The Vostok blog

Coming up with a solution for online newspapers is not an easy task and it requires both time and guts. Our advice to Spanish online press is that they have them made a liposuction (as a temporary solution we mean):

Here’s the full picture, with all the fat adhered to the news pieces:

We are big fans of Hans Rosling work. I first mentioned him five years ago (Spanish) when he was leading Gapminder, mixing statistics, data visualization, interaction design and storytelling. Now he’s a public figure doing amazing things just as this one:

Via oscar (an anonymous commentator in our blog) we find an incredible section in MONOmoda,that puts together a great list of design related films. All in all, a great research tool. Although we already knew most of the films’ highlighted (cause many of you directed us to them a few months ago), it’ll be a really helpful post to help us curate our own design cinemathéque. The best way to welcome 2011

This is what’s wrong with flickr and why we made BlackVostok (among other reasons).

This young lady is very much into Vignelli’s map as well:

More info about the dress here.

This is our humble contribution to @DesignObserver‘s week devoted to Massimo Vignelli:

Yes, it’s a beautifully framed first edition of his 1972 NYC Subway Map at the Vostok studio. It has been here since day 1.

Check the video of Mr. Vignelli talking about it, for those who lack a bit of context.

Elcomercio.pe could be doing well for all sorts of reasons, not just the ones we’ve mentioned (one column, non-stop stream of information and extensive use of images), but this graph has given us food for thought. Perhaps we’re on to something here? Our source.

Two things we like from their home:

1. Headlines are turned into photographs making the most out of the visuality of the medium. Kind of like what the iPad feed reader Pulse did and what we did with filmin’s catalogue.
2. The images are followed by a constant stream of news organized by time, with the newest item always at the top. Pretty much like Twitter (or Planetaki for that matter).

Twitter = (kind of like Planetaki) one single stream of information organized in chronological order.  (WIN)

Online newspapers = columns, too much information clustered into categories, no apparent distinction between important and less important info, Ads. (FAIL)

Why would anyone think a mashup of these two would be a good idea? Giving up all the good stuff and taking on all the bad. Well, we have found out through bitelia that paper.li has done it. In a nutshell: paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format.

Sounds like a good idea? You bet! (if you like your twitter feed full of ads that is).

bitelia’s newspaper (hope they don’t mind us using their newspaper as an example).

I just found Modernist, a WordPress theme by Rodrigo Galíndez. Although I think the tags for each post and the social media links could more discrete, overall it’s a very good theme and I would recommend it for anyone looking for something clean in two columns:

BTW, We are about to release a white vostok theme and as you may see (if not using a newsreader) we are tesing it around here.