Expedition Web design - Ben Saunders' Website, Dieter Rams, and Lewis Pugh

I am inspired by the design of Dieter Rams, famous for his design commandments, two of which are: 'design is thorough down to the last detail' and 'design is as little design as possible'. Which incidently are ingredients for successful expeditions. The second one certainly applies to bicycle expeditions, in terms of minimising weight.

Ben Saunders is a polar explorer who I have been following since I met him very briefly at Explore 2006, the Royal Geographical Society's expedition planning seminar. He was giving a talk about using technology on Expeditions and in particular blogging. In 2006 I don't think anyone had heard of Twitter (for the record).

What impresses me about Ben is his attention to detail and it really comes through in his website. The writing is high quality and focussed and the photography is excellent, in particular the ones by Martin Hartley and Andy Ward; a  good case for having a specialist photographer on an expedition. The first thing you see when you visit the website is a high quality photo of Ben's Frozen face; instantly informing you what the site is about- going to really cold places.

The website design is in a minimal style, with the focus on the photography and the content. It doesn't need gimmicks, the challenges stand out and speak for themselves.

Some design points of note from the North website:

• Technical graphic on the front page communicates attention to detail and is informative and artistic.


• The 'NORTH' font is clean, sans-serif, modern- no messing and technical. It is large and provides contrast against smaller text on the page.

• The colour scheme is a contrast of dark blue and white with plenty of 'whitespace' to let the content breathe. It's not busy the blue colour instills a calmness.


• You are immediately presented with the 'about' section so you know what the point of the site is (on average you have 7 seconds to hold the attention of a visitor).


• Content is focused to only what is necessary - Photo, title, about, blog (capture and captivate the audience with the story).


• The typography clear and well-spaced (e.g. Capitalised main heading, space between the blog title and body text, Kerning on the sub-heading to differentiate, body-text is a serif font for readability).

• The blog post 'excerpt' - shows a teaser thumbnail photo to entice the reader to read the full post and give an idea of what its about.


• The sponsor logos are presented and in keeping with the design- uniform size, shape and positioning.

The website was professionally designed which is advisable if you have the budget for it. Seeing as the internet will probably be around for as long as human's have industrialised society, then it is a worthwhile and long term investment. It is possible to put together a website yourself and there are many resources available on the internet for learning (search for Smashing Magazine on Google). If you would like to know more about web design, then drop me a mail; I made a number of websites to fund my travelling and I am now working on freelance website projects back in the UK.

Ben's commitment comes across strongly from his website which serves as a reminder to me to be self-critical and true to myself in order to achieve the kind of quality that I ideally want to achieve in my own projects.

Polar expeditions are considered the most difficult and risky. Detail in the design and planning are of the utmost importance when the risk is at it's highest and it seems to pull everything else into line.

Ben Saunder's talking at the TED lectures:-

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

I first came across Lewis Pugh when I watched the TED lecture about his North Pole swim. When I first saw it, I thought it was madness and somewhat pointless but since I have experienced (albeit for an incredibly short time) immersion in near freezing cold water (Lake Huvsgul in Mongolia). I have a new found respect for his swimming endeavours which are utterly extraordinary and bordering superhuman.

However, his cold water swimming challenges are probably somewhat difficult feats to communicate because unless you've jumped in freezing cold water you have no idea how frightening it is! I think that his method of communicating the effect of climate change by swimming in the frozen glacial lakes is creative and a way to engage viewers further than just seeing pictures of receding glaciers and newly made alpine lakes. It creates a new perspective. The photography from his swimming was stunning.

Lewis Pugh's TED lecture on his Everest Lake swim:

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf