing this on a regular basis. I think it's a pick two sort of scenario. The choices are: great content, great art direction, or regular schedule. If you try to hit all three, one of those will begin to fall short.
The next thing to consider is the trade-off of legibility. They are definitely fun to look at and experience, but when it comes to a longer, full length article, they become cumbersome to read. Using strong metaphors in design has grown with this trend. As mentioned before, if the article is about sketching, using obvious special effects related to that become abundant in the article. The logo might look unfinished like it had been drawn and scanned from a notebook and the background of the post is styled so it looks like it had been written on a piece of crumpled paper. Reading a shorter post like this might be ok, but anything more than that becomes distracting and gets in the way of legibility.
In addition some of it seems to be design for design's sake. Or worse, content for content's sake. Consider some of the articles talking about something completely unrelated to the blogs main focus, where it appears to have been written because they found some cool image. Others chop the content into blocks placing them almost randomly on the page. Boring? No. Hard to read? Yes.
The expectations will continue to rise as art direction becomes common. Bringing in video and more interactivity will be expected as blogs and larger publications try to out shine each other to market themselves for devices like the iPad. A trend can't cover up something that is lacking or missing. Even if it can, it won't last for long. The most important part of the equation on the blog without art direction, is the same with one that has the slick art direction. It's all about the content, content, content.
The danger of blindly following trends like these is in the promise of being led straight to the land of success. In the end it really doesn't help anyone except making the trend itself stronger. The future of blogging should be aimed at better content that delivers thought-provoking stories and reliable information.
Scrivs here, I just wanted to give my perspective on offering unique designs for your blog entries. While I don't go as far as to have art-directed articles on this site, the majority of my articles do have a unique feel about them. Each article has the whole page to work with and it does wonders for the content. I fully believe that this site wouldn't be where it is today if people weren't attracted to the look of the articles and this is only possible because each one is allowed to form however it wants to.
This also causes me to make sure that each article is good. I mean really good. You ever walked into a friend's house that was extraordinarily clean and you didn't want to mess with a thing? That's how I feel when I write articles here. I know that I have the ability to move the content around any way I want it so I need it to be good in the first place. Unique layouts shouldn't be a gimmick, but a better means to present your fabulous content.
It's great to have some flexibility. When you visit a blog that offers the same layout for each article they can begin to run together. Some articles work well with full screen images, while others need pull quotes. It's hard to achieve that when you have the same skinny column for each and every entry. While I wouldn't go as far as making each article an art production, being able to expand the constraints placed upon your content can go a long way in how people view your site.
adamreece wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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Scrivs hit it on the head with his last paragraph. Pushing more "art directed" articles is going to leave us with really long articles that are full of garbage. We're going to have designers trying to extend the length of their articles so they can fit more pretty pictures in and make themselves feel cool because they can add images that relate to the content.
I would MUCH rather have designers focus on quality posts that are 10-12 paragraphs of quality content vs 18-20. I find a lot of articles now a days only having 2-3 quality paragraphs out of the 20 that are in there.
I think the articles written on 52 weeks of UX (http://52weeksofux.com/) are perfect in length and the quality is always there. Same with the articles on drawar. Sure it may not be the prettiest, but I find myself reading the entire article and actually feeling like that was worth my time when I finish.
With everything, it's all about balance.
darice wrote this Severity: Warning
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Most wonderful designed weblogs lack good or a steady stream of content. A lot of designer invest countless of hours in a weblog design, post an entry about the design process and they won't invest in content further on. They should make posters from the design instead of websites if it is only to be looked at but not used.
There are designers with dormant weblogs who keep getting asked when they'll come with a new design for their weblog. Makes it feel like the weblog is only as good as its design is and content is just a filler for it.
In my opinion, I really appreciate a great design on a weblog but if they don't have steady content, may it be once a month or weekly I will lose interest and forget about the weblog. Design alone won't keep me visiting it regularly.
finch wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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@Tim Smith I agree that a good balance is what we need here. You don't want everything to run together as one long list. I think as the web and content delivery evolve things will get better. The way this "future trend" is pushed on the web community though it seems just the complete opposite end of the spectrum of where we are. They look at the surface (not understanding it) and say just decorate the hell out a page or grab a bunch of nice images and write something, anything, around it.
