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December 9, 2013 02:32 am GMT

Let It Full-Bleed

02336_leavesatlynncanyonpark_1680x1050On the importance of images and layout in writing. Load up your favorite tech blog. Or almost any blog, really. There’s a good chance it looks like shit. There’s a better chance that the reading experience is even worse. And we put up with it, day in and day out. Why? Because that’s where the content is. Enter Medium 1.0. While there are some questions as to what exactly Medium aims to be, there is no question that it’s already a beautiful product. As a writer, it’s evolving into exactly the tool I want to use when writing. It started with a focus on the fundamentals: words. Now the product is wrapping those words in an obvious trapping that has long been under-appreciated in writing: images. I think back to when I was a kid and would sit for hours mesmerized by a magazine. Was it the writing that had me so engrossed? Sometimes. But sometimes it was the visuals. And more often than not, it was a combination of the two. Somehow that symbiotic relationship was all-but destroyed as content moved onto the web. Sure, there are some newer players out there now that are trying to bring back some elements of this relationship, namely the Vox Media properties (here’s one great example). And yes, all the traditional magazines have been ported (often quite poorly) into apps for iOS and Android. But Medium is the first product I’ve seen that opens up the tango of words and images to all. During my tech blogging days, people used to ask me why I would always use images from films in my posts—even when the content seemingly had little to do with the visual. The answer is pretty simple: those images create an immediate bond with the reader, even if they don’t realize it. I feel the need. The need, for you to read. Maybe I was writing about a fairly obtuse tweak Google was implementing to increase the speed of a product. To some people, that’s interesting. To others, nothing could be less interesting. But to most people, they weren’t sure if they should care, and as such, few read such stories. So that’s where you have to get creative. Hook them with a headline, and keep them with an image they can relate to—say, something from Top Gun vaguely related to what was being talked about in the post:

Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/u0xp5pqUIq4/

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