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The “Blogazine” – Cultural Vulgarization or Simple ‘Ritual’

“Blogazine”. Some people cringe  upon hearing those multi-syllabled words juxtaposed together as though it were a design faux pas while others are in awe of its innovative implications. The field of web design at the moment seems to be dichotomously divided. On the one hand, certain quarters of the design fraternity have rather boldly proclaimed the death of the old-school blog post and herald the rise of magazine styled aesthetics in place of traditional blog entries; a developing trend in modern design practice which tailors uniquely designed templates for individual blog posts (hence the name “Blogazine”). 

At the other end of the spectrum, web usability evangelists have cast a doubtful eye on designers who ‘over-design’ to the extent of obfuscating online readability and user accessibility. Furthermore, the sceptical amongst us have envisaged the gradual transformation of the blogosphere in to an exclusively narcissistic domain for designers to showcase their artistic talents for self-promotion.  It thus follows that blogging has lost its inherent ‘cultural’ character; the whole idea of presenting a readable collection of rich opinionated content to a general readership.

This article does not subscribe to or reject any of the above viewpoints, but rather it attempts to explain through philosophical reasoning why the blogazine has become a popular designer’s device over the past year.

Blogging as ‘Ritual’

For those who are well-versed with the semantics of anthropology or social science, you would be familiar with the term “Ritual”.  For those who aren’t, don’t worry, I have a handy definition. “Ritual” in its most basic form refers to any practice that is conducted repeatedly in a particular space over an extended period of time. Brushing your teeth in the morning is one fairly obvious example of a ritual activity and so is going for that regular morning jog. Blogging is a ritual activity. Think about it. Blogging takes place periodically at a particular physical and virtual space; a task which is carried out methodically and one that is usually scheduled for a particular time in the day. But what does ‘ritual’ have anything to do with blogazines or design for that matter?  Patience my friend is a virtue. Read on. 

Rituals Necessitate ‘Change’

It has already been established that ‘rituals’ are regular and fairly consistent activities and that blogging is by definition at least, a ritual activity. Over time however, rituals tend to evolve, either by necessity or desire. You change your toothbrush when its bristles are worn out. You jog a different route when a change of scenery is required. The same concept applies to blogging and design.

Blogazines – A New Ritual Everyday

In a blogazine, every post appears to have a unique personality of its own. In many ways, blogazines are detailed aesthetic devices aimed at disrupting the regularities imposed by rituals. It is an attempt to embrace diversity, a total transformation of the usual blogging workflow. Scottish anthropologist, Victor Turner, once wrote that in any ritual, there is a humanistic tendency to “break-free’ from its confined regularities; one desires to move away from any consistent pattern (e.g. posting blog entries on the same page like a standard blog), only to fall in to another patterned configuration (e.g. the pattern of having differently designed blog posts for every entry!). The crux of the matter is, design is about breaking and subsequently re-constructing ritual patterns. The blogazine, like it or not, is another ritual development which will eventually be superseded by an assemblage of other aesthetic principles (maybe Flash-animated blog posts!). 

The Bottom Line of the Blogazine (Oh it rhymes!)

Design will always be about challenging predominant ritual patterns of action, and the blogazine fad epitomises this idea. In a strangely philosophical way, design refers to a sense of perennial ‘restlessness’ to transform what is perceivably stable/consistent to reflect an ideal that we believe to be more ‘current’ in form and function. Blogazines are ritual-breakers.

What are your thoughts?

 

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