You don’t often see a website with a jagged look like the Columbia Journal of American Studies. The irregular placement of the the page’s top elements really capture and guide visitors’ eyes. The homepage in particular stands out, bringing some great columnar design to the forefront with the use of a solid color scheme.

The seemingly misplaced or unfinished block elements in the header make for an improved design as it serves to guide visitors’ eyes from left to right. The empty top-left corner focuses our attention on the rest of the site’s landing (the first vertical portion of the website). In this case, right away we notice the menu and “Journal Reviews” link. Helping to guide visitors’ eyes is an important aspect of any sort of design.

Adding the structure is the site’s color scheme. The changes in tone on the left are generous enough to catch your attention, but mild enough to not steal it away from the central content of the site. The contrasting colors (including the black and white, orange and slate, and even green and white) show us the relative importance of the content based on how our eyes react to the color combinations. For instance, going from black to white really captures our eyes, thus we focus on the section directly after the change.

My personal favorite has to be the left hand column, which houses the navigation, secondary navigation, and site search. It’s invasive enough to be noticed, yet subtle enough to loom in the shadows until you need to visit another page. With the left column overlapping the rest of the design, it gives the site a layered effect, further shaping visitors’ eye movements to focus on specific parts of the site. In this case, as the left column effectively bumps the rest of the site to the right almost 200 pixels, our attention if focused on the remainder of the site rather than the left pane.

CJAS’s unmatched use of otherwise invisible techniques makes this website a winner.