Edits Quarterly
Ian Coyle starts Chapter 2 this way:
“The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and
the more genuine may be one’s appreciation of fundamental things like
home, and love, and understanding companionship.”– A. Earhart
The quote on it’s own is stirring but coupling that with the realization that Earhart presumably died while pursuing a life of rich experience and adventure, gives the quote that much more weight on the page. It is the pursuit of these kind of adventures that Ian is sharing with us with his new website/publication/public journal he calls Edits Quarterly.
Each entry documents an experience, person or place that has shaped Ian Coyle in some way. The photography is striking and the short stories explaining each vignette are immersive. Ian doesn’t go into great detail, instead, he paints with both with words and images in broad strokes and we are left to fill in rest of the details. Saying the imagery he provides is an adequate starting point does not do justice to the moody, beautifully composed pictures and video.
While it is undoubtedly the content itself that carries the bulk of the storytelling load, it is assisted in no small part by the design and pacing of the site. In my mind, the user interface the visitor is presented with is the future of storytelling on the web. Unencumbered by clumsy user interfaces or menus, the arrow key are simply used to glide from one “spread” to the next. An experience that shares more in common with flipping through a well crafted magazine than reading online. The subject matter was presented in such a way as to feel as if it were right in front of you—like you could just reach up and pluck any of the pictures right off the screen. This experience seemingly gives the content more weight both emotionally as well as physically.
Edits Quarterly is not best experienced through my secondhand account so I will keep analysis of my experience with it short. However, I can’t understate how affected I was while first interacting with it both because the content presented was simple and truthful, but also because I realized that this interaction I was having was my first glimpse at the future of mature storytelling on the web.