I don't have an example near at hand, but I love their photo essay layouts as well.

I used to dig Grantland's simpler layout, but I understand why they switched to this one, as it allows stories to linger on the front page longer. However, this means that I have incentive to check the site less frequently since I know I won't miss a story if I check every other day or so.

Big, big fan of Polygon and Verge. Their magazine-style layouts really shine in their longform articles, but I tend not to read those at work since I browse in a window like a quarter of my screen.

Keep an eye out for Vox.com. I'm a news junkie and a huge mark for Ezra Klein (former lead policy writer for Washington Post's Wonkblog). The concept for the site is intriguing (providing well rounded news coverage, not just the breaking updates), and it's from the same folks that run Polygon and Verge.

The Upshot launch is going to be another interesting site to watch, as its focus sounds similar to Vox, but more data driven (sort of a cross between Vox and FiveThirtyEight.com). Without Nate Silver though, I have less interest in this one but it's got a huge brand behind it (NY Times) so I still expect good things.

And with the recent launch of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight it seems like we may be entering an era of these "super" sites that are like blowback from the trend of blogspammy sites like Huffington Post, Gawker and Buzzfeed. Instead of trying to write as many rehashed clickbait headlines as possible, these established journalists are compiling superteams of quality writers with a bigger focus on original content and longform articles. Fuck Silver's hire of climate denialist Roger Pielke though. Really bad form and it's souring early impressions of his site.

And Re/Code with Mossberg and Swisher sounds like another one of these super sites, but I haven't been checking it.

I could be wrong, but did Grantland start the trend with Bill Simmons? I'm struggling to think of another website that was able to successfully combine aesthetic design, quality original content and mass market appeal before Grantland did.


Edit: Great topic, btw. Huge fan of efficiency and elegance in website design.