Show HN: Boldfaced, a portfolio designed for showing off writing

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4892232

by kylebragger • 14 years ago

22 13 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm working on a new product for writers called Boldfaced. Its goal is to help writers of all kinds show off their best work, by giving them a great-looking portfolio designed for showing off the written word. If you're a writer, I'd love to have you get set up, and to hear your feedback. Longer term, my goal is to facilitate connections between great writers and great gigs.

Signup here: http://www.boldfaced.net/signup

Sample profile: http://simon.boldfaced.net/

Feedback: kyle at elepath dot com

unalone• 14 years ago

I like the name, the typography's decent, and I'm fond of that shade of green. The layout is very, very messy. It feels like a poorly-styled tumblelog, what with the huge emphasis on snippets and the constant centered-ness of everything.

For some reason, the linear display of one quote after another doesn't work for me at all. It feels loose. A portfolio should feel denser, like it's bursting with interesting things everywhere you look. But perhaps that's just the ugliness of the centered-quotes approach.

But seriously, rethink the quotes-only approach. Writing is about so much more than quick snippets. I know plenty of brilliant writers who would be grossly underserviced by this approach – Gene Weingarten and David Foster Wallace are two authors whose styles are drastically different but which are each difficult to "snippet" meaningfully. Your challenge, if you want to make a site like this, is to make a site that respects writing, as deeply and as thoroughly as is possible without sacrificing snappiness and elegance.

That said, you're working on something that would make the Internet a better place -- oh wait! I just realized you're from Elepath! Is this an official Elepath project then? That's neat, and good luck to you and Jakob and the rest of the team.

ianstormtaylor• 14 years ago

I agree with the centered-ness. Either the copy needs to be really well formatted to work with all of the centered text, (and even then what happens on mobile) or you should drop the center (you can keep it in key spots if necessary) because it makes things hard to read.

Bramble• 14 years ago

>But seriously, rethink the quotes-only approach. Writing is about so much more than quick snippets.

I agree. When I read the blurb of the website, I thought "okay, it's a place to show off writing; awesome," and I was actually confused by the just-quotes format. Quotes do not make writing. I was hoping that clicking one of the quotes would bring me to an essay, story, or longer excerpt of writing, but no dice.

Many of the quotes on the sample page beg for context, and my eyes glazed over as I scrolled down the page.

Sure, the page looks neat at first glance, but I'm not really sure what this website is trying to achieve. I like to write poems and short stories and I am an avid reader. I don't really see one-line quotes as a way to show off that kind of work, and I wouldn't buy a novel based off one line. But perhaps I'm missing the point of the website?

kylebragger4• 14 years ago

You're certainly not missing the point; the pull quotes clearly aren't cutting it. :) Going to spend the weekend reworking the way work is presented. Ideally I'd like to offer a few templates for work, such that the user can pick short/medium/long-form, or, perhaps make it based specifically on the category (poem, novel, tagline, etc.)

The intention of the site is to help writers show off work elegantly, though, seems I'm not quite there yet.

Thanks for the feedback!

kylebragger4• 14 years ago

Really appreciate the feedback. You make some great points, and it's clear that what I've got at this stage falls short of truly showing off writing in a way respectful to the writing. The pullquote format is actually left over, so to speak, from the previous iteration of Boldfaced, which was solely for copywriters. Based on feedback, I decided to shift gears and focus on helping any kind of writer show off their work.

And yep, this is an Elepath project. Thanks for kind words. :)

sixQuarks• 14 years ago

I like the idea. Kind of like a dribbble.com for copy writers. I would use the site to look for a copy writer. Good luck!

WadeF• 14 years ago

Agreed. Designers have dribbble and developers have github. doesn't seem like there's a great place for copywriters to share copy snippets and discuss them.

I'd use a site like that to test early copy iterations pretty frequently.

kylebragger4• 14 years ago

Interesting to hear!

betelnut• 14 years ago

There's a site called scripted.com, but I'm not sure if the profiles are public and shared - it seems like a direct hiring clearinghouse.

imcrs• 14 years ago

In my opinion, you should left justify the quotes, make the color of the quotes a dark body color, and then make the clients' names in the lovely shade of green.

When substantial text is centered, it does add emphasis, but it also reduces readability. When the entire page is centered, there's less readability but no gain in emphasis. And it is the same case, more or less, with color; a strong color is strong only in contrast to a more subtle color. The key is not to overload on strong elements (like alignment, text decoration, and odd fonts) while emphasizing which elements really need to stand out.

It does sound like a great idea!

kylebragger4• 14 years ago

Appreciate the feedback!

sashagim• 14 years ago

Sound like a great idea, good luck!

I often read a paragraph or two from a book just to get the feel of it, so if your site would display those, people like me could use it as a sort of discovery engine for book or authors.

In terms of design - take a look at changemakrs.com, they're doing a good job at presenting content (quotes, in their case) in a very appealing way.

juliska• 14 years ago

Sounds like wattpad.com

Show HN: Boldfaced, a portfolio designed for showing off writing

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