@Adam Reece I really like the way 52 Weeks of UX has designed the blog and the posts. And of course, the content is great.
Melody wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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That is why...I am here haha..
The reason why I started my site-- SexiDesign.com was to begin a round of community discussion that's based on actual research. Delving into why sex sells and the subconscious element of it is not something that I can do by browsing the latest design/marketing blogs...it takes like, actual reading..that I've done over quite some time and exploration via real world experiences.
haha..anyways.. Sometimes taking risks, not being the norm of what's expected in the design community is what the design community needs. Regular "so-so" designers blow up with such an air of so called "expertise" that is nauseating...
What even is a trend?! But a mere gathering of people under the same opinion of what's "hot."
thedude wrote this Severity: Warning
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Personally, I am thinking it is going to be impossible to create good content, present it differently each time and also do it regularly. If it's not so regular, maybe the different designs thing is fine, or perhaps you can get someone to write your content for you.
Anyway, does a blog cease to remain a blog once the frequency of articles becomes too long?
lewis wrote this Severity: Warning
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This is a good follow on from the previous article.
Good design complements the content, it does not detract from it, everyone reading/discussing drawar must agree on that by now.
Some people do this so well, I can see them being lost in a sea of online art installations.
eameirelles wrote this Severity: Warning
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Ok. That's -exactly- what i thought about the issue.
Art direction? Very cool. But how to maintain good quality in everything?
I mean: balance, white space, economy, contrast and direction for the content and presentation every week???
I, like the author, find it dificult to have it all.
Especially if you have a life afterwards.
JadTheInformer wrote this Severity: Warning
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Hey Scrivs and Francisco, I just wanted to say first of all that I appreciate you writing this article and stating your view about your thoughts on art direction. I knew this article was bound to happen, and especially here in Drawar, where it seems like Scrivs will write about the latest "trend" happening in the web design community. By the way, an article similar to this article was also written here.
While I agree with the gist of this article, I can't completely agree with everything that's said, and that's totally fine because you are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to my opinion. Also, an article like this would be a lot more useful if you didn't just whine about this type of blogging without offering some solutions, alternatives, etc.
I see what you are saying, that some designers might get burned out, etc. but personally for me, when creating these types of posts, I actually really enjoy the process of it. I run a blog called Design Informer and over the last two months, I've been doing more of the art directed posts and it has really been a experience for me. It's actually an excellent way for me to experiment with different design styles, coding methods, etc. Also, I don't think it's hard to do at all, as I've set up my site to easily be customizable with my last redesign. Oh, and let me just say that I don't always do complete art directed posts, but with my regular posts, I do tend to inject a bit of design and craft into every post. Have a look at a regular post on my blog. We've all heard that content should precede design, and I think that is evident with most art directed posts.
By the way, thanks for mentioning my gallery, Heart Directed. By the way, I didn't start this gallery because it's becoming a trend, but just a way to showcase the blogs that I've seen doing this type of blogging. By the way, how do we know that it's a trend? As far as I'm concerned, there's about maybe 50-100 of these types of blogs that I know of, compared to the almost infinite number of regular design blogs, and more and more are added every day. I hardly see it as a trend. Actually, Tim brings up an excellent point that maybe this is the right way of doing things? Blogs who just quickly spit out posts are more of a trend than art directed posts.
Concerning the articles being a pain and hard to read, I would beg to differ. A lot of people have actually given me compliments of how much they enjoy reading my art directed posts. It doesn't have to be long for it to be art directed. Jason Santa Maria does a great job of this, and so does David DeSandro and Yaron Schoen.
"The future of blogging should be aimed at better content that delivers thought-provoking stories and reliable information."
I do agree with that statement, but I would like to add that the future of blogging should be better content with better design. Alright, time to stop now, this has gotten too long, but thanks for reading my view regarding art directed posts.
Scrivs wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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As I said before they can be done right. Jad, this article on your site is a great example. Each section reads like its own page in a magazine so it's comfortable go through. The problem with art directed articles is when there is more art than direction. If you can achieve that balance and add great content then by all means go for it.
JadTheInformer wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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Thanks Scrivs. Sorry for the super-duper long comment. I should have just wrote a blog post instead of filling up your comment section. :D
Scrivs wrote this Severity: Warning
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No it's good that you did because this convo needs a differing opinion and it makes Francisco feel appreciated.
