Above is a screenshot from CSS Beauty. I visit this site often for news and inspiration. It has great industry related information and ideas wrapped in a clean sharp design but built into a surprisingly unorthodox layout. Here’s the same screenshot, with the relevant content highlighted.

That is only about 10% of the visible page; the other 90% is navigation, advertisements and branding. The small allotment of space for the page content would still work and have not made me think, if it was placed using expected conventions: at the upper left or centered within the white content field.

This design appears thought through, so I expect there was a rational behind this layout choice, I just have yet to discern it. I am just glad to finally recognize it, for the longest time, I would click a link on CSS Beauty and have to wonder whether it bothered to load the page, because I didn’t know to look below the ads to find the new fresh content.