Today CNN debuted a new, separate design for articles in its politics section. Not only is it a bad idea, it’s ugly to boot.

CNN.com is trying to be hip news 2.0 since its relaunch earlier in the summer, and up til now it’s been pretty successful. Why does CNN feel the need to wrap politics articles in a black header? I’m surprised they didn’t have reflected text underneath.

The problem here is that this header is not appropriate for this article. I think CNN is trying to be slick and sleek, but it doesn’t make sense to wrap an article about a plane crash in the CNN politics design.

I don’t want to feel like I’m on a different website than CNN. I come to CNN because they generally keep it simple. What I don’t want is CNN to try to separate its politics content from any other content. Sometimes I click on a political article, and sometimes I want to read what random people think about Britney Spears. Either way, I want a consistent design. CNN should drop this experiment.

Unfortunately, I don’t do that in my work. Pot, kettle, etc.