WiBu wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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Art direction on articles/blog posts just feels like an extra layer of unnecessary complexity.
finch wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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@Jad Thanks for the good comment and alternative view. I think you may have missed some of what I was saying. I am not totally against AD posts. The issue for me is how trends like these focus on something that we don't need more of: eye candy. We have plenty of design galleries to go around. We have tutorials on how to achieve any, and every effect found in these galleries. We are lacking good content in the industry, and pushing this trend is the latest celebration of all gloss and no substance.
I've seen the same article about sketching a few dozen times before some one discovered the art direction trend and decided to write the same article and applying a heavy drawing metaphor to it. So many of these articles lend themselves to picking subjects based on what will be easy to represent with images and big type.
As I said in my post here, I admire, and appreciate the AD posts that have a great balance. And I have found that there are some great one's out there. But we always need to measure how far we follow trends. And as for whining without a solution, I offered a big one. Focus on the thought provoking and reliable content first, then the design.
NathanBowers wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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Hey, it's your blog, do what you want.
Just remember these points:
1) Your most loyal readers, the ones who really want to engage, will likely read you through RSS, or Instapaper, or on a mobile browser, so most of the "art" will stripped away.
2) Writing comes first. Run your article through the Readability bookmarklet and see if it's better without your art direction (or if the art direction is just fluff).
3) Can you sustain the effort of writing, and art, AND promoting, AND building community, AND your day job?
adhipg wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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I believe that this post by Jason Santa Maria (who has been talked about a lot above) covers this exact thing in a very few words: http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/on-good/
stormink wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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I completely agree that writers have to be aware of not sacrificing the quality of content for the design. The two go hand in hand. But think one area that has really been over emphasized online is legibility.
Sure, if you are writing a tutorial article, or a purely informative article, it should probably be as easy to read as possible. But other than that, I don't think users need to be hand fed their text. If you are writing for other designers, you can make them work a little, and they should be able to piece things together more easily than your average reader.
Since the screen is typically harder to read, it seems like there is a tendency to always strive for absolute legibility. If you have no reason for sacrificing legibility, than this is definitely a good idea. But if there are good reasons, I don't think it's too much to assume that people can handle a little work.
Thank you so much for this article Finch. It has caused me to think a lot about this stuff... expect a couple of response articles from me in the (somewhat-)near future.
etgilbert wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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This comment thread is one of the many reasons I come to Drawar for insight and inspiration! Thank you.
It seems several of you have hit the nail on the head (including our author) that AD and blogging can co-exist, but be wary of getting carried away with the pretty, so to speak. Most of us (I hope) read blogs to learn, to be inspired and/or to grow. The content has to be of substance. No amount of graphic brilliance will cover up lacking content.
"The most important part of the equation on the blog without art direction, is the same with one that has the slick art direction. It’s all about the content, content, content."
As someone brand spanking new to blogging, I am in awe of good content bloggers who can also create a beautiful, enticing, complementary design aesthetic. Hell, I'm just in awe of good content, which this article is. So, thank you!
amberweinberg wrote this Severity: Warning
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I always have to wonder, if designers have the time to write a blog post and spend 10-12 hours designing and coding something like The Smashing Mag's Death of a Blog Post...do they actually do any work? Personally, I find it difficult for me to spend the time I really want to everyday on writing each of my blog posts. If I made each design unqiue, I'd never get any really work done. Plus, I feel the articles would get crappier, as I'd most likely end up spending most of my time playing with the layout (ie if you read SM's article it really sucked IMO but the layout was cool)
I really prefer to see blogs like this, that have good typography, but little in the visuals or "prettiness" of the layout. It makes it so much easier to read, which means this and IA's blog posts are the only ones I actually read through, and not just skim. Plus it's so easy to read on the iPhone. :)
TK wrote this Severity: Warning
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A blog is a a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies.
