At first Anachronic appears to be the weblog of your average Joe. The layout does nicely, there are some links, photos, wishlists etc along the side navigation bar and the writing is lined up neatly and inoffensively on a white background. But it’s when you begin to read that you realise you’ll be sticking around a lot longer than you were expecting.
Jon describes himself as a “philosopher, almost.” So considering I stereotype all philosophers as rambling and argumentative, I found his original, to the point and often witty writing refreshing. Through his posts you can often pick up his mood and thoughts at the time. Topics get clumped together, such as several posts in February relating to high school. More recently Jon writes about Asian culture, encompassing asian-american films/movies, stereotypes and family. His sharp perceptions make for fascinating reading.
There is a simple but effective design. I’ve seen the same layout used in other weblogs but the colour choices work well. Going through the archives you can see that Jon changes his layout quite often. My favourite is headed with an image of a leafy suburb. Whilst a frequently changing layout can be a sign that there is more interest in the layout than content, here it just seems to show the author’s interest in his blog. Overall, the current layout is nothing flash or unique, but is carried off well.
To get all philosophical, almost, everyone is fascinating and yet there are so many dull blogs out there. Anachronic is an exception. In the words of Rowan Williams, “We can’t assume that any human face we see has no divine secret to disclose.” As Jon shows us through Anachronic, some people bring this to their weblog better than others.anachronic