It’s sad sight for a web-designer, and probably a pride-swallowing moment for the Editor of Financial Times website FT.com, when they are forced to quickly patch up their website to the standard of the new Guardian website.

The Guardian website, from the point of view of a web designer, is immaculate.  The response from FT.com is rather disappointing.  For one, the influence from the Guardian website is so obvious as to be libelous, and the fact that the rest of the website reverts to the old design betrays its motives.  Further, the design team seems to have opted to imitate the pink-sheet printed version by leaving the background in that odd pink colour, which, in effect, actually makes the page look unfinished.

Although at first glance the makeover seems awkward and unfinished, it still is an improvement over the previous version.  It’s simply a shame they couldn’t be bothered to do the job properly.  There is little more disheartening to a professional web-designer than to see an agency, with plentiful resources, resorting to myopic plagiarism to stay in the game.

Check out guardian.co.uk and ft.com