I would have to say I disagree with the points put forward. As Jad mentions it, may be this is the right way and the regular content publishing is a trend started off in 2004. Like a great design cannot save a crappy magazine, similarly a crappy design acts as a hurdle even for great articles. Of course there are exception to both these statements, but we can bother to concern ourselves with only the generic ones. As mentioned, the number of such blogs are very few compared to regular blogs. It is definitely not meant for blogs which publish post regularly, but more for the ones which generate content from their heart. I am yet to come across a blogazine with poor content. Remember it is all part of the experience. Your content is just one aspect of it and need not be the be end of it. Also important to understand is the motive of the blog. I blog to teach and learn and vent out thoughts. On a generic blog design all I learn is from the research of my articles. In a blogazine, I get to understand design as well as the topic I am writing on. Call it a healthy practice if you may. No matter what you believe, it is never about just CONTENT, CONTENT and CONTENT. If that was the case, the very existence of DESIGN would not have been. @Nathan Bowers: Not really. I subscribe to Jason and Dustin's blog to know about when the new posts have been released. The design is as important as the content for me. Nobody says, you need to publish posts daily or long ones. It is all about your objectives from the blog. @Amber Weinberg: True. You cannot design unique posts and work too. For me it is about expanding my experience with graphic design and blogging at the same time.
@jad and @Evan: You spoke my heart out guys. Thanks for saving my time.
TuhinKumar wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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Oops looks like I posted my comment with some other user account. Never mind, the idea is getting the thought out there.
finch wrote this Severity: Warning
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@Tuhin (TK) Same as what I said to Jad:"I am not totally against AD posts. The issue for me is how trends like these focus on something that we don't need more of: eye candy."
"No matter what you believe, it is never about just CONTENT, CONTENT and CONTENT." -- I'm sorry but this is plain wrong. In this case (blogs), without content there is no reason for design, it becomes pure art. Design is a visual communication. It has to begin with a message (content) and then translate that into photography, colors, to either support copy or be a literal or subtle visual message. Without that core communication it's design for design's sake. At that point you are learning design the wrong way, by copying the end result. The underlying thoughts are part of what makes certain designs effective and great. Great design tells a story and it starts there.
Like I said, if you can sustain it, more power to you. But you cannot deny the lack of good content vs eye candy in the community. Thanks for your comment.
TuhinKumar wrote this Severity: Warning
Message: strtotime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Los_Angeles' for 'PDT/-7.0/DST' instead
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@Finch Eye Candy and Art Direction are two different things in my humble opinion. Of course if we are designing just for the sake of it, it is ART and no longer design. However, if the same can be used to give more power to content, I am all for it. I think our thoughts circumvent around the delicate balance that these AD posts need. Less and it is plain content and more and it is artsy fartsy. Also once again, the purpose of a blog is at least for me just content, if it was why bother about themes and designing your blog, you might as well use the default Kubrick theme. But since I do not see that happening, I believe we can safely presume than it is more than just CONTENT. But yes, catching it as a trend and simply following it because the cool kids are doing it is stupidity and there I am in tandem with you.
FabianeLima wrote this Severity: Warning
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I have a blogazine/art directed blog [http://blog.fabianelima.com], probably the first and the only one written in Portuguese. And I absolutely agree with every single word of this article.
When I turned my blog into a blogazine, I was tired of the traditional format of blogs. Before it, I deleted my blog's database [5 years of archives] and started over again. My focus: content. If I adopted this new trend, it's because of content, to honor my content - as Bringhurst said in "Elements of typographic style".
I knew from the very first start the low frequency of posts could be an unevitable side effect, but I'm very very happy with the result.
About the "trend": is funny to note that only designers and "web people" have blogazines. That's a noticeable thing that can say many things about this format.
Sorry for any mistake I possibly made writing this comment, English is not my first language.
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I know a major issue here is that there is already so much more going on with a site than just the content. Having an art directed article leaves little room for anything else that a site owner might want to put into the eyes of the viewer. For example, Smashing Magazine had a great article, The Death of the Blog Post, that was wonderfully art directed in my opinion. Although it did confuse some I liked the fact they even gave it a shot. However, the problem is no ads get shown next to the content which can't please the advertisers.
This becomes a pain in the ass for sites that haven't planned for this. Fortunately for me I knew I was going to go in this direction from the start so instead of having to plan my content around other elements of the site, I now have to plan how these other elements will work around my content.
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As you mention you have to be careful with how much art is in these articles vs. content. Some art directed pieces are fun to look at, but not so much fun when you have to read them. I know people get tired of hearing about Jason Santa Maria, but he struck the perfect balance with length of content and art. Although I liked the SM piece linked above I could definitely see how it just ran too long for some people.