Each day at my desk job, I like to take a 30-minute break around noon to eat my lunch (#desklunch) and read my favorite online publications. A Cup of Jo is usually one of the first sites I navigate to. This smart and sweet daily women’s lifestyle blog wins my heart every time with its combination of lighthearted illustrations, articles about dating and family, and bold fashion and home décor posts. A Cup of Jo’s great design is a big part of what initially drew me to this publication, and the site’s clean lines and beautiful typography make it a pleasure to navigate.
A Cup of Jo’s design artfully uses spacing and color to make the site readable. Lines of text are helpfully separated to ease the reader’s eye, and the plentiful white space on each page allows the reader to focus on the article. Here is a good place to mention that A Cup of Jo publishes absolutely beautiful photography with almost all of its articles; the cream-colored background allows these big, gorgeous photos to shine. Each of the site’s pages also has some subtle colorblocking – off-white is used for the main background so it doesn’t seem too sterile, while sections on the right-hand side of the page leading to “About,” “Most Popular Posts,” and more have a true white background. Finally, navigational elements like lines and arrows in red — like the Read More buttons after each post’s summary — point the reader where they want to go. None of this is overwhelming, and the overall effect is clean and coherent. The site is easy to navigate and the suggested posts on the sidebar make it easy to go down a rabbit hole of reading related posts — undoubtedly what the designers had in mind!
When it comes to font, A Cup of Jo uses a nice balance of serif and sans serif fonts. As you can see in the image above, the blog’s title, as well as individual article titles, is set in a bold and beautiful serif font. This choice immediately evokes the feeling of an older, legacy publication – lending authoritative seriousness to the site’s writing while still feeling fresh and new online. Most running text, including the body of individual posts, is set in a simple sans serif font with soft, rounded edges. The sans serif font makes it easier to read articles on a screen and feels nice and welcoming to readers. One nice thing about A Cup of Jo is the beautiful community in the comments section and on social media, and all aspects of the site — including its design — feel welcoming to its devoted readers.
For my final project in this class, I’m planning on making a personal portfolio and using the site to help launch my own business as a copywriter and copyeditor. I’ll definitely take note of A Cup of Jo’s use of white space and judicious accents to make my own site easy for readers to parse. I also am going to use the site’s font choices as inspiration. I love that the serif font used on A Cup of Jo is reminiscent of serious and literary publications, and that’s definitely the effect I’ll want to get across on my own website. Beautiful design doesn’t have to be complicated, and I’ll be carrying that lesson forward in my online work in the future.
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