Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Slashdot, and so on. They are all great social news and media websites, but how do they rank in terms of how easy they are on the eyes? Here I will rank all the top social news and media websites based solely on their layout. I’d like to rank all of these sites on overall usability as well, but I’m not a dedicated member on all of them and feel it wouldn’t be fair for sites I’m less acquainted with. Well lets get this started, the sites are ranked from ugliest to sexiest.

Fark

Fark.com, created by Drew Curtis in 1999, is a popular social news website receiving over 2,500 submissions a day and over 5 million unique visitors per month. It is also really, really ugly.

It’s almost difficult to find many redeeming qualities about Fark. The logo itself isn’t too bad, it could use an upgrade, though. The website itself has a nice layout, it’s easy and simple to sort through all the different categories and pages.

From the colors to the way the news items are listed, the site was poorly designed. It’s a nice site, but not in terms of looks. The cheap gradient under the tabs feels wrong. I don’t like the lack of icons and graphics. A lot is done using ‘/’s and ‘( )’s in place of icons, graphics, and other means.

Reddit

Reddit, was started by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. It has an extremely loyal userbase, very well-known for their witty comments and posts.  The website itself became an open source project earlier this year, and all of the code and libraries are freely available. It’s also a little ugly.

Reddit has a great logo, and the Reddit Alien is a very recognizable symbol around the internet. However, despite all of this Reddit, in terms of aesthetics, is poorly designed. One thing that really jumps out is the lack of color, the site feels boring.

This lack of color, make the comment page especially, a bit difficult to navigate. It becomes a bit harder to at a glance see how many points a comment has, and viewing comment threads can get a little bit confusing.

Slashdot

Slashdot was started in 1997 by Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, and is owned by SourceForge, Inc. While all the content on the site is user-submitted, editors choose which appears on the site. There is also a Slashdot Japan, which is localized for Japan.

The site is well laid out, and simple to navigate. It’s easy to read, and the site overall looks decent.

However, the site’s banner, especially the font used in the main logo, isn’t all that great. And the entire site has a bulky, feel to it. Some elements of the design just feel weird, like for instance the odd looking red edges on news story title boxes.

Propeller

Propeller (formerly Netscape.com) is operated by AOL-Netscape, and was started in 2006. All content is user-submitted, and stories receive ratings on a scale of 1-10, rather than individual votes.

The site is simple, clear and has a well-made, and recognizable logo. The rest of the site’s colors and theme is very well established.

But, I feel everything is too boxy, and doesn’t flow. The logo is made up of circles and curves, which would make you think that the rest of the site should follow that theme, except that just doesn’t happen. There are no curves to be found.

Tip’d

Tip’d was started in 2008 by some guy named Andy. The Community Director is Muhammad Saleem, who is a well-known for his status on Digg.com, as the #2 digg user of all time with nearly 2000 Front page submissions.

Tip’d is a social news website specifically targeting financial and business news and media. And the entire site feels this way. It feels like finance and business, it feels formal.

However, just because it’s a business and finance site, doesn’t mean it needs to be boring. In the banner especially, i feel like they could have done a better job.

Yahoo! Buzz

Yahoo! Buzz was started in February 2008, believe it or not, by Yahoo. All content is user submitted, however the front page is under editorial control. Meaning that editors at yahoo.com can choose what gets to the front page of buzz.

The website itself looks good, and most of the site feels great, well laid out, and easy to use and navigate.

However, it feels inconsistent. Certain bits of the site don’t look good, some smaller images are pixelly. And some things have borders, some of the borders are different sizes than eachother, and the site feels all around inconsistent.

Design Float

Design Float was started by Andrew Egenes, as a solution to the problems with digg’s design category. Since design is such a broad category, why does Digg only have one category for design?

Design float is very well designed, which one would expect from a website made specifically for designers. The site keeps it consistent, and has an all around theme surrounding water, which goes along with the name.

I wouldn’t go as far to say the site is absolutely beautiful. It is stylish and easy to navigate, but it is actually quite simple, and doesn’t demonstrate a ton of skill. It feels very “safe”.

Digg

Digg, started by Kevin Rose in December 2004, is one of the most prominent social news websites out there. All content is user submitted, and all the content that appears on the front page is chosen by users.

The site is laid out extremely well, and you can tell that lots of work has been put into it over the course of it’s lifetime.

There are, however a few things I don’t like about Digg’s design. The header colors seem a bit dark compared to the rest of the site, and at times it feels too simple. It could use a gradient or two.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon was founded by Garrett Camp, Geoff Smith, Justin LaFrance, and Eric Boyd, and was bought by eBay in 2007. It has a toolbar which allows you to like things, and not like things from the actual page. It is also recommendation engine, based off of what you like and do not like.

StumbleUpon’s layout is absolutely fantastic. Everything from the tabs to the listed items looks great. The few annoyances on the site are few and far between.

Mixx

Mixx was created in 2007 by Recommended Reading, Inc. It’s a social news site similar to Digg. It has been claimed as a sort of refuge for the diggers that were banned in the recent mass bannings over at Digg.com.

Mixx looks great, it was designed extremely well. Everything is where everything should be. The categories at the top are easy to find and use. The content on the front page is sorted and easily distinguished.

The overall design looks good, from the icons to the tabs. The use of gradients is just enough, they don’t overuse them. And the comment pages look just as sexy. The sites logo is great and makes sense to the name.

Mixx is a model website in terms of design.

Pepsi recently released their new logo. It is estimated that they paid about 1 mil+ dollars to Omicom’s Arnell Group to work for 5 months on the logo. Yes, you heard me right, they spent five months and 1 million dollars making a logo that shouldn’t have even taken 5 minutes.

Of course I understand that making a logo takes a little more than just opening Photoshop and whipping something up. Especially for a large company, it needs large amounts of planning, reviews, and revisions, but this is just ridiculous. Although, my opinion may be biased due to me being probably the biggest cokehead you’ll ever have the misfortune of coming into contact with (I also hate PepsiCo, and all of it’s products- including Quaker Oatmeal, Gatorade, and FritoLay- with a burning passion).

That supposed 1 million dollars to just create the logo is just the beginning, as PepsiCo will need to replace all the old logos. Think of all the trucks, vending machines, billboards and whatnot that is still sporting that old, somewhat less boring logo. All of this replacing is supposed to run at several hundred million dollars.

Apparently, the same company is redesigning Sierra Mist, and Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew will be renamed “Mtn Dew”. I get it, they are trying to reach today’s youth by using “txt tlk”! However removing all the vowels from your product’s name can’t be a good idea.

This is why I love Coca-Cola, they’ve never changed their logo, which by the way is the most valuable brand image for the eighth year in a row.

Did I happen to mention how awesome Coca-Cola is? I highly suggest getting some Mexican Coke, it has real sugar instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Welcome to Emit Graphics, the new home of thoughts and visuals melding together to form a blog for all to read. The goal is to take two of Emit’s passions - social media and graphic design - and bring them together for others to see.

Social media is a growing trend on the internet. With sites like Digg, Reddit, Mixx, and StumbleUpon enjoying unprecedented success in sending people to different forms of media (and in the case of StumbleUpon, sending different forms of media to the people). For many of those who are passionate about it, the entire segment of social news can encompass the majority of their time on the Internet.

Graphic design - everyone knows about it. The goal here is to take it and blow people’s minds with the best of the best.

Check it out now. Check back often. Emit Graphics is open for your pleasure.