Blockwriter Big in Britain

Khoi

18 years ago

Blockwriter, my concept for a reduced-functionality word processing application that acts just like a manual typewriter, is slowly but surely inching its way to reality. Just two weeks ago, an editor from the Britian’s Guardian newspaper asked me to write about the idea for their Office Hours section, which runs on Mondays. The article ran in today’s edition of the paper with the somewhat over-promising title “Strokes of Genius.”

As is the case with many online newspapers — NYTimes.com being no exception — the digital presentation of this article isn’t as aesthetically pleasing a layout as its offline counterpart (I’ve heard a redesign of the site is on its way).

Below: Written up. My article on the Office Hours section in today’s edition of The Guardian.

Below, I’ve posted a version of the page as it appeared in the paper itself — as a lead article on the front page of the Office Hours section, with a beautiful illustration by Josefine Engstrom. For me, it’s both a small reminder of just how far news design has to go on the Web (as if I needed any reminding), and also of how gorgeous and effective was the Guardian’s recent redesign of its print edition. Unfortunately, American readers who pick up the paper’s international print edition will get a black and white version, and even then, it’s abbreviated without today’s Office Hours section.

One last thing: I’ve been working with a developer on some prototypes for an honest to goodness Blockwriter that behaves more or less in the way I outlined the concept in my original post. Stay tuned…