thegatesnotes.com - A few comments about typography

I recently visited thegatesnotes.com. This is a brand new site developed for Bill Gates. In his opening message he explains that since people are often asking him what he's working on, he thought it would be interesting to share his thoughts and ideas in the hopes that it gets more people thinking and talking about what he thinks is interesting and important. The pomposity of that statement aside, I immediately noticed a few things that were different than most websites I visit.

The first thing that struck me was an abundance of white space or, for this exercise, an absence of typeography. There was nothing that grabbed my attention or invited me in. The home page has no perceivable personality. It contains a left side nav bar with small type that is easily overlooked initially. The home page contains headline links to several opinion articles presumably penned by Gate as well as an overview of topics he's been talking to experts about. There is a summary of the linked topic under each headline. The headline font is much too light in color and structure and gives no immediate impression that the text is a link at all. The synopsis font is is way too small almost to the point of illegible. And, its a serif font making it even more difficult to read.

Further exploration of the site reveals the same use of color and fonts throughout. Since the purpose of this site is to disseminate information and requires a lot of reading, the choice of font should have been a critical element of the design. Instead, it looks like it wasn't given any consideration at all.

In his defense, I don't know what kind of input or influence Mr. Gates had on the final look of his site. But he would certainly have an opinion on the finished product if he indeed makes his own entries as he claims. So, one can only surmise that Mr. Gates doesn't understand the benefit of design and typography as tools to create an interest in the content of his site. Perhaps, like his corporate attitude that putting the name Microsoft on a product should be enough to ensure success, he feels simply attaching his name to his website should be enough to make it interesting.