Lisa Strausfeld and Luke Hayman Redesign Craigslist for ‘Wired’

The famously rudimentary design of craigslist hardly seems to deter users, but Wired asked a pool of designers to give the megasite a makeover for its September issue. The exercise accompanies a cover story about Craig Newmark, the elusive founder and visionary behind the site. For their take on the piece, Lisa Strausfeld and Luke Hayman, working with Takaaki Okada, “decided to do something about the cult of Craig,” says Strausfeld. In the article by Marc Wolf, Newmark is a reticent personality who believes in sharing information; a proponent of grassroots democracy who runs one of the world’s most popular sites exactly as he wants to. Newmark calls himself the “Forrest Gump of the Internet,” and the team responded to this pervasive, peculiar self-effacement by highlighting categories and dates on the site’s homepage to create a ghosted image of Newmark himself. The redesign brings the site back to its origins, as literally Craig’s list.

Visit a live version of the